 Starring: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Roy Dotrice
Director: Milos Forman
Year Of Release: 1984
Plot: After trying to kill himself, Antonio Salieri is locked up in an insane asylum and recounts to a priest his enmity for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. As court composer, Salieri was the most celebrated creator of music in all of Austria. However upon the arrival of the prodigy Mozart, he realises that in comparison he’s a mediocrity. He feels this is desperately unfair, as he can’t understand why God would choose such a vulgar creature as his instrument, instead of a man who’s dedicated his life to goodness. However with Mozart having trouble with money and an attitude that alienates him from many people, Salieri begins to see the possibility for revenge. |
Amadeus is a wonderful movie and fascinating for many reasons. It’s one of the few films about music that really explains its power, rather than just having it as something in the background to listen to. It’s also a great example of why a biopic departing from historical fact doesn’t have to be a problem.
Although the basic facts are correct, much of the detail of Amadeus was made up by Peter Schaffer (originally for his play). It means that rather than the film just being about a single man, it turns it into a brilliant study of music and obsession. It’s also a rare example of a film that successfully deals with the unfairness of life. It’s often a tricky subject for film, because in normal movie narratives the good must be rewarded and the bad punished. However Amadeus deals with the fact that in the real world, that doesn’t always happen. Salieri may be the villain of the piece, but part of the reason the story is told through his eyes is that essentially he’s correct, and Mozart’s prodigious talent is unfair.
Until Mozart’s arrival Salieri has done everything right – not allowing himself to be tainted by the sins of the flesh, dedicating himself to God and working hard to create great music – and yet he quickly realises he will never be as good as the vulgar young Mozart, who by traditional standards is doing everything wrong – drinking, whoring, throwing his money away and being rude and petulant.
As we all know, natural talent isn’t allied to notions of fairness, and some people work immensely hard but will never be as good as the talented few for whom certain things seems to come naturally, whether it’s in music, acting, sport, intelligence, beauty or various other aspects of life. It’s frustrating and unfair, but it’s the way things are.
Few films have dealt with this fact of life successfully, simply because it’s not normally very entertaining to be told that life is a bitch. We may not approve of Salieri’s need for vengeance against Mozart, but it’s not tough to understand where he’s coming from. Most people with at least some artistic leaning will understand the peculiar mix of elation and depression that comes with discovering a truly great piece of art that seem to speak to your soul. It’s a combination of excitement and wonder at seeing or hearing it for the first time, tinged with the sad sensation that you know you’re unlikely to ever create anything as brilliant.
In fact Amadeus is one of those films that’s likely to cause that reaction the first time you watch it.
It’s also true that many of the people involved in making the movie have a Mozart-like tendency to be so good it’s sickening. Take director Milos Forman for a start. The Czech born helmer has only made 11 films in the last 40 years, and yet he’s won the Best Director Oscar twice – for Amadeus and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, as well as scoring a nomination for The People Vs. Larry Flynt. He also won the Best Director prize at Cannes for his first English language film, Taking Off. Forman is undoubtedly one of the best directors around, with the main shame being he takes so long to make each movie.
There’s also screenwriter Peter Schaffer, who adapted Amadeus from his own play. He won an Oscar for the film, to go with the Tony he got when the play premiered on Broadway (matching the one he won for Equus). Just to make the unfairness of why some people are talented and others aren’t seem even worse, Peter is also the twin brother of Anthony Schaffer, writer of Sleuth and the screenplay for The Wicker Man. The fact that there are twin brothers running around, both creating great pieces of art, is desperately unfair. You’d hope that to balance things out, at least one of them would be left bitter and depressed because they’re working in McDonalds and have no talent whatsoever (only kidding).
It’s also probably worth mentioning producer Saul Zaentz, who’s been nominated for three Oscars and won every single one of them (for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus and The English Patient). Just to make you a bit more jealous, he started out in the music biz, but decided he fancied trying his hand at movies. On his very first attempt he produced an absolute classic – One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Then in 1976 he had the good sense to strike a deal for the adaptation rights to The Lord Of The Rings, even though at the time most people thought it would be impossible to make a successful film out of Tolkien’s novels. Since then he’s made huge amounts of money from this deal, including tens of millions from Peter Jackson’s LOTR trilogy (although he had to sue to get some of the profits he felt New Line was withholding from him), even though he wasn’t involved at all in making the movies. Is that fair? Probably not.
And while we’re talking unfairness, you’d have thought that actors doing fantastic work in a film that’s as wonderful as Amadeus, would deserve a massive career boost from it. However F. Murray Abraham won a Best Actor Oscar as Salieri in Amadeus, but it made virtually no difference to the calibre of roles he got, and he’s still stuck in small character roles. Equally Tom Hulce was praised to the hilt for playing Mozart, but since then his most notable screen role has probably been as Quasimodo in Disney’s Hunchback Of Notre Dame.
Nope, life’s not fair, but it’s very rare for a movie to admit that.
Amadeus is a wonderful exploration of quite how frustrating it is that sometimes hard work isn’t enough, and how there will also be those people from whom talent seems to spew effortlessly – however sickening that is. It’s also quite peculiar that those involved in the making Amadeus are quite a good example of how unfair life can sometimes seem.
Of course, becoming like Salieri and getting insanely bitter about it isn’t a good plan. While some things in life may not be fair, we should at least be thankful that there are people out there who can create things as good as Amadeus, and we certainly shouldn’t begrudge those who are naturally talented (and who are probably working very hard to express that talent) After all, isn’t it a position we’d all like to be in?
TIM ISAAC
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