What does often-quoted Ludwig Van Beethoven represent in Ricorda ti che è un film comico?
Beethoven is an artist totally out of step with the musical desires of today’s youth. This anachronism suggests the complexity of the relationship with historical guardians, the past and the permanence of existential angst, in this case, Beethoven’s strength in the face of his deafness, making music without hearing it in spite of everything. A naïve but symbolic example of force that moves forward in the face of the impossible. At the time, it was called heroic courage; today we call it resilience. Take your pick.
So how exactly did you envisage the sound creation and music?
The work on image and work on sound are separated. We didn’t record sound during the shoot. The words were recorded before filming. The music works in opposition to the scholarly music of Beethoven. It was created by myself under the pseudonym GROUPEDEROCK, using basic digital tools to produce small, electronic pop pieces with a contemporary sound, sometimes rearranging well-known snatches of Beethoven.
Ricorda ti che è un film comico borrows its title from a Federico Fellini quote, “Remember, this is a comedy”. How did you approach this saying?
Fellini was depressed during the shooting of Otto e mezzo, he wrote this phrase on a sticking plaster stuck to the film camera as though to ward off the fear of making too dark a movie. Nonetheless, the film is a masterpiece that exudes existential angst. In a more conceptual way, the semantic aberration – remember, this is – underlines the chasm between performance art and film. This fits in with the movie’s twofold dimension.

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