The posters at the premiere contained the sub-title 'La Vie passionnée et glorieuse d'un génie' (which links with the quote from Hugo at the very end of the film).
Berlioz is shown as a recalcitrant medical student in an anatomy class dreaming of becoming a composer; at a demonstration during a performance at the Paris Opéra conducted by Habeneck; at supper with other young artists (Hugo, Janin, Dumas, Mérimée, Delacroix); and chasing after his future wife Harriet Smithson, after a performance of Hamlet.
Also depicted are his life in a garret, while suffering from an illness due to an abscess in the throat; a visit from his mother who curses him; and the composition of the Symphonie fantastique.
The film makes a vivid recreation of important public sites: a lecture theatre at the Faculty of Medicine, backstage at the Théâtre de l'Odéon, the Paris Opera, Montmartre lanes as well as salons and cafés.
[2] As well as the symphony, the music used in the film includes the Invitation to the Dance by Weber, Roméo et Juliette (during the scene where Berlioz and Smithson fall in love), a staged excerpt from the first act of Benvenuto Cellini, the Rákóczi March from La damnation de Faust and the Requiem.