Immortal Beloved (Widescreen) | 
| Director: Bernard Rose
Actors: Bernard Rose, Gary Oldman, Jeroen Krabbe, Isabella Rossellini, Johanna Ter Steege
Studio: Columbia TriStar
Category: DVD
List Price: CDN$ 14.95
Buy New: CDN$ 11.22
You Save: CDN$ 3.73 (25%)
New (16) Used (3) from CDN$ 11.22
Rating:  79 reviews
Sales Rank: 3952
Format: Ntsc, Special Edition, Widescreen
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
DVD Layers: 2
DVD Sides: 1
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.5
MPN: COLD74769D
ISBN: 0767821424
UPC: 043396747692
EAN: 9780767821421
ASIN: B00000K3TN
Theatrical Release Date: January 6, 1995
Release Date: November 29, 2001
Availability: Usually ships within 1 - 2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW items direct from the USA. Please allow 8 to 12 business days for delivery. Customs charges may apply.
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| Editorial Reviews:
From Amazon.com
This thrilling, speculative story about the mystery woman whom Ludwig van Beethoven once identified in a letter as his "immortal beloved" is directed by Bernard Rose (IPaperhouse/I). Gary Oldman plays the deaf genius with tragic brutality in a series of flashbacks that arise during a connect-the-dots investigation by Beethoven's secretary (Jeroen Krabbe), who is looking into the composer's love affairs to ascertain who held the key to his heart. Rose arrives at a moving if imperfect portrait of a complicated artist, and he pays gorgeous tribute to Beethoven's stolen innocence in childhood. (You may never hear the Ninth Symphony again without thinking of Rose's beautiful image of young Ludwig immersed in cosmic rapture.) Produced by Mel Gibson's company, Icon. i--Tom Keogh/i
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| Customer Reviews: Read 74 more reviews...
 Great actor, awful plot. July 14, 2004
Cons (Hong Kong)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Honesetly speaking, I love this film only because I am a great fan of Gary Oldman. His performance is powerful and adorable, and you will be helplessly fallen in love with HIS Beethoven. Yet, back to the movie and the plot...pHm. You have to admit, you just don't know why people would like to romanticise historical figure and make a great artist to be a character in those soap opera. Hm. No offense but this movie, to a certain extent, make things so superficial. The psychological twist of Beethoven's immortal beloved is omitted- everything was then become so awkward, and I can't help wondering whether or not shall I continue the movie~pJust watch the performance of Gary, and forget everything about the plot. Sigh.
 This movie is about something but not Beethoven July 8, 2004
Larry VanDeSande (Mason, Michigan United States)
3 out of 8 found this review helpful
I never thought I would see a topless woman in a film about a classical music composer, but there she was in "Immortal Beloved", with her assets clearly on display while a Beethoven piano concerto sounded over the visual scene. This, I think, sums up my opinion about this film: it is more pornography than art, more about the director's vision than about Beethoven, who did indeed have an "immortal beloved".pIt's not just the porn that defeats this movie. The history portrayed in this film is nonsense. Virtually nothing is correct. Gary Oldham is an actor with little range whose career has been constructed around a number of poor, cheesy films, of which this is one. He was a terrible choice to play Beethoven, who was 5-foot 5-inches tall, had a fiery, miserable disposition, and was a misanthrope. Oldham, who is 6-feet tall, played the Titan like he was Franz Lizst, a playboy from 1850. For the record, by 1850 Beethoven had been dead 23 years!pThere is one scene in this film, at the end, where Oldham -- playing the young Beethoven -- falls in a pond and the camera scans upward toward the heavens as Beethoven's "Emperor" concerto is being played. This is the one fulfilling moment in this otherwise incredibly poor film. I remember the production values being fine, so it deserves a star for that.pI heard a lot of complaining about Ken Russell's movie about Tchaikovsky, "The Music Lovers", but at least there Russell got the music right and included it in the movie with scintillating scenes of the 1st Piano Concerto and Swan Lake ballet. This one doesn't even give the viewer the benefit of a music video by Ludwig van. Pity that, for it would have given us a reason to watch. As it is, anyone that wants to know anything about Beethoven should avoid this abomination.
This is not Beethoven.... June 16, 2004
Nickibockers
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Beethoven is one of my favorite composers. I took an extensive Music Course dedicated to this fantastic composer. As much as I like Gary Oldman's acting, I could barely watch this film. This is not his life, this woman was not his love, this is NOT Beethoven. Watch Amadeus if you want to see a great film about a great composer. Another reviewer wrote that Beethoven deserves the same treatment as Mozart got in Amadeus. He absolutely does. He was a tremendous man, complex and misunderstood, but beloved by the ALL of Europe by the time of his death. His memory still awaits a film dedicated to his real life and tumultuous, brilliant, disturbed life.brBetter spend your time watching something else.
A Missed Opportunity - A reluctant 1-Star June 12, 2004
WineDreamGirl (San Diego, CA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
What a sad treatment for such a master! Beethoven was perhaps one of the most interesting people who ever lived and deserves (at least) the treatment that Mozart received in Amadeus. The angle used in Immortal Beloved was so weak, it doesn't even come close to depicting the Maestro as he deserves. His story doesn't even need an angle. Just a straight-forward bio would have served his memory better; he was tempestous, egotistical, deaf and brilliant! This film is a dog. Please, someone, make a good movie about this great genius!
 Go On Loving Me. Ever Yours. Ever Mine. Forever. March 11, 2004
Mr. (USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Having seen Immortal Beloved, I have a much stronger respect for Beethoven, as well as his contribution to this world...his music. pThe movie...ahhh, the movie. My personal opinion...a masterpiece. It affects me to such a degree every time I experience it, that I always cannot leave without deep emotion on my face. How would you feel if someone opened your mind to something in an entirely new light? You never saw it that way until they showed you. This is what the film does for me. Rich cinematography, luscious locations...some untouched, that still look the way they would have looked back in Beethoven's day. A tragic love story in the best sense. pWho was Beethoven's Immortal Beloved? No one knows. But after his death a letter was found in his own handwriting, written to someone only referred to as My Immortal Beloved. Beethoven Scholars have argued for centuries as to who this woman could be. The director, Bernard Rose, gives his interpretation of who she was, with much care in making it seem plausible. For us non Beethoven Scholars, it's simply a beautiful, tragic love story...a story that cannot help but endure the test of time. pGary Oldman, doesn't just play Beethoven...he is Beethoven...or at least a very strong interpretation of what the man must have been like. When I watch the film, I don't see Gary Oldman...I see Beethoven. A man torn apart by hardships. Beaten by his father because he was not as brilliant a child prodigy as say, Mozart was...more that he was stubborn and unwilling to play the popular tripe of the times. Oldman shows us many sides to Beethoven...the youth, in which he is close to his brothers and a bit of a scoundrel with the ladies. But somewhere along the line, he changes into an angry, bitter old man who is mad at the world. The fact that someone like him, who should have had perfect hearing that should be, as he puts it, a higher degree in me, is deaf and cannot hear his own music when he plays it...at least, not the way we hear it. Beethoven's deafness was not the kind where you hear silence. He heard noise...although this is speculative, many believe he suffered from a condition that caused his hearing to become more and more painful as the years followed. pOne of my favorite scenes in the film is when Beethoven lowers his head onto a piano so he can hear the vibrations more powerfully. And with that he begins to play Piano Sonata No. 14 (quasi una fantasia) in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2...Moonlight Sonata, I. Adagio sostenuto. In the film it is played about twice as fast as it is normally played, never losing its allure in the process. Director Bernard Rose wanted to do this simply because he felt it grabs you more intensely when played a bit faster. An amazing scene that should be watched again and again. pAnton Felix Schindler, played brilliantly by Jeroen Krabbe, was the man who worked closest with Beethoven, at times being treated quite badly by the maestro. Jeroen plays the man as being very submissive...most of the time we only see what he's feeling through body language and eye gestures. As Ludwig discusses his music with Schindler during the very first time they meet, the look on Schindler's face as he listens to Beethoven is like a revelation...never has he heard or felt such passion and pain. He is drawn to tears. A most powerful scene that evokes the human spirit. The brilliance of Beethoven is unquestionable. pDirector Bernard Rose gives many wonderful and interesting visual interpretations through Beethoven's music. Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, I. Allegro con brio is used during the shelling of Vienna by Napoleon. But perhaps the most remembered is Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, IV. Ode To Joy, in which we witness a young Ludwig, escaping from his sadistic father through his bedroom window on the 2nd floor and running away, lying on his back in a nearby lake at night. The pullback shot from straight up shows us the stars glittering all around him from the reflection in the water and continues to pull back until Beethoven disappears and is one with the stars themselves...quite symbolic. pTo me, this a very special movie. The fact that the director may have taken some poetic licensing to tell the story seems justified when you are engrossed in the entire product. But many people, still to this day, dislike the movie because of that reason. But where the film, Amadeus, was mostly based on fictional storytelling, Immortal Beloved is based more on fact, which is what got it into trouble and why it was met with so many mixed reviews. I personally feel these people are just missing out on a great film and great storytelling at its best. But you be the judge...see Immortal Beloved. I guarantee you'll never be able to listen to Beethoven's music quite the same way ever again. pGo on loving me. Ever yours. Ever mine. Forever. - Gary Oldman as Ludwig Van Beethoven
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