The Notorious LVB

Classical music giant Ludwig van Beethoven turns 246 today and what better way to celebrate his musical contribution to society than to look at how his music was used in movies?



Here are my top 5 movies that creatively use Beethoven music!

Fantasia (1940)

Walt Disney's experimental, animated, feature-length classical music video was a big risk when it came out in 1940. Disney had success with his cartoon shorts and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Pinocchio (1940) proved there was a market for full-length cartoons. But Fantasia's melding of animation and classical music in an anthology style had not been tried before. So Disney put Leopold Stokowski on the conductor's stand and churned out eight cartoons with a soundtrack of popular works that included great composers like Bach, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, and Schubert.

Beethoven's contribution was his "Pastorale" from Symphony no. 6. The lilting, sweeping tune beautifully underscores a flock of pegasi as they soar through the ancient Grecian sky, one young fledgling in particular having difficulty (and fun) trying out his new wings.

As the piece progresses we join two herds of centaurs (no- it's not centauri)- one male, and one female- who frolic near a verdant pond, hooking up as the music swells. Well, they hook up as much as one can in a Disney film. The scene is sensuous, the animated movement as smooth and graceful as the music that serenades these young horse/people as they discover first love.

Fantasia's first release was a bit of a bomb- mainly because with WWII in full-swing in Europe, that market was pretty much closed to Hollywood films. But in subsequent releases and with a robust home video market, Fantasia has rebounded to become one of the top 3 Disney films.

I don't know if before Fantasia people imagined cartoons when they listened to classical music, but after- it's impossible to close your eyes and not imagine Mickey in his sorcerer's cap fighting off all those brooms when you listen to Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

The Music Man (1962)

There is a lot of music in The Music Man. Most of it was composed by Tony-winning Meredith Willson. But there is one song he didn't write. Professor Harold Hill (Robert Preston serving lovable scamp realness) has pioneered a new form of music education called "The Think System." Rather than practice with your band instrument, you think about the song until you will instinctively know how to play it. Of course, Professor Hill intends to be several towns away before the River City-zens realize they've been bamboozled into paying for a bunch of band uniforms and equipment that their kids can't play. But when Prof. Hill is snared by the law (and love) he has to prove that his system works. Will Beethoven's Minuet in G issue forth from the instruments of the River City Boys Band?

Music Man is a wonderful piece of musical Americana that while admiring saintly Midwestern ideals, has a great deal of pleasure poking fun at Hawkeye morality.

Portraying the cultural revolution of 1912, the musical was popular in part because it sweetly mirrored the generational changes that were taking place in the 1950's. In fact, at the 1958 Tony's Music Man beat the other musical that dealt with the volatile shift in our American culture- West Side Story.

Personally, I think the Tony's got it wrong that year.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Nothing tops off an evening of violence and sexual abuse quite like a Beethoven tune- or at least that's how our lil' droogie Alex (the sadistically impish Malcom McDowell) feels in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.

We get a tour of Alex's room and his thoughts as he plays Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, reveling in the bliss that the music brings to him. It's a deliberate juxtaposition to show this vicious beast soothed by classical music- a thug who has no respect for human life, but reveres the beauty of classical music. It gives depth to a character that could have just been a one-dimensional sociopath.

After being treated by the Ludovico Technique to rid Alex of his nastier tendencies, however, Alex discovers that the Ninth Symphony was playing in the background of the films used to implant revulsion for acts of sex and violence.

So now the very first strains of his beloved music make poor Alex violently ill. When he is kidnapped by one of his former victims, Ludwig Van becomes a weapon against Alex instead of an ecstatic escape. Alex's pleasure from inflicting pain becomes pain inflicted from a former pleasure. It's just the sort of sick twist that Kubrick appreciated.

Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Everyone needs a good entrance song. Whether it's Pomp and Circumstance or  "Bitch I'm Madonna", we all like an anthem to play when we walk into a room. Tony Manero is no different. The strutting disco king (John Travolta in his Oscar-nominated performance) of Saturday Night Fever is a man with many insecurities. But when he enters the club and hits the dancefloor, he is the master of all he surveys. Director John Badham underscores Travolta's entrance scene  with "A Fifth of Beethoven"  a disco re-working of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony by Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band.

It's an interesting choice. Does Beethoven give heft to disco, or does disco make Beethoven more cool? A similar question can be asked about Saturday. Does Badham's heartfelt exploration of urban youth disillusion and ennui make disco deeper, or does disco make this story more accessible to the Seventies audience?

Either way "A Fifth of Beethoven" was so successful it spurred an interest in "popularized" classical music resulting in K-Tel's Hooked on Classics series- my first exposure to the likes of Beethoven.






Misery (1990)

Rob Reiner's Misery has plenty of instances of dark humor- like an obsessed fan (played with unfettered relish by Oscar-winner Kathy Bates) who names one of her pigs after the beautiful heroine of her favorite novel series, Misery. But nothing tops Reiner's use of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" in the infamous hobbling scene.

Kidnapped author Paul Sheldon (a perfectly tortured James Caan) awakens after being drugged  to the strains of Liberace playing the "Moonlight Serenade" and Annie (the aforementioned literary pig-namer) standing over him with a sledgehammer. What ensues is known as hobbling, and it's gag-inducing- but the scene is even more surreal as Beethoven's music underscores the graphic torture.

More than just a juxtaposition between light music and the violent scene, the choice of classical music also mirrors Annie's character- a woman who calmly and smoothly glides around the room like a Beethoven tune- before hammering your ankles into absurd angles.

I wonder how ol' Beethoven would have felt about being such a memorable part of these flicks?