This is a masterpiece -- the opening horse carriage sequence with the Grosse Fugue is riveting -- the Ninth Symphony premiere is splendid and brings tears to my eyes. Ed Harris and Diane Kruger deserve praise for their performances! Yes, the film is a fantasy, only very loosely connected with historical fact. And yes, feminism did not exist in 1824. The idea of Anna "leading" Ludwig in conducting a concert (although cinematically dramatic) is preposterous. But suspend your disbelief for awhile and let the power of music take over. This is a brave film, dwelling on Beethoven's late work, and deserves a re-examination by all critics.

I feel cheated as well as betrayed after watching "Copying Beethoven" as i had great expectations from this flick especially after watching "AMADEUS",a movie based on Mozart. I was really excited before seeing this movie as for me it was more of a battle between the two great musicians,Mozart and Beethoven. I had thoroughly enjoyed "AMADEUS" as it has been superbly made and the characters of Mozart and Saleri have been executed with sheer brilliance. However,in this flick there is no life to the portrayal of Beethoven and the movie was completely pivoted around his female Copyist which according o me made no sense at all and made the movie boring. Acting wise the movie is good but factually as well as emotionally the movie is completely unreal as i never felt any sympathy for neither Beethoven nor her Copyist. What was the need of creating all the hype about the female copyist when you already have a mind-blowing plot of Beethoven's later life struggle. The only good elements in the movie are the philosophical aspects of Beethoven,his dialogs full of substance and the heavenly music but again if u compare it with the way it has been shown in "AMADEUS", you will feel for yourself that its a no match to the completely power-packed,entertaining,gripping and soulful AMADEUS !!!!

First of all,I am musician and have studied countless hours of form, harmony and structure. This film captures all of that from beginning to end.Of course this is a fictional film filled with many ideas but the 'story' is found behind the music. I think choosing a woman to copy his music is simply a superb move by the creators of this film. I strongly believe Beethoven although deaf had help from an Angel, an Immortal Beloved who reflected his thoughts and his feelings back to him through his music.Ed Harris is exceptional. At times I am sure the old Maestro had taken over Ed Harris's body. Very, very believable and the way he handle the 'musician' side of things was outstanding.As you can see, this film touched me. The message from Beethoven is brought to us after the performance of the ninth (during the film.) The bridge that is destroyed, how many times have we had our dreams destroyed only for us to bounce back more powerfully? How many times have we had our composition destroyed by critics only for us to learn to write from the heart more? The world doesn't need another Beethoven, it needs your music, your pictures, your words, you find it in the silence.This film cannot be watched with only your eyes but felt through your soul. If you love Beethoven music, if you have looked for answers to the questions in his music, this film is for you.

As an historical insight into the life of Beethoven this movie is next to useless. It is completely fictional, a parallel universe to the real Beethoven but not the real one. That aside it's reasonably entertaining if only for the writers imagination for the fantasy of what they imagined Beethoven to be like if he really did have a sexy female assistant with aspirations of being a great composer.The real revelation here is Ed Harris. I had to check 4-5 times to remind myself this was Ed Harris. The makeup and performance is fantastic. He is almost completely unrecognizable as the Ed Harris we are familiar with in all his other movies. I was looking for full face close ups to see how they did it but couldn't really tell.The music is also pretty impressive. The 9th Symphony sounds brilliant.I'm not sure what this movie was meant to be, but its turned out to be a fictional period piece using historical figures, it looks impressive, but why use and soil the name of Beethoven for it?But Ed Harris, whoever he is supposed to be is amazing.