Copying Beethoven

It must be impossible to tell the life story of an artist. I’ve seen two films about Beethoven and both told his story through a woman or women. The latest through the eyes of an invented woman.

And it isn’t just Beethoven. There’s a flick out right now about a photographer which completely falsifies her life. There’s Amadeus which invents facts and inserts them into the lives of historical figures to make some sort of point, although I’m not sure what it is.

Nor is this horrifying trend restricted to biography. In The Patriot the story of a sickly, slave holding, aristocrat is twisted into standard Hollywood action fare complete with amazing feats of woodsman marksmanship, confused but elegant battle and the imposition of modern morality on the eighteenth century reality. Braveheart bedded the future Queen of England. U-571 had both a black man and an ethnic German on an United States submarine tasked to a top-secret mission. Pearl Harbor had . . . well, let’s just say that 1941 was about as accurate a portrayal of that time period as Pearl Harbor

The truth is always better. The truth is always more exciting. We are not a stupid people. We don’t need muscular heroes with stolid expressions howling hopelessly over the bodies of their dead children to pique our interest. Give us the reality of the past and see how we respond.

Stupid Hollywood.

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