Amadeus

Amadeus

The happy are made happy by the happiness of others. The unhappy are infected with envy. They vote for Gore Vidal and David Merrick, both of whom said, “I do not succeed enough. Others must fail.” Milos Forman’s “Amadeus” is not about the genius of Mozart but about the jealousy of his rival Salieri, who was cursed to have the talent of a third rate composer but the ear of a first-rate music lover so that he knew how bad he was and how good Mozart was.

The most moving scene in the movie takes place at Mozart’s deathbed where the great composer, only 35 years old, dictates the final pages of his great “Requiem” to Salieri sitting at the foot of the bed with quill and manuscript dragging notes from Mozart’s fevered brain. This scene is moving not because Mozart is dying but because Salieri, his lifelong rival, is struggling to wrestle yet another masterpiece from a dying man who will illuminate how shabby salieri’s work is. Salieri hates Mozart but loves music more than him and can’t live without yet one more work that he can resent for its perfection. It is true that Salieri intends to claim authorship of this work too but that will be one more twist in it for such a man as him.

“Amadeus” (1984) swept the Academy Awards and won considerable popular success. When you consider that 98 percent of Americans never listen to classical music stations, it’s amazing that so many people bought into Mozart for awhile there and not just women whose talk show gurus assured them his music would boost their embryos’ IQs either; though let me tell ya something ladies: it don’t hurt! But I think part what helped make this film so successful was its approach towards portraying not an almighty being burdening us with greatness we can’t bear, but rather just another one those hippie dudes who was always tripping and giggling high-pitched and drank way too much even for back then plus had buxom wife liked chasing him on all fours.

It doesn’t dumb down Mozart; it’s a way of showing that real geniuses never take themselves seriously because their own work comes so naturally to them. Great writers (Nabokov, Dickens, Wodehouse) make it look like child’s play; almost great ones (Mann, Galsworthy, Wolfe) make it look like trying climb Mt Everest with bare hands. And not only in writing Shakespeare vs Shaw; Jordan vs Barkley; Picasso vs Rothko; Kennedy vs Nixon. Salieri could push himself and groan may come up tinkling jingles; Mozart was able compose with such joyfulness as if taking dictation from god this once Salieri complained about.

“Amadeus” was produced by independent movie mogul Saul Zaentz (“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” “The English Patient”), who brought Peter Shaffer’s play to the screen and enlisted playwright to adapt with director Milos Forman. You could see that Zaentz made a habit outtalk takin novels people thought impossible film due them bein too big ideas or niche markets etcetera n turned into movies anyways. As for Forman: Czech filmmaker flip off Russians then waltz over America but not exactly Hollywood where direct “Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975), “Hair” (1981) n finally “Ragtime” (1984).

The “Hair” is the key. He views Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as a spiritual sibling of the hippies who rebelled against tradition, clouded their minds with drugs and enjoyed lecturing their elders. In this movie everybody wears wigs, but Mozart’s (I observed in my original review) do not look like everybody else’s; they have just the faintest touch of punk, just the slightest tint of pink. There is something about Mozart’s Vienna apartment, especially toward the end, that suggests nothing so much as the pad of a newly rich rock musician: The rent is sky-high, the furniture is sparse and random, work is strewn everywhere, housekeeping has been neglected, there are empty bottles in the corners and the bed is the center of life.

The flower child Mozart tries to run his life by three older men and fails every time. His father Leopold (Roy Dotrice) trained the child prodigy to dazzle European courts with his talent now he stands back disapprovingly while his son makes a mess out of his adult years. His patron Emperor Joseph II (Jeffrey Jones) issues strict rules no ballet in operas! which he cannot enforce because he likes what he would forbid, God love him; and Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) poses as Mozart’s friend while scheming against him: sabotaging productions, blocking appointments.

The irony (especially for Salieri) is that Salieri himself is honored and praised while Mozart remains such a new-comer that nobody except Salieri knows how good he is. Even though he indulges him, emperor finds more fun in Mozart’s insolence than artistry. In Joseph II’s court foolery often conceals truth telling so it serves well for this purpose too.

Constanze (Elizabeth Berridge), who seems childish but also shows good business sense and alertness to betrayal gets along with her husband well enough. Mozart’s role in the court of Joseph II is as the fool, saying truth wrapped in giggles. Mozart’s wife Constanze (Elizabeth Berridge) appears to be a child she stays up too late, she calls him “Wolfie” but she has a good head for business and an eye for treachery.

The film is narrated by Salieri in flashbacks at the end of his life, where he is now locked up in insane asylum confessing to young priest about his crimes. He thinks maybe I killed Mozart but more likely it was some lethal mixture of tuberculosis and cirrhosis that killed him instead; however, whatever might have been true about physical causes behind his death one thing remains certain Salieri feels guilty because somehow or other he seems to have murdered not only person but also all artistic talent within this individual named Amadeus himself. Everything can be seen through eyes if you look close enough: The pain felt by an aging rival who dreads defeat; The willingness to lie and deceive shown by someone desperate not lose; And still there is no denying that boy’s music simply divine!

The movie was shot on location in Forman’s native Prague one among few European cities where 18th-century appearance has largely survived intact. It offers viewers visual treat of palaces, costumes, wigs, feasts, opening nights filled with champagne and mountains worth debt. Money never meant much to Mozart he never had any and did not care; but look at Salieri’s face when people laugh behind their hands after hearing some composition played by him then see what little comfort money brings even those who possess it!

In the age of DVD, “director’s cuts” are a blessing and a curse. Some seem inspired only by the desire to sell another video. Forman says his new version of “Amadeus,” which is 20 minutes longer than the original 1984 cut, is in fact the original: fearing that an historical biopic about Mozart would be tough sledding at the box office, Forman and Zaentz made trims for pragmatic reasons. To this they have now added.

The major addition to the film is a scene that shows more fully why Constanze has such contempt for Salieri. Salieri, the court composer, has in his gift a lucrative appointment that, he explains to the young bride, will be her husband’s if she will give Salieri her favors. Since there is little indication that Salieri has any great interest in women (or in anything else besides Mozart) this favor does not seem motivated by sexual desire but by a need to humiliate Mozart. Constanze, desperate to help her Wolfie, does indeed visit Salieri at his apartments; she bares her breasts and then has second thoughts.

In a big movie with big gestures there are some very subtle moments. Watch how Jeffrey Jones as the emperor balances his duty to look serious against his delight in Mozart’s impudence. Watch Jones’ face as he decides he may have been wrong to ban ballet from opera. And watch Abraham’s face as he internalizes envy resignation rage what a smile he puts on the face of his misery! Then watch again at Mozart’s deathbed as he takes down the Requiem: He knows how good it is; and he knows at that moment there is only one thing that he loves in this world more than himself and that thing is Mozart’s music.

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