Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

(1994) (1992)

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

SPOILERS!

Immortal Beloved is a huge budget production with A-list acting giant Gary Oldman. Beethoven Lives Upstairs is a low budget 45 minute short film told from the perspective of a child. Both might be about the life of Ludwig Van Beethoven, but are these films comparable? Or is one not even in the same league as the other? This blogger says it’s a definite maybe.

Budget does not always dictate quality. Don’t get me wrong though. Immortal Beloved is a wonderful film. But so is Beethoven Lives Upstairs. Yes, it’s a silly title. Yes, it’s very condensed and features some clearly apocryphal moments if not complete fabrications. And yes, it’s strangely told from the viewpoint of the young son of a lady from whom Herr Beethoven is paying for room and board. If you’ve read any of my non-reviews prior to this one, you may already be able to tell: Beethoven Lives Upstairs is very much like an installment to the ever-cherished (solely by me, likely) series, The Artist/Inventor/Composer Specials! Hazaa! And yet, I must confess, I find no proof of this connection other than all of them and this being directed by David Devine.

Immortal Beloved did a good job at illustrating Ludwig’s frustrations at being a composer who was secretly and steadily going deaf. People would think he was rude and moody because he would not respond to greetings on the street. But he couldn’t hear them.

While Immortal Beloved followed Beeth-oven from a young age into old age, and back again with flashbacks, Lives Upstairs focused on a brief period in his semi-elderly life where apparently nothing overly significant was actually going on. This made it possible to interject the story of a young lad bereft of his bedroom so that his mother may take on a boarder. This was necessary for her to make ends meet after boy’s father had passed. Is this a true account from Beethoven’s life? I doubt most of it. Especially the size of the boy’s former “bedroom”.

But Upstairs did one thing I thought was genius. Whenever the film demonstrated the frustration of people unable as they often were to effectively communicate with the deaf Ludwig, whenever it cut back to him, oblivious and fevered, his music would abruptly cut in as well. Back and forth the shots would go, from Ludwig to the onlooker and back again, each time the music abruptly cutting in and out. The message was clear. All Herr Beethoven was able to hear was the magnificent music inside his mind.

This is superb cinematic storytelling not achieved even by huge budgets and A-listers. I am overwhelmed at the absolute brilliance of this.

The Composer Specials (of which Upstairs is apparently not one despite it’s eligibility) are oftentimes such laughable tongue-in-cheek tales simply orchestrated to make learning of the masters fun and accessible for children and yet this genius director and writer of a film like unto these has blown my socks off!

Bravo, Director David Devine and writer Barbara Nichol! Bravissimo!

I believe you are yourselves masters in your own rites.

Immortal Beloved was good too.

If I’ve sparked any interest for you in the funny little series of artist/inventor/composer specials, I provide here for your convenience a list of every installment with denotation as to which ones I’ve covered with a Non-Review (Just don’t forget to add Beethoven Lives Upstairs to your watchlist too):

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  Rembrandt : Fathers & Sons
  Goya: Awakened in a Dream
  Monet Shadow & Light (Non-Reviewed)
  Mary Cassatt: American Impressionist
  Winslow Homer An American Original
  Degas and the Dancer
  Edison: Wizard of Light
  Leonardo: A Dream of Flight
  Einstein: Light to the Power of 2
  Galileo: On the Shoulders of Giants
  Marie Curie: More than Meets the Eye
  Newton: A Tale of Two Isaacs (Non-Rvwd)
  Bizet’s Dream
  Liszt’s Rhapsody (Non-Reviewed)
  Rossini’s Ghost
  Hansel’s Last Chance
  Bach’s Fight for Freedom
  Strauss The King of Three Quarter Time