Author, Lecturer, Broadcaster & Cultural Arts Expert;
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Author of over 40 books published on Amazon, including The Crimson Horror series and The Great and Immortal Painters’ Stories series.
Dedicated to sharing insights into art, culture, literature, and creative expression through writing, lectures, media, and content creation.
Based
on: The Magic Bow: a Romance of Paganini by Manuel
Komroff
Music:
Henry Geehl
Cinematography:Jack Asher, Jack E. Cox
Edited
by: Alfred Roome
Cast
Stewart Granger as Niccolò Paganini
Phyllis Calvert as Jeanne de
Vermond
Jean Kent as Bianca
Summary
“The Magic Bow” is a 1946
British musical film based on the life and loves of the Italian violinist and
composer Niccolò Paganini. This film, directed by Bernard Knowles, is one of
the entries to the 1946 Cannes Film Festival.
Movie
Review
“Better than expected”
“Great film chronicling the life
and times of famous Italian violinist Nicolo Paganini”
“Outstanding Acting”
“Great music in this enjoyable
biopic of a great talent”
“Niccolò Paganini the devil's
violinist !!”
Interesting
stories about the film
Two tutors trained Stewart Granger,
who starred Paganini for the film, for his posture and violin playing. The
actual music was recorded by Yehudi Menuhin, a British virtuoso born in the
United States. He used two violins and took six weeks to create great music
from the film.
Producer:Sidney
Kimmel, Stephen J. Rivele, Michael Taylor, Christopher Wilkinson
Written by: Stephen J.
Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson
Music: Cliff
Eidelman
Cinematography:
Ashley Rowe
Editor:Alex Mackie
Cast
Ed Harris (Ludwig van Beethoven)
Diane Kruger (Anna Holtz)
Matthew Goode (Martin Bauer)
Phyllida Law (Mother Canisius)
Joe Anderson (Karl van Beethoven)
Ralph Riach (Wenzel Schlemmer)
Bill Stewart (Rudy)
Summary
The film "Copying Beethoven"
is a 2006 drama distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and directed by Agnieszka
Holland. It is a fictional story about the triumphs and heartaches of the last
years of Ludwig van Beethoven.
It is 1824, when Beethoven is finishing
his Ninth Symphony. He suffers from deafness, loneliness and personal trauma,
and his personality is getting worse. Before the premiere of his last symphony,
Anna Holtz, a young conservatory student and aspiring composer, helps him
finish preparing the score of his symphony for the first performance.
Beethoven
is skeptical of her at first because she is just a woman, but on the first day,
she finds Beethoven's wrong notes and corrects them herself, and then Beethoven
acknowledges her genius talent. Eventually, Beethoven trusts Anna's help and
relies on her with respect.
Movie Review
“Copying Beethoven is a sort of
grand cinema opera of the composer's life and music”, Chicago Tribune
“The deaf maestro conducting his
Ninth Symphony as Anna coaches. It goes on for what seems a whole reel, but
it's so sublime it seems too short and, by itself, could stand as one of the
greatest classic music videos ever”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Helmer Agnieszka Holland's Copying
Beethoven joins 1994's "Immortal Beloved" in the ranks of mediocre
dramatic interpretations of Beethoven's biography”, Variety
Interesting stories about the film
1. Ed Harris, in an interview with
The Guardian on August 11, 2007, said that his biggest disappointment with the
film was “the distribution of the film in the United States.” He also said that
the most important lesson he learned from his life is "Don't let MGM
distribute the movies you care about.”
2. This film was originally written
with Anthony Hopkins in mind as a role of Ludwig van Beethoven.
3. Bill Stewart died shortly after
the film was released.
4. Ed Harris and Diane Kruger also
appeared in the 2007 film "National Treasure: Book of Secrets."
Release date: September 6, 1984 (Los Angeles), September 19, 1984 (United States)
Staff
Director: Miloš Forman
Producer: Saul Zaentz
Screenplay: Peter
Shaffer
Based on:“Amadeus” by
Peter Shaffer
Music:John Strauss
Cinematography:
Miroslav Ondříček
Editor: Nena Danevic,
Michael Chandler
Cast
Tom Hulce (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
F. Murray Abraham (Antonio Salieri)
Elizabeth Berridge (Constanze
Mozart)
Roy Dotrice (Leopold Mozart)
Simon Callow (Emanuel Schikaneder)
Christine Ebersole (Caterina
Cavalieri)
Jeffrey Jones (Emperor Joseph II)
Charles Kay (Count Orsini-Rosenberg)
Summary
The “Amadeus” is a biographical drama
film produced in the United States in 1984, directed by Miloš Forman and adapted
by Peter Shaffer for his play "Amadeus." The film is a fictional
biographical story about the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart based on the fictional
rivalry between Mozart and Salieri at the court of Emperor Joseph II in Vienna,
Austria during the latter half of the 18th century.
Mozart's music was used
extensively throughout the film. In the film,F. Murray Abraham appeared as Salieri and Tom Hulce as Mozart.
With this film, F. Murray Abraham won the Academy Award for Best Actor, and Tom
Hulce was nominated for the same award as Abraham.
Amadeus, considered one of the best
movies of all time, was nominated for 53 awards and received 40 awards,
including eight Academy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. As of 2019, the
film Amadeus is also the most recent film to have been nominated more than once
in the Academy Award for Best Actor category.
In 1998, the American Film Institute
ranked the film 53rd on the list of “Best 100 films made for 100 Years”. In addition, in 2019, it was selected
for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of
Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Movie Review
"Remains the most popularly
successful film ever to render the inner life of an artist", L.A. Weekly
"Perfect pitch", San Francisco Chronicle
"Amadeus is about as close to
perfection as movies get", New York Daily
"It binds up introductory lessons in
music appreciation, Freudian psychology, and fanciful history with a pulp thriller
plot", Chicago Reader
Interesting stories about the film
1. When shooting the scene when Salieri is writing down the Requiem under Mozart's dictation, Tom Hulce intentionally skipped
lines to confuse F. Murray Abraham, in order to make the impression that Salieri
was not able to fully understand the music being dictated.
2. F. Murray Abraham learned to
read and conduct music for the role of the film.
3. In a scene from the film, Mozart
refers to Christoph Willibald Gluck as "boring" and says "I
don't like George Frideric Handel". However, Gluck and Handel were two of
Mozart's favorite composers.
4. It is assumed that the young boy
that Mozart smiles while playing the piano at the party is the young Beethoven.
5. Ironically, this film revived Salieri's
music, which had been previously forgotten.
6. The performance of "Don
Giovanni" included in this movie was filmed on the same stage where the
opera was premiered.
7. Milos Forman suggested that the
main actors of this film should not worry about the American accents that the
actors had, so that they could focus on the character and acting of their
roles.
8. Only four sets were made for
this film: Salieri's hospital room, Mozart's apartment, a staircase, and the
vaudeville theater. All other locations were filmed locally.
Production Company:
Canal+, Studio Babelsberg, Studio Canal+
Running time: 150 minutes
Release date:24 May 2002 (Cannes), 6 September 2002 (Poland), 25 September 2002 (France)
Staff
Director: Roman Polanski
Producer: Roman Polanski, Robert Benmussa, Alain Sarde
Screenplay: Ronald Harwood
Based on: “The Pianist” by Władysław Szpilman
Music: Wojciech Kilar
Cinematography: Paweł Edelman
Editor: Hervé de Luze
Cast
Adrien Brody (Władysław Szpilman)
Thomas Kretschmann (Captain Wilm
Hosenfeld)
Frank Finlay (Samuel Szpilman)
Maureen Lipman (Edwarda Szpilman)
Emilia Fox (Dorota)
Ed Stoppard (Henryk Szpilman)
Julia Rayner (Regina Szpilman)
Jessica Kate Meyer (Halina Szpilman)
Summary
The Pianist is a biographical war
drama film produced and directed by Roman Polanski released in 2002, starring
Adrien Brody. The film is based on the autobiography "The Pianist
(1946)" by the Polish-Jewish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman, a
Holocaust survivor.
The film was highly acclaimed,
received many awards or nominations, and won the Palme d'Or at the 2002 Cannes
Film Festival. At the 75th Academy Awards, the film won the Oscars for Best
Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actor, and was nominated for four other
awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture. The film was included in
BBC's “100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century” in 2016.
Movie Review
"Polanski, himself a survivor of
Nazi-occupied Poland, has created a near-masterpiece."(Washington Post)
Interesting stories about the film
1. Adrien Brody became the youngest
person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor when he won for this film at the
age of 29.
2. Adrien Brody learned how to play
the piano for his role.
3. Adrien Brodylost 14 kg to play
Szpilman. The menu for his daily diet was two boiled eggs and green tea for
breakfast, a little chicken for lunch, and a small piece of fish or chicken
with steamed vegetables for dinner over a six week period. Initially, his
weight was 73 kg.
4. To feel the loss necessary to
play this role, Adrien Brody sold his apartment and car and did not watch
television.
5. The music played for the German
officer in the film was Frédéric Chopin's Ballade No.1 in G Minor. But in fact,
Szpilman played Chopin's Nocturne No.1 in C# Minor.
6. Roman Polanski was the oldest winner
when he won the Oscar for Best Director at sixty-nine. However, the record
broke two years later when Clint Eastwood won the prize at the age of
seventy-four.
7. The two similarly titled films, The
Piano (1993) and The Pianist (2002), were produced and released about 10 years
apart, both won the same three Academy Awards. All the Oscar winners of the
film The Piano (1993) were women, while all the Oscar winners of the film The
Pianist (2002) were men. In addition, both films won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.
