Antonio Salieri: The Patron Saint of Mediocrity.

Original Poster

Amadeus (1984)

Directed by Milos Forman
Written by Paul Shaffer
Cinematography by Miroslav Ondricek
Edited by Nena Danevic and Michael Chandler
Music conducted and supervised by Neville Marriner
Starring F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce and Elizabeth Berridge


Originally released September 19th, 1984.


     I remember being unenthused when my dad first pitched Amadeus to me as an option for an evening movie. I was around 8 or 9, so the prospect of sitting watching a bunch dudes in powdered wigs toss their arms around passionately in front of other dudes in powdered wigs for 3 hours was not particularly appealing. But I abandoned my reservations and my parents and the cats and I gathered around the soft glow of the flat screen to embark on this cinematic expedition. I of course had heard plenty of Mozart in my life. His work is some of most enduring and pervasive in the history of musical composition. But this film, from it's very first frame, invites the viewer to rethink what they originally assumed about the man and the music. It's a grand, sprawling story of love, betrayal, redemption and how to play a piano upside down at a party. It's important to mention that most of the story is fictional. And it's difficult to say with certainty what Mozart and his contemporaries were really like, but the key elements of truth are there. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was an artistic visionary who partied mighty hardy and had not a single fuck to give about what the world thought of him. Hell yeah. This film shows us that Mozart, and does it in an exceptional way.

uoyevolitub! That's Elizabeth Berridge lookin' like a snack.

     The film opens with an old man proclaiming his guilt of the murder of W.A.M. as he attempts to commit suicide. Thirty years after Mozart's death, this character is institutionalized in the wake of this attempt and claim. When visited by a priest in the asylum, we learn that the old man is Antonio Salieri, a prominent classical composer who spent a portion of his career as the official court composer for the Emperor of Austria Joseph II (who reigned from 1764-1790). This period overlapped with Mozart's move to Vienna, where the Emperor met him and commissioned several works from him. When the visiting priest asks Salieri for his confession, Salieri begins to tell him of his experience with Mozart and the film primarily depicts flashbacks spurred by narration from this point on. The story examines Mozart's life and work through the lens of a bitter, envious, obsessive and none the less adoring contemporary composer in the form of Salieri. While many details are historically accurate, as I said before, a lot of the story is fictionalized. So if you're setting out to watch this for the first time, keep that in mind.

Tom Hulce as Mozart, making a face that
 sums up this character pretty perfectly.

      I'm a really, really big fan of Mozart (I'm listening to Symphony No. 18 right now!), and while I know it isn't true, I like to believe that he was as hot (and American) as Tom Hulce is playing him. The W.A.M. depicted in this film is irreverent, childish, impossibly outgoing, immature, irresponsible and self-absorbed. He's also one sexy fucking bad boy, baby! Maybe it's Hulce's boyish charm, maybe it's the 80's inspired powdered wigs, maybe it's the image of a man in tights. I don't know. Maybe it's a combination. It's a mystery left for the universe. What I do know is that Hulce delivers one hell of a performance. The Oscar nomination for best actor was well deserved. He strikes just the right tone throughout the film. He fully embraces the outrageous nature of the character publicly, but doesn't deny him the opportunity to be vulnerable in private. He also slays the shift in Mozart's character after the death of his father. For the fist time we see him conducting a performance (specifically Don Giovanni) showing the physical and emotional effort it takes. In most previous performance scenes, he looks like a dog with two very talented tails. We are also treated to the delightful and similarly complex performance that F. Murray Abraham delivers as Antonio Salieri. In a rare occurrence, both Hulce and Abraham were nominated for an Oscar in the same category for the same film. And Abraham won. For good reason. He spends about a third of the film in makeup (which is also exceptional) portraying Salieri as an old man. Seeing his performance jump back and forth through a 30 year period emphasizes his range and dexterity. While the two depictions of the character have the same key features, the perspective of that old Salieri brings to the story he's sharing is beautifully portrayed. It's that gained perspective that makes makes his young self easier to empathize with. Old Salieri is funny, honest and introspective. Young Salieri is a prick, but one we can understand. And that complexity of character would not be possible without an outstanding performance from Abraham. Also a quick shout out to Elizabeth Berridge, who plays Mozart's wife Constanze. As the most consistently tread on victim in this story (one of the only female characters is a victim?!?!?! HowWwwW?), she manages to still appear resilient and self-possessed. Oh fuck! A very young Cynthia Nixon (Miranda on Sex and the City) is also excellent in a bit part. Everyone in this is outstanding and I don't have time to talk about all of them, ok?! Just watch the damn movie.


   

Milos Forman (right) showing Tom Hulce (left) how to do The Hustle.

     There is so much technical merit in this film that I could write a hundred reviews and not cover it all, so I'll just choose one of the more obvious, and frankly, impressive film making devices on display here. This movie absolutely crushes the transition. It redefines both narration and flashback as story telling tropes by depicting both in such a beautifully functional way. It is a perfect marriage between editor and screenwriter. I usually find myself in the camp that believes narration is to screenwriting what the Segway is to walking. It's often just lazy; an opportunity for exposition without having to rely on the audience to do any work at all. But used correctly, it can be an artful addition to storytelling. For instance, it offers so many 'edit answers the question' moments to an editor. A narrator makes a vague or misleading statement and the audience, who've been trained by a lifetime of movie watching, asks a question of the film that can be answered visually of audibly in the edit. This is especially effective if you have two connected yet separate narratives going at the same time. Now you've involved the viewer in the process and given them the satisfaction of finding answers. There are so many examples of this in Amadeus. Every narrative jump between Salieri's story and the flashbacks to what he's discussing are seamless, smart and elegant. In some cases, they're funny. In others, they're jarring. There's one transition where the sound of crumpling paper at the end of one scene carries over into a shot of a heard of deer being startled and dashing off, bringing us so gracefully into the next scene. They also play beautifully with the idea of diegetic and non diegetic sound. Generally, this refers to music or sound that originates from the physical world the film is taking place in (that being diegetic) or music or sound that is happening outside that world of the benefit of the viewer (non diegetic). In Amadeus, there are scenes where you think music is non diegetic, but it's revealed that the music we've been hearing is happening in a characters head, so is in fact diegetic. There's a scene where Mozart is composing late at night and we're hearing what he's writing. We're meant to assume that's happening for our benefit alone, but when Constanze interrupts him and he looks up from the page, the music stops. The music in this scene is used to illustrate just how ingenious Mozart is. The music simply springs from his mind fully formed. And what a subtle and smart way to tell the audience this without having to say it. This film truly uses every inch of cinema it could get it's hands on. 

F. Murray Abraham (right) and Christine Ebersole (left).

As my 8 or 9 year old self first amused upon hearing Amadeus described, it doesn't sound like it would be all that compelling. How do make a movie about a big nerd who writes classical music for a living seem compelling (just so you can see how the film makers wanted to persuade you, here is the original trailer)? It may seem like a tall order, but here is a thing I try to remember about film when a plot or topic is being described to me. Film is ultimately, above everything else, storytelling. And a good storyteller can make anything compelling. Anything. That's the task. And boy does this film deliver on that task. It is as riveting as any action movie and as heartbreaking as any romance. And the reasons for this go beyond just good storytelling. There is a natural kinship between film and music generally, but even more so between film and classical music. For film to be effective as North American audiences (and increasingly, global ones too) have come it expect, it must operate in a ridged structure. There's plenty of variations on that structure, and many films that deviate from it become widely known and popular. But for the most part, in order to be widely understood and subsequently successful, a movie needs to follow a fairly strict set of structural guidelines. The necessity of following a structure is even more true for traditional classical music. For every format that a piece is written in, there are hundreds of rules that differ from all other formats. And of course sometimes those rules are broken, but then it becomes something else. And that's how traditional European music began to evolve. But for our purposes, we're talking about someone who never broke the rules. Mozart took existing structures and improved upon them by working magically within them. He bent the rules, but never broke them. And I think that's what makes a really great film maker. Building upon a form your audience is already familiar with and changing how they think about that form is a greater and more difficult to achieve triumph than just breaking the mold entirely and doing whatever the fuck you want. In the end, it makes sense that this film is compelling. The structure it's depicting mirrors the structure it's depicted in.

This looks cool for sure, but it's a
damn inconvenient way to write...

     Amadeus is an exceptionally written serious, fun and meaningful film experience that is amazing to look at. The costumes and set design are perfect. The performances are career defining. And the music is nothing short of magic (obviously). For a story about a bunch of old, white, probably racist, definitely smelly rich dudes, I can not sing it's praises thoroughly enough. If I was to criticize it at all, it's maybe a little too long. But I think any movie that I can't watch without having to make several trips to the bathroom during is too long, so that's not saying much. This is truly one for the god damn books, baby.

Ok, just one more pic:

Look at that cute baby! He's so good at his job!

***


     Oh my god. I'm so sorry this was so late everyone. Christ. I'm not exaggerating when I say I could write a hundred reviews and never say all I want to about this fucking masterpiece. I  honestly didn't realize I'd have so much to agonize over. I chose this one this week because of the directors passing last week. Milos Forman was 89 and had some astounding credits to his name. This was just my favorite of the bunch. If you're going to go watch it for the first time now, or re-watch it for the first time in a long time, keep an eye of Salieri's thing for food and how consistently that's woven into the narrative. It's amazing. Fuck. What a good fucking movie. Please watch it!

That's all for now folks. Until next week. Check out Capella Istropolitana's album 'The Very Best of Mozart'. You won't regret it. Auf Wiedersehen!