I enjoyed Gary Oldmans portrayal of Beethoven in Immortal Beloved
- What was the point of “Immortal Beloved” according to you?
(You don’t have to answer if you don’t wish to)
The search for the "immortal beloved" was just a plot device upon which to hang the basic story of Beethoven and to introduce the masses to his towering talent and the story of his struggles. Just like the fictional Salieri/Mozart rivalry in Amadeus intoduced the masses to Mozart.
Two things: 1) Beethoven was the first musician to break out of the "musicians are servants" attitude that the aristocracy held (in the 18th century, Haydn was treated as such: he ate and slept in the servant's quarters; Beethoven ate and slept with some of Europe's most eligible female nobility). 2) He suffered terribly from his deafness, yet his genius channeled the pain into some of the most beautiful and transcendent compositions mankind has known.
Everything else in the movie was just a vessel for these two messages.