Director Seki Kazuaki of the film "Beethoven Fabrication" (currently in theaters), starring actor Yuki Yamada, recently made a triumphant return to his hometown of Nagano Prefecture to greet the audience.
The film is a live-action adaptation of Shiho Kagehara's historical non-fiction book "Beethoven Fabrication: A Great Producer Lies" (Kawade Bunko). Bakarhythm wrote the screenplay, focusing on the scandal surrounding the discovery that Schindler, Beethoven's secretary and posthumous biography author, significantly altered Beethoven's phrasebook after he lost his hearing. Yamada stars as Schindler, the faithful secretary whose sense of mission is to protect his idol, played by Arata Furuta, as he struggles to transform Beethoven, played by a "vulgar, filthy old man" (truth), into a "divine genius musician" (lie) after his death.
Welcomed with thunderous applause, Director Seki expressed his joy, saying, "I'm really happy that my work was screened in front of such a full house." This will be his second film to be released this year, following "Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist's Journey," and looking back on when he received the offer, he revealed his feelings, saying, "Kagehara Shiho's original work was quite thick and well worth reading, and very interesting, but at first I wondered how I was going to do it when it came to adapting a 19th century European story into a film with a Japanese director, Japanese screenwriter, and Japanese cast."
Bakarhythm revealed behind the scenes of the production, "The script was more or less complete when we first heard about it, but the initial script was much longer than the two hours we had planned, about 1.5 times as long, so it was difficult to condense it into two hours.In the phrasebook scene, Bakarhythm was adamant that instead of just writing in Japanese, he wanted to write it in German, and to reflect that, in the scene where Beethoven and Schindler communicate by writing, we used actual German from that time."
"If we were to do this in Japan, this is the casting we would choose," said Yamada and Furuta, who said the casting was just as they had imagined. "The salted squid ink fish that Furuta brought to the set was a big hit, and all the cast and staff had blackened teeth (laughs)."
This latest production recreates 19th century Vienna using cutting-edge virtual production technology. Beethoven's famous pieces are used extensively, and the large screen and excellent sound equipment allow viewers to enjoy the images and music to the fullest. "If you're going to see it a second time, I'd like you to check out the scenes where famous musicians appear at key points. We've also carefully selected each of Beethoven's pieces, such as 'this piece plays when this person appears' or 'this piece plays when you feel this emotion,'" he said.
In response to a question from the audience about "an episode with Fujisawa Suzuka of Mrs. Green Apple, who played the role of Chopin," Yamada replied, "It was my first acting experience, so I was very nervous, but Yamada helped me to relax during filming. Like me, she is from Nagano Prefecture, and as we share a bond as fellow Nagano natives, we sang the Nagano prefecture song, "Shinano no Kuni" together."
Finally, he sent a message saying, "I work away from Nagano, but when I come to Nagano and meet people from my hometown or people who are originally from Nagano, I feel a warmth, as if I were meeting relatives. I would be happy if you could tell your family and close friends that it was fun."
