Amadeus

When I was in high school I fell in love with the prose of a popular fiction writer and it inspired me to become a writer myself. I loved the written word and was fascinated as this writer churned out huge novels two, sometimes three times a year. I would sit down for hours a day and come away from it with three or four pages of material that wasn’t awful but would never get me on the New York Times bestseller list either. This writer I idolized seemed to make bestsellers effortlessly and has continued to do so to this day. I loved his writing but I was crazy jealous of his talent, something that no matter how hard I tried I could never match.

Flash forward a few years to college. I’m in a drama class and part of my grade is attending the plays the university was putting on. I don’t recall all of the ones I saw that semester but I do remember one of them was a little period piece called Amadeus, an adaptation based on the original play by Peter Shaffer written in 1979. As the story played out I saw glimpses of me, the frustrated writer, in Salieri. He loved music and could see the genius in Mozart that he lacked and it made him hate the man. I never hated the man whose writings I adored so much but I could see how Salieri felt and understood it. This was a story I could identify with. It wasn’t until much later that I learned that most of this story is pure fiction. 

In 1984, Miloš Forman adapted the play into a feature film that garnered eleven Academy Award nominations, winning eight of them. This film retained the irreverence of the broadway play including its portrayal of Mozart as a prodigy with a penchant for childish profanity and potty humor, punctuated with his high pitched ululating laughter. Actor Tom Hulce brought the character of Mozart to life, painting a picture of a troubled individual, blessed with a genius in music that seemed to flow effortlessly from him yet would ultimately burn him out. 

His counterpoint, Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), jealous of Mozart’s genius and offended that God would give so much talent to such an offensive individual, uses his position in the palace of Vienna to bring down the young composer. As good as Hulce is, Abraham edges him out just barely. That jealousy is seething just below the surface and Abraham has to convey this while Mozart stays ignorant of this. A scene that was excised from the theatrical release and later restored in the director’s cut shows the depths that Salieri will stoop to sabotage Mozart. When Mozart’s wife, Constanze (Elizabeth Berridge), appears asking for help securing a post for the composer Salieri sees an opportunity. He tells her he will do what he can if she will return that evening and let him have his way with her. He is not really interested in her but believes she will refuse giving him an excuse to turn down the favor she asks for. But she does come back, intent on helping her husband even if it means debasing herself. Salieri, upset that his plan didn’t go the way he thought it would, sends her away angrily, waiting only until she has bared herself before calling his servant to come send her away. This simple scene, absent from the theatrical release, goes a long way towards explaining her utter disdain and hatred for him later in the film.  

Mozart was a genuine prodigy and the film doesn’t try to explain how this could be. Salieri puts this gift on God and, after trying to reconcile how someone as devout as himself should be upstaged in the gift of music by one as boorish and profane as Mozart, turns his back on God, throwing his crucifix into the fire and renouncing him. His prayers are hypocritical and self serving, crediting God for the death of his music hating father which paved the way for him to pursue his passion for song. The film is told from Salieri’s viewpoint, recited in flashback by the aged man after being sent to a psychiatric hospital for attempting suicide late in his life. To illustrate his frustrations over the inequalities in the talents bestowed on himself and Mozart he plays first a sample from one of his own compositions to Father Vogler, a priest, then one of Mozarts compositions. The father recognizes Mozart’s piece immediately though is unfamiliar with who composed it. Mozart’s music, Soliari suggests, is erasing from memory that of Soliari’s own.

Mozart is painted like a free spirit, unaware of how those around him perceive him. His high pitched giggles make those in his vicinity uneasy but he does so without a degree of self-consciousness. He is introduced chasing Constanze around and acting vulgar and childish. Like others of high station during this era he wears a powdered wig but his is tinted a little pink. Mozart’s vulgar display of impropriety shocks Salieri who sees Mozart as God using the man to make himself a mediocrity. When Salieri composes a song to honor the introduction of Mozart to Emperor Joseph II (Jeffrey Jones), Mozart instantly memorizes the music and plays it back perfectly before showing Salieri up by improving upon it. Mozart doesn’t do this to mock his fellow composer but the slight so offends Salieri that from that day forward he is secretly Mozart’s enemy. It’s a complicated relationship the two have and would be easier if Salieri hated everything about Mozart. But Salieri does have gifts in composing and can see in Mozart’s music the work of a true genius. He can hate the man but loves the music. 

Mozart’s descent into poverty, alcoholism coupled with his failures to secure employment thanks in large part to Salieri’s machinations, takes its toll on his health. Suffering from exhaustion and a determination to finish a final opera commissioned secretly by Salieri himself, Mozart is bedridden, unable to physically continue on. His wife has taken their child and left. All he has left is Salieri, still posing as his friend, who has come to help him finish inscribing the notes. Salieri’s excitement at getting the music straight from the source is palpable and genuine and he urges Mozart to push on even as the last of his stamina ebbs away. It proves to be the last thing Mozart ever does before dying. Mozart’s lifestyle of hard work mixed with excessive drinking and poor management has finally caught up to him.

Whether you are a fan of Mozart’s music, opera in general or just like a good story there is much to enjoy in this film, just don’t use it as a substitute for a lesson in history. Amadeus is credited for rejuvenating an interest in the real Salieri’s musical works, all of which had fallen into obscurity at the time. It also repopularize classical music in general for a whole new generation who had never tuned in to the classical station on their radio before. Mozart’s music still remains popular to this day inspiring classical music lovers and future parents playing his music to their babies in utero in hopes of creating their own baby geniuses.  Beyond the music, though, is a sad tale of a genius whose excesses coupled with an enemy in sheep’s clothing led to his ultimate demise. It is truly a tragedy made all the more poignant by the two leads who are so good here that it’s easy to forget that it is all pure fiction. 

 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Saul Zaentz (won)

Best Director: Miloš Forman (won)

Best Actor: F. Murray Abraham (won)

Best Actor: Tom Hulce

Best Adapted Screenplay: Peter Shaffer (won)

Best Art Direction: Patrizia von Brandenstein and Karel Černý (won)

Best Cinematography: Miroslav Ondříček 

Best Costume Design: Theodor Pištěk (won)

Best Film Editing: Nena Danevic and Michael Chandler

Best Makeup: Dick Smith and Paul LeBlanc (won)

Best Sound: Mark Berger, Tom Scott, Todd Boekelheide and Christopher Newman (won)

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Release Date: September 19, 1984

Running Time: 161 Minutes (180 minutes Director’s Cut)

Rated PG (Director’s Cut Rated R)

Starring: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Simon Callow, Roy Dotrice, Christine Ebersole, Jeffrey Jones and Charles Kay

Directed By: Miloš Forman