The Life and Loves of Beethoven

France's master of the silent epic and international cinema legend Abel Gance is most celebrated for this sweeping and pioneering biography masterpiece Napoleonand his anti-war classic J'accuse. But this touching and tortured document of the legendary Beethoven's creative genius deserves equal tribute and attention.
Like Napoleon, Beethoven is Gance's portrait of a great mind, a giant of history, here crafted as a Romantic vision of the artist. The film chronicles the years of Beethoven's greatest successes and his struggles against overwhelming adversity -- poverty, the onset of deafness and his unrequited passion for his "Immortal Beloved." (official distributor synopsis)