1984.160 minutes. Rated PG.
“Your merciful God. He destroyed His own beloved, rather than let a mediocrity share in the smallest part of His glory.”
Amadeus – AMLF
Amadeus is one of my all time favorite movies, which is why I have been hesitant to write about it–for years. If there is one thing the character portrayal of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart taught us, it is to enjoy the moments of life as a kid with great expectation and surprise. There has been some commentary written since the movie’s release, disputing details of the film, such as Mozart’s boisterous laugh, or the role Salieri played in precipitating Mozart’s death, or the complex relationship Amadeus had with his father. These details, while not debunked in their entirety, add a sense of mystery and wonder to the character, and a sense of drama to the film. While F. Murray Abraham (Salieri) won the Academy Award for best supporting actor, I could never figure out why Tom Hulce (Mozart) did not win the award for best actor. Whatever might be fact or fiction, it is clear that Milos Forman wanted to breathe a sense of robust fever into the life and character of Mozart. Quite frankly, because of the film, we can never look at Mozart the same way again.
I was always on the look-out for rebellious figures in the history of the arts; characters who occupied a place in a rarified profession and shook it to its core. And while there is a sense of delinquency in the voice and work of certain artists, the act of rebellion is sweetened with the taste of mastery inherent in the artist’s craft. Mozart surely occupies such a place, but with some reservation. It is this reservation that was created as a result of the movie. We all know the legend of Mozart obediently touring royal courts as a young child and playing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” for kings and queens. But most people were never able to hear his cackling laugh, bordering on the hysterical, or to characterize Mozart as a real human who laughed and cried and farted like all other men.
There is a portrayal early in the film where Salieri, nemesis and contemporary composer to Amadeus, sees Mozart for the first time, and realizes he is an accomplished child among men. Mozart is engaged in games with his girlfriend, and later wife, Constanze (Elizabeth Berridge). As Salieri waits to hear Mozart’s wind serenade, Mozart plays a game about farting, and spells out “But I love you” backwards (actually saying it backwards (“ouy evol I tub”), before spelling out “eat my shit” backwards). Salieri tries to come to grips with his own mediocrity in the face of what he perceives to be a petulant child in the youthful genius of Mozart’s demeanor, set against the refinement and grace of his music.
It is here that Salieri sets up a meeting with Mozart through Emperor Joseph of Vienna (Jeffrey Jones), patron to Mozart and friend to Salieri. Upon the initial meeting, Salieri is unintentionally slighted by Mozart’s brilliance. Salieri proclaims the music he wrote, a simple piano march to greet Mozart while he entered the court chambers of the Emperor, a gift for Mozart. Mozart declines a copy of the written music pointing to his head saying it is “right here in my head”. Salieri in disbelief says “show me.” Mozart recites (plays) the full march on the piano while improvising improvements. “This doesn’t quite work, does it”, he proclaims. This embarrasses Salieri, as Mozart invents flourishes that flash of the brilliance of his later full-scale operas.
This movie is not so much about the genius of Mozart (and how we define genius), but of creating so many character exchanges as the one just noted. The movie is a stream of character dialogue that helps the viewer create a series of great and complex characters. So much so that we can’t help feeling we know these people personally. Below the conflict that evolves between Salieri and Mozart is the troubled relationship that is characterized with Mozart’s father, Leopold (Roy Dotrice), also a fairly well known composer in Vienna. The revolt against his father helps to characterize Mozart’s other relationships, among the characters in his operas, and with Salieri and his wife. It is the staging of these varied relationships (characters) that Milos Forman cultivates the creation of one of the most robust personalities in the history of mankind.
We are drawn into the youthful greatness of Mozart, and at the same time as sympathizers for his disdain of the rigidity and calculus of the classical music genre, a music many know little about. And when Salieri begs God to guide him to great work, he grows impetuous that such a great God would give an ungrateful and unruly child such gifts. And that God would only give Salieri the power to recognize such gifts! is heresy to Salieri. While the director fleshes out Salieri’s struggle, the viewer understands a greater internal struggle: a struggle that takes place between man accepting his role as mediocre occupier, or grand doer. And almost everyone occupies the life of mediocrity. Such a struggle also begs a clarification of the complex relationship we all have with a higher power. While the movie is set in later eighteenth century Austria, the struggle to understand a higher power—that of creation (religion or music)—is a struggle that occupies our thoughts today (“There must be something more”). Must there be?
In the beginning of the film, Salieri is old and decrepit, and is being pushed in a wheelchair by a young priest. We later learn that the drama of Amadeus is the recounting of a life story told to the priest by Salieri. The priest is there to listen to Salieri recant. Salieri confesses that he killed Mozart. We realize at the end of the film, in tears listening to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, aka, “Elvira Madigan”, that Salieri did not really kill Mozart, but that mediocrity killed Mozart. An age that was not ready for Mozart killed him. A lack of understanding killed Mozart, as it kills all of us. As the final scene unfolds, Salieri is being wheeled away by the teary priest, relishing the rich story of a great, but misunderstood composer. Salieri, we realize, is in a halfway house of lepers and diseased men. “I absolve you! I absolve you! I absolve all of you! I absolve all mediocrity!” Salieri proclaims. “I will speak for all of you, as I speak for all of mediocrity!” Salieri absolves himself and becomes the patron saint for mediocrity, those who cannot understand and so vilify and destroy. This becomes a plea and a voice for every age and every culture.
Forman creates a masterpiece of a film. The costuming is sensational, the set design of the intricately detailed period costume and operas and most of all, the character portrayals that are just so complex and so rich. I am a lover of character films. As Mozart proclaims in the middle of the film in a plea to write one of his operas in German rather than the accepted Italian of the day, an opera about a harem, “German is the language of the people. This is an opera for the people. Who wouldn’t rather listen to their barber than talk about Hercules… people who sound so lofty as if they shit marble!” Mozart acknowledges his crude demeanor (“I am a vulgar man”) but proclaims, “My music is not. You pick the story and I will create the greatest music ever known to man.” And so he does, and did. And Forman has created one of the greatest masterpieces of the cinema, in my opinion. I am blessed with the ability to recognize greatness, even if I cannot create it.
