when it comes to Beethoven, children in the 197s must be very affectionate. His name has appeared in our primary school textbooks since childhood. However, the most prominent manifestation of its value is the "ideological education course". Every time the school launches an activity and calls for learning from Zhang Haidi, Beethoven is bound to be used as a human-powered scenery board, and he will run with another uncle, "Ostrovschi". After long-term publicity and education by the ideological teacher, these two left and right protectors of the "physically disabled and determined" school have misled me over time, that is, they abandoned all the shortcomings and weaknesses of human nature, were made of special materials, and were born to live to realize lofty ideals. As the supreme directive teaches us, it is "a pure person, a noble person, a person who is free from vulgar tastes and a person who is beneficial to the people". Even Beethoven, who never married, was exalted by mainstream ideology to the point of "keeping his virginity for music". This can't help but make me, a "low-taste person" who only thinks about what's good on the table today every night after school, stay away from Beethoven, an out-of-touch musician. However, this impression was quickly broken by a magazine called Reader's Digest in a summer vacation. I believe all the young literary people in those days are familiar with this magazine. It is a magazine whose sales volume is comparable to that of Story Club and similar to that of Vientiane today. Generally speaking, it focuses on thinking about life, discussing ideals and engaging in petty bourgeois love songs. It is a reading treasure and fashion symbol of the petty bourgeoisie. Quite like today's Zhang Ailing going to the village tree in spring or going to Starbucks once a week. Follow the trend with style, or at least read Reader's Digest at that time. So don't be idle during the holidays, but urge yourself to make progress and be a qualified literary youth who is "out of low taste". Finally, on the title page of a certain issue of Reader's Digest, on this page which is usually full of famous sayings, I came across Beethoven's three love letters to an eternal lover. "My angel, my everything, my me: you should feel the pain-alas, wherever I live, may you be with me, and I will try to make me live with you. What a life I have when you are not in front of me! ! -I was followed by people's kindness everywhere, and I felt that I didn't deserve it, and I didn't want to have it. However, people's humility to others made me feel sad. When I looked at what I was in the universe as a whole and what the world called the greatest person, I cried when I thought that you might have received my first news on Saturday and Sunday.-You certainly have love, but my love for you is even stronger- Oh, my God-we are so close! So far again! Our love is not a real castle in the air-but it is as stable as the sky. " When such passionate and loving words came at me in a large area, I was shocked. Is this the cold and violent Beethoven in my impression? Is this Beethoven who "dedicated his virginity to music" and "fought for the liberation of mankind"? "When I sleep in bed at night, all my thoughts rush to you, my eternal love. Some people are happy, others are sad. Wait for fate to listen to our words and wait for the result. Only by living with you completely can I live, otherwise, I would rather not live. Yes, we must. " "Our love can be realized in other ways except through sacrifice and imperfection. You are not entirely mine, and I am not entirely yours. You can change this matter. -Oh, my God, please have a look at the beautiful nature; Relax about the inevitable event-love requires everything, which is totally right. I am so for you and you are so for me-I have to live for you and me ... "Are these restless souls and emotional anxieties also Beethoven whose mission is music? In view of the fact that before, my understanding of love letters was limited to "Love Your Momo" in Xu Zhimo's "Love My Eyebrows" and "Good Pain and Good Melancholy" by Aunt Qiong Yao, I suddenly felt ashamed when I saw such a magnificent love letter with religious beauty. This is the master of chasing girls. This made my affection for him increase sharply. In the following years, I began to get in touch with his music works and biographies, as well as various film works reflecting his life. The motivation is his three love letters to an eternal lover.
Who is this "eternal lover" and who was so passionately and nobly loved by Beethoven is still an unsolved mystery. Numerous scholars have expressed their views on this, and their opinions cannot be unified. Just because there are different opinions in academic circles, the film "Immortal Lover" takes a slant and takes it as a clue, which is still relatively risky. The highlight is how to find this "immortal lover" and how to justify it.
The film begins with Beethoven's funeral, and his student Schindele accompanies him to the end of his life. While sorting out his relics, Schindele found three love letters he wrote to his "immortal lover". According to Beethoven's will, his property was also bequeathed to this mysterious lady. In order to carry out the last wish of his predecessor, Schindele embarked on a journey of pursuit.
i. "When I reached the cold and most dangerous peak, my heart shut itself like a flower at night"-Beethoven and Julia
Film: The first stop of Schindele's visit was the Countess Julia Chisciardi in Vienna. Julia, who was in her twenties and eighties, rushed from Italy to her cousin's house in Vienna to listen to Beethoven's long-admired concert. There is a handsome young man playing the Sonata of Pathetique in the hall, and Julia has to wait in the lounge because she is late. Just as she was bored, a short-limbed, odd-looking man suddenly appeared from behind the sofa and lashed the performer's skills. This encounter led Beethoven to become Julia's piano teacher, and they fell in love quickly. While two of a kind's honeymoon was still in a stalemate, Julia's father received a proposal from Count Kalebook, that is, the handsome guy who was criticized by Beethoven for playing the Pathetique Sonata. Julia told her father that she had a heart and wanted to marry Beethoven. The father had to admit to his daughter that the rumor that Beethoven was deaf in society was rampant, and Beethoven had to be tested to continue their relationship. So, in the name of testing the new piano, Beethoven was called to the house. In the empty hall, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata flowed from his fingers. He leaned down and put his ear on the keys to feel the flow of music. Julia, who watched all this through the peephole next door, was also moved by this scene. Julia quietly walked up to him and put her hand on his shoulder, saying that her father would agree to his proposal. Beethoven, who was just immersed in music, was furious at the moment. For the defiant Beethoven, this kind of temptation is an insult and a plunder of his feelings. He left angrily, and Julia, who felt dejected, finally married the third-rate musician, Count Kalebook. When Schindele took out the three letters to an immortal lover, Julia was crying, but she was sure that she was not the immortal lover.
Historical facts: Whether Beethoven's first meeting with Julia was as dramatic as Rhett's and Scarlett's is now impossible to verify. But the cruel reality tells us that Julia's love for Beethoven in history is never so romantic as in the film. The two met in 18 and fell in love immediately. In 181, Beethoven told his friend Wegler that she was "a lovely and charming girl. She loved me and I loved her. For the first time, I think marriage can be a happy thing. " But he also has doubts about the future of this relationship. "Unfortunately, she doesn't belong to my class." Sure enough, Julia's feelings quickly cooled down and turned her enthusiasm to an unworthy aristocratic musician, Count Kalebook. The double blow of deafness and lovelorn made Beethoven desperate. In 182, when Julia fell in love with the Earl, Beethoven tried to commit suicide and wrote the famous Heiligenstadt Testament-"You people treat me as resentful, crazy or cynical, and they really insult me! You don't know what's behind those appearances! " . Fortunately, this kind of despair and pain intertwined with body and mind did not crush him, as the will said, "It is art! It was art that kept me. Ah! Before I feel that my mission has been completely completed. I don't think I can leave this world. " We don't know whether Julia has read those three letters to an immortal lover, but in her later years, she fondly recalled that he was "very ugly, but very noble, with elegant feelings and cultivation." As for this famous "Moonlight Sonata", it was really Beethoven who dedicated it to Julia. It was actually called "Piano Sonata in C sharp minor". Later, because the German poet Lyle Stubb compared the music of the first movement to the night on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, the clever publisher took Moonlight as the title of this piece and it has been handed down to this day. This work soothes the anxious soul with love, such as water-like tenderness. It is conceivable that Beethoven was so in love with Julia at that time. But the pain and despair that followed pushed Beethoven into the valley of isolation from the outside world. He closed his mind, claustrophobic in his own world, and only used music to communicate with the outside world.
II. "Between the lips and the voice, something is dying"-Beethoven and Anna
Film: Schindele came to Central Europe through Julia's guidance. Julia thinks this "immortal lover" is Anna, the countess of Hungary. They met at a terrible concert. At that time, Beethoven was deaf and directed a concert in pieces. Amid the ridicule and sarcasm of everyone, Anna bravely stepped forward to help him out of the hall. At that moment, two people with the same heart came together. The countess who lived alone lived in Vienna with her three children, but Napoleon's conquest of Europe crushed their peaceful life, and the war took the life of her youngest son. Beethoven sent his own music to Anna who was immersed in pain. He said, "Let's express it with music". Beethoven lived in a manor with Anna and her two daughters after the war. Anna told Schindele that living with Beethoven for one year was the happiest day in their lives. Because they are attached to each other, inseparable. Beethoven called the countess "the God of Confession" and told her everything. When Schindele was glad that he had found an "immortal lover" and decided to give Anna three religious letters, Anna refused him. Anna believes that she is by no means the mysterious lover, because she knows that there has always been a secret lover in Beethoven's heart. So Schindele set foot on the journey again.
Historical facts: The prototype of this Anna is the Hungarian aristocrat Josephine von Brunswick, and her relationship with Beethoven began in 184. At that time, she was a young woman with outstanding charm. She once married a nobleman 3 years older than herself, and recently became a widow, living alone in Vienna with three children. Beethoven fell in love with her in 185 and wrote many love letters to her. But she made it clear that she was not ready to develop further relations with Beethoven. She said, "I love you beyond words, just like a gentle soul loves another," and stressed, "Can't you accept such an agreement?" Her relationship with Beethoven did not last long, and in 181 she married another nobleman. Seeing this, perhaps we will understand why Beethoven, who swept Europe in music, was defeated repeatedly in love. In that hierarchical society with strict barriers, Beethoven, who was born in poverty, lost the right to love as a human being even though he had a vast soul, noble soul and passionate life. Love, which is supposed to soothe lonely souls, has become a dose of poison, and the emotion is as intense as Beethoven's. Maybe you have to drink poison to quench your thirst.
III. "I love you, just like something dark is in love"-Beethoven and Joanna
Film: Under Anna's guidance, Schindele returned to Germany and called on Beethoven's sister-in-law Joanna. Because the countess thinks Joanna is the "immortal lover". Joanna is the wife of Beethoven's late brother Jasper. When Schindele took out three letters for Joanna to confirm, Joanna admitted that she was the "immortal lover" in the letters. Schindele was so shocked that Joanna told the story. Beethoven and his younger brother Jasper both fell in love with Joanna, the daughter of a furniture dealer, at first sight and pursued her. Soon Joanna was pregnant with Beethoven's child, and they met at the hotel to elope. Due to the heavy rain in Lu Yu, the carriage got stuck in the mud and failed to arrive, but Joanna, who was waiting at the hotel, thought Beethoven had broken his promise and left. By mistake, Joanna married Jasper, and Beethoven thought that Joanna easy virtue made things difficult for her everywhere and broke with her brother Jasper. When Jasper died of lung disease, Beethoven took his nephew, Carl, the illegitimate son of him and Joanna, to raise him and train him to learn music. Carl is a young man with neither talent nor ambition. Under his uncle's prodigy training plan, he felt suffocated and failed to commit suicide. Beethoven was trapped in internal and external affairs at this time, but his work "The Ninth Symphony" in his later years still caused a sensation in the whole city. After listening to his Ode to Joy, Joanna took the initiative to break the ice and visit Beethoven, who was seriously ill, until he died safely. At the end of the film, against the background of the fifth piano sonata, Joanna read out the end of the letter at Beethoven's grave, "I should go to bed now, don't worry, love, today, tomorrow, I long for you with tears in my eyes, you ... you are my life and everything, so goodbye. Don't stop loving me, it will always be yours, mine and us ... "
Historical facts: For any audience who knows Beethoven's life a little, this plot design can be said to be against the world. Only a surprise screenwriter like Hollywood would dare to make such a bold guess. So far, there is no data to support this conjecture, and no critics have come out to agree with this design. Because Beethoven and his sister-in-law are incompatible in history, pulling them together is like Mars hitting the earth. His sister-in-law is