Amadeus (film)

• Release Date: 1984
• Director(s): Milos Forman
• Writer(s): Peter Shaffer
• Principal Actors and Roles: F. Murray Abraham (Antonio Salieri); Tom Hulce (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart); Elizabeth Berridge (Constanze Mozart); Roy Dotrice (Leopold Mozart); Christine Ebersole (Katerina Cavalieri); Jeffrey Jones (Emperor Joseph II)
• Book / Story Film Based On: Amadeus by Peter Shaffer

Amadeus, a 1984 movie based on a play of the same title, is an extraordinary examination of the nature of genius and the power of art—in this case, music. The title comes from the middle name of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the greatest composers of all time. But the film is not a biopic of this genius. It is rather a detailed examination of the agonized envy Mozart engendered in a competitive composer named Antonio Salieri.

Salieri was a court composer in Vienna at the time Mozart was scrambling for commissions. Not a top-tier composer himself, Salieri was nonetheless able to recognize true genius when he heard it. And he suffered greatly because he could see just how wide a gulf separated Mozart’s inspired talent and his own pedestrian talents.

Such is the basis for Peter Schaffer’s 1979 stage play, which Shaffer reworked and which director Miloš Forman adapted for the big screen. The two men succeeded magnificently. The film won forty of the fifty-three awards for which it was nominated worldwide, and it earned a substantial profit besides.

Plot

The movie opens in 1823. An aged Antonio Salieri attempts to slit his own throat in an effort to atone for his sin: He believes he had killed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1791, thirty-two years earlier. Salieri is locked in an insane asylum as a result of his suicide attempt, and it is here that a young priest hears the old man’s confession. The story is then told in flashback as Salieri confesses.

Salieri describes his own childhood and his abiding love for music, his devotion to God, and his pledge to remain celibate if only he can have a life in music. He describes his father’s sudden death as a miracle that enabled the young man to follow that dream. Salieri then describes his arrival in Vienna, the legendary City of Music, where, he says, God repaid his piety by giving him success as the court composer for the emperor.

Then Mozart enters the tale. Salieri is certain that Mozart’s genius is a gift from God, and he goes to a performance in hopes of meeting the talented young man. He is dismayed and appalled, however, to discover that Mozart is a vulgar, boorish rake.

Shortly thereafter, when Mozart is presented to the emperor, Salieri welcomes him with a piece called "March of Welcome," a musical composition that Salieri has toiled to create. After hearing the piece once, Mozart plays it perfectly from memory. He then brusquely criticizes Salieri’s work and adds a variation that transforms a pedestrian piece of music into a work of art that will later be featured in one of his operas, The Marriage of Figaro.

Salieri endures a crisis of faith. If God is speaking through Mozart, who is profane and petulant, then the lewd young man’s genius is a mockery of Salieri’s limited abilities. The counterpoint to Salieri’s spiritual difficulties is Mozart’s rising financial woes and the young man’s deep grief at the death of his father.

When Salieri realizes that Mozart is in financial trouble, he sees an opportunity to strike back. He plans to use Amadeus, which means "God’s beloved," as his weapon—against God. Wearing a mask like one he saw Mozart’s father wearing at a party, he commissions a requiem Mass from the younger composer, leading Mozart to falsely believe that he is writing a funeral piece for his father. Salieri’s plan is to cause Mozart’s death so that he can then claim credit for the Requiem in D Minor as a way of simultaneously snubbing God and gaining the admiration of the music world.

But while Mozart digs himself ever deeper into a financial and physical hole—his drinking is now out of control—he continues to try to complete the opera The Magic Flute even as he labors over the Requiem. His wife leaves him after a drunken argument, but he continues to work and drink.

Mozart collapses during a performance of The Magic Flute, and Salieri takes the composer home. There, Salieri prevails upon Mozart to keep working on the Requiem, with Mozart dictating as Salieri struggles to keep up with him and transcribe the music.

When Mozart’s wife returns before they finish, she locks up the manuscript and sends Salieri away. Then Mozart dies. The Requiem remains unfinished, and Salieri concludes that in order to avoid allowing him to experience even a tiny portion of Mozart’s genius, God killed the young composer. So his own actions, he believes, had led to Mozart’s death. Back in the present, Salieri declares himself the "patron saint of mediocrity" and dismisses the priest to the haunting sound of Mozart’s high-pitched, idiotic laughter.

Significance

Amadeus was considered a great film almost from the moment of its release. It was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won eight. Among its nominations were two Best Actor nods—for both F. Murray Abraham as Salieri and Tom Hulce as Mozart. In the end, Abraham won this award. The film also received Oscars as the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup, Best Sound, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

But the Oscars were only the beginning of the astonishing number of awards that were heaped upon the movie. It was nominated for six Golden Globes and won four, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Abraham, although Hulce was also nominated in the category), and Best Adapted Screenplay. Forman received the Directors Guild of America Award for the movie.

Overseas, the movie was nothing short of adored. It received nine British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) nominations and won for Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Makeup, and Best Sound. In Italy, it won three David di Donatello awards—for Best Director of a Foreign Film, Best Foreign Actor (to Tom Hulce this time), and Best Foreign Film. Also in Italy, Hulce and Forman both won Nastro d’Argento awards—for Best Actor and Best Director, respectively. In France, the film won a César Award as Best Foreign Film, and it likewise won both the Japan Academy Prize and Norway’s Amanda Award as the Best Foreign Language Film.

The movie is also number fifty-three on one of the American Film Institute’s (AFI) lists—in this case, "100 Years, 100 Movies." But perhaps the most powerful evidence of the film’s far-reaching impact has nothing to do with movies. The film’s soundtrack reached number fifty-six on Billboard magazine’s album charts. It was one of the most popular classical-music albums of all time.

Awards and nominations

Won

• Academy Award (1984) Best Art Direction
• Academy Award (1984) Best Makeup
• Academy Award (1984) Best Sound
• Golden Globe (1984) Best Actor
• Golden Globe (1984) Best Director
• Golden Globe (1984) Best Screenplay
• Academy Award (1984) Best Picture
• Academy Award (1984) Best Director: Milos Forman
• Academy Award (1984) Best Actor: F. Murray Abraham
• Academy Award (1984) Best Screenplay (Adapted): Peter Shaffer
• Academy Award (1984) Best Costume Design: Theodor Pistek
• Golden Globe (1984) Best Motion Picture (Drama)

Nominated

• Academy Award (1984) Best Cinematography
• Academy Award (1984) Best Film Editing
• Academy Award (1984) Best Actor: Tom Hulce

Bibliography

"Amadeus." IMDb. IMDb.com, Inc., n.d. Web. 3 Feb. 2016.

Bergan, Ronald. Eyewitness Companions: Film. New York: DK Adult, 2006. Print.

Ebert, Roger. Roger Ebert’s Four-Star Reviews 1967–2007. Riverside: Andrews McMeel, 2008. Print.

Morton, Ray. Amadeus: Music on Film. New York: Hal Leonard, 2011. Print.

Prince, Stephen. American Cinema of the 1980s: Themes and Variations. New Brunswick: Hal Leonard, 2011. Print.

Smith, Ian Haydn, and Steven Jay Schneider. 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Hauppauge: Barron’s, 2015. Print.