TODAY’S SCHEDULE AT AFI FESTIVAL
“BEETHOVEN’S NEPHEW”
(France/West Germany, 1985, 11:45 p.m. )
Leave it to Paul Morrissey to turn the great composer into “Uncle Dearest.” In Morrissey’s telling, Beethoven--a hot-tempered, tormented tyrant isolated by advancing deafness and syphilis--became obsessed with his nephew, whose passive resistance to his dictatorial uncle in turn inspired some of the composer’s greatest, most impassioned works. Morrissey creates an amusing camp pathos by casting a gifted classical actor (Wolfgang Reichmann) as Beethoven and a sullen non-actor (Dietmar Prinz) as the nephew, but the final, quite impressive effect is tragic rather than comic. Recommended--especially to Morrissey fans.
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