Beethoven (1936) - Abel Gance 

Not sure if Sunday nights with Abel Gance is going to become a regular event, but at least two weeks in a row I've spent with the legendary filmmaker. Gance's freewheeling technique used so well in the silent era was a little handicapped here. However he is able to orchestrate a great deal of sophisticated sound mixing to be used as a psychological tool to illustrate the title character's decreasing hearing. Only when Beethoven's life "flashes before his eyes" do we really get a reminder of the innovative montage editing Gance helped to establish. The transfer (despite being on DVD) is abysmal however and could have benefited from much touching up. This carried on a career long fascination with historically significant figures, following on the relative success (artistically anyways) of Napoleon and Lucretia Borgia.