‘Painting with money’ is how Michael Winner described making films. And if the money runs out you can always turn your script into a novel. Ken Russell’s Beethoven Confidential was to have starred Anthony Hopkins in the title role with Glenda Jackson and Jodie Foster as a couple of swooning aristos eager to sponsor the fuming maestro. Quite how that Oscar-encrusted team ran out of backers is a mystery Russell doesn’t address. And his prose still bears the traces of its celluloid origins:
Chapter Two. Moonlight filtering through elegant windows hints at surroundings of great luxury. In silhouette, a pretty teenager is seated at the piano playing music that seems to be a manifestation of the atmosphere itself.
The effect is the opposite of a film. Instead of intimacy and fluency there’s a stilted fussiness as Russell gets all the details of his shot just right.
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