I saw this movie -- and I have to say that all the musical excerpts of Beethoven, Mozart, etc. were quite exquisitely played by the London Philharmonic. I think the music stuck in my head more than the actual movie =P

In the absence of anything remotely correct regarding history (maybe one needs to be a Tory or a Republican) perhaps we have to indeed fall back on the music.

'Amadeus' was good clean fun, and WOW! what great music, it was almost easy to overlook the idiocies (no one will be harmed), but 'The King's Speech' falls into a hysterically sentimental 'pulling of the heart strings'. Why not glamorize Nazi Germany?

fuzzy, was there original music by the film composer (Alexandre Desplat)???

There must have been; Desplat was nominated for a Golden Globe for "Best Original Score" for "The King's Speech."

Regards,

I know, which is why I am asking.But nobody seems to have noticed or commented on his music. I haven't seen the movie.

it's now time to invoke godwin's law on this thread.

There's a few historical liberties taken (like the crowds outside the palace in one scene) but nothing much that distorts the general picture I think? What did you find? Are you just reacting to the IDEA of a monarchy? There have been films about Nazi Germany that go beyond a strictly documentary approach. Do you reject them too? But for sheer glamourisation you can't top Mel Brooks' "Springtime for Hitler" :-)

On the contrary, the liberties regarding history were modest and were essentially artistic licence to serve the drama.

Your last sentence is bizarre and in bad taste.

Well no, I shouldn't think so.

I love it! Now there's truth if you're looking for it.

"The Producers" Brook's only comedy.

"don't be stupid, be a smarty
come and join the Nazi party"

Exactly. Great poetry too!

I like the bit in the official trailer for the film where George and daughter are watching a News Reel of Hitler speaking and she say's "What's he saying" and he replies:

"I don't know, but he seems to be saying it rather well".

Funny, I thought his mother Mary (May) of Tech spoke German to all her children. This seems to continue the usual propoganda.

EJR, can you quote any references for that?

I am not sure that it makes much difference to anything. Some of my family spoke German when I was a child. But I would be interested to know. Thanks.

As you wish. Pulling heart strings always wins the day, damn those misunderstood Germans, nice to see a film make a fool of itself.

I've never seen a more dangerous rewriting of history.

Try Gone with the Wind.

We have really gone astray from the original post of this thread. That is- the frequent use of Beethoven's music in the film.

Out of curiosity, I tried to find what the movie critics thought of the film. Afterall, they're the experts. Right?

Surprisingly (or maybe not so), the combined score was an 88 out of a possible 100, based on 41 critics from all over the country. The well-respected Roger Ebert gave it a 100. Stephanie Zacharek from "Movieline" had this to say:

We know this is a true story that has been folded, trimmed and wedged into a piece of dramatic fiction. But strict veracity aside, it’s such a relief, and a pleasure, to care about people and things we see in a movie. The real strength of The King’s Speech is that it allows us to care deeply about those little princesses and their parents in movie terms, rather than in real-life ones. And that’s our job when we go to the movies.


I guess those "mollycoddling boots" I wear, according to btb, are a fairly popular line of footwear.

Kathleen

No, Kathleen, they are not the experts on many of the issues that we have been talking about as this thread wandered away from "Beethoven as Background Music." People like Roger Ebert may think they are capable of writing historical commentary as they relax in their proverbial armchair, but that would be hubris at best. His opinions on the "true story" nature of this film carry no more weight than, say, ..... mine.

What a slog that one was. Too much epic melodrama for me, and the US Civil War is not my historical area of expertise.

But... Max Steiner's soundtrack is glorious!

Except that nobody considers it a serious account of the civil war. Besides, it has Vivien Leigh at her most fetching.

re: the authenticity of the film, a very enlightening segment on 60 Minutes yesterday:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7357190n&tag=contentMain;contentAux

Hurray! I guess I can write: "He who laughs last, laughs best.!

Kathleen

I fully expected The King's Speech to be anointed at Hollywood's annual self-congratulatory fest. The Social Network (IMO a far better film) was just too hip and damned with faint praise.

I thought 'The Social Network' was the better film as well. Hollywood loves 'brits.'

Indeed you can. I can't remember when I enjoyed a film as much.

TSN was a snappily written little movie, tho very much a monet of a haystack. having been in sw & webdev much of my adult life i can say with some certainty that much of the intrigue portrayed in TSN boils down to long hours in meeting rooms and at computers figuring out very difficult technical problems (e.g. usability, reliability, maintainability, scalability, performance) to deliver a better mousetrap than anyone else. the idea of facebook has been around for @ 15 years, but zuckerberg nailed the implementation to create the killer app.

a good take on TSN here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jose-antonio-vargas/the-social-network-hollyw_b_747233.html

Very nice post, Entheo. I remember reading that Huffington article -and Vargas's profile of Zuckerberg in The New Yorker- some months before I saw the film. That said, I'm not inclined to be as critical of the film as Vargas is. Yes, I understand and agree with many of his points, but I think the film was a little more alert to its subject than Vargas gives it credit for.

The first scene alone is worth the price of admission, and a friend and I backtracked the DVD twice to savour it!

And Clark Gable at his most dashing! (Whatever Scarlett saw in that wimpy Ashley Wilkes I will never know.)

I really loved TSN and my husband couldn't stand it. Well, he actually liked the movie but couldn't stand most of the characters. (Since I am attending college in my old age, I am much more understanding.)

Who was played by Leslie Howard, though not the pianist. I sometimes jokingly refer to the pianist as Ashley Wilkes, I'm not sure if anyone ever got the reference.

I guess I'll have to see this King's Speech when it comes out on DVD, but I don't have the slightest interest in the social network.