Amadeus (1984)
directed by
written by
When I was at Baruch, probably in '86, two friends of mine were all excited that F. Murray Abraham was going to be speaking at the college. I sort of knew who he was, but I hadn't seen Amadeus, for which he had recently won the Oscar for best actor. Nonetheless, I went. He was fun, if I recall, discussing his decades as a struggling actor and his triumph.
When I finally saw Amadeus, not long later, I understood my friends' enthusiasm. Abraham is absolutely magnificent as Antonio Salieri, the patron saint of mediocrities.
Taken from the play of the same name by Peter Shaffer (and expanded here by Shaffer and Forman) and set largely in the palaces and opera houses of late 18th cent. Vienna, Amadeus is built from rumors that Salieri poisoned Mozart out of jealousy (a legend that Pushkin presented in his short play Mozart and Salieri). Driven by resentment over his ability to appreciate the genius of Mozart to a higher degree than perhaps any of their contemporaries, but not possessing genius of his own, Salieri took out his revenge on the universe and God by killing Mozart.
Amadeus is not a biography. The musical historians who took the film to task for twisting aspects of Salieri's and Mozart's lives and leaning into a nonsense theory miss the point of the film. Amadeus is a beautifully filmed and acted story of the struggle between the average and genius. Salieri must work hard to achieve success, which he does, composing amiable tunes that the public consumes readily enough but, it seems, with no great enthusiasm. Mozart, on the other hand, composes with eases, preparing whole scores in his head. His work is recognized at once as brilliant and is largely successful. Salieri has a more successful career and makes more money. The former is presented largely as the result of Salieri and the other Italian court composers conspiring against Mozart and the latter the outcome of Mozart's lavish and impetuous lifestyle. While there appears to be truth in these two points, there is no evidence Salieri hated Mozart to the point of murder.
The movie is called Amadeus, and Tom Hulce is tremendous navigating between the giddiness of playful Mozart and transcendentally gifted composer Mozart (he even learned how to play the pianoforte upside down like Mozart). Salieri, though, is the protagonist/antagonist of the story. I suspect the title reflects Salieri's impression of himself standing in the shadow of Mozart. He can't even get the play he narrates about his own machinations named after himself.
As Salieri, Abraham is flawless. When he watches Mozart replay and improvise on one of his own marches, hears Don Giovanni, and finally helping Mozart transcribe his requiem, his reactions are heartbreaking. He conveys astonishment and awe, and an almost desperate desire to approach Mozart's talent to such a degree it becomes painful.
Abraham and Hulce were nominated for best actor with Abraham winning. The rest of the competition that year was Jeff Bridges for Starman, Sam Waterston for The Killing Fields, and Albert Finney for Under the Volcano. Of those three, I think only the third one might have been competition, but it's been ages since I've seen that, so I can't really remember. Waterston is fine, but the power in that movie comes from Haing S. Ngor.
The initial reaction is to sympathize with Salieri. He is the man who has worked hard, done all the right things, made proper obeisance to all the right parties, and then an ill-mannered imp appears and instantly outshines him. It's only when he begins his campaign against Mozart, first speaking against his music or not recommending him for court appointments, then attempting to drive him mad, that he becomes a villain. Abraham again succeeds, not in making him sympathetic, but in presenting how jealousy twists and warps him. Of course, filled as it is with Mozart's music (Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Neville Marriner), it's easy to understand Salieri's envy. In this day and age, where no one is better than anyone else, a story about bloody-minded envy of someone vastly more talented hits home with an even greater resonance than it did nearly forty years ago.
The movie is beautiful. With Prague standing in for Vienna, superbly detailed costuming by Theodor Pištěk, and cinematography by Miroslav Ondříček, Forman seems to have recreated Salieri's and Mozart's time perfectly. There's a wonderful mix of opulence and, if not quite squalor, a grubbiness, that looks perfect. Twyla Tharp did a load of research in attempting to recreat the dance styles of the day, and Marriner ensured Mozart's music was performed unaltered. Simon Callow (who played Mozart first in the original stage production) as Emanuel Schikaneder and Jeffrey Jones as Joseph II (even if it maligns him unfairly at times), are both great. Elizabeth Berridge as Constanze Mozart is beautiful, but mostly relegated to suffering from her husband's inability to constrain himself.
VERDICT: Amadeus is a keeper. There's the original theatrical release and a longer, R-rated director's cut available on DVD. We have the original.
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| Jeffrey Jones, Tom Hulce, F.Murray Abraham, and Elizabeth Berridge |
