Amadeus :: Miloš Forman

“It is arguably the best motion picture ever made about the process of creation and the creator. Yet, of all the projects Forman has been involved with, none has striven for and achieved as much as “Amadeus“. No matter how many additional great movies he makes, he is unlikely to surpass this one. “

(James Berardinelli: Amadeus, ReelViews, 31st July 2003)

This biography about the ungovernable genius who was ruined by human ordinariness and envy was awarded eight Oscars. Milos Forman returned to socialist Czechoslovakia after a more than ten-year exile to shoot a movie about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s life as seen by his jealous rival Antonio Salieri. He made a unique historical epic, which doesn’t glorify a legend, but depicts a real man with his talent as well as his mistakes.

About the movie

“Forgive me Mozart, I killed you,” an old and terminally ill man whispers in the middle of the night. It is 1823, and the former composer at the Viennese court Antonio Salieri remembers his more talented rival, whose life was shortened by Salieri’s intrigues.

When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart showed up in Vienna in 1871, he was preceded by the story of a wonder boy. Forman introduces Mozart as a childish and arrogant young man of exceptional musical talent who dies in poverty and contempt only ten years later. With the same speed that he gains his fame and composes music without a simple correction of notes, he provokes scandals and causes nuisance. Wherever he goes he makes enemies, and then giggles at it all.

“I am only a vulgar man but I assure you, your Majesty, my music is not,” Mozart tells the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. “Why does God only speak through Mozart’s music and not mine? Where is justice in the world?” asks Salieri, a man who sacrificed everything for music and to the service of a court bandmaster, haunted by remorse at the end of his life.

Ultimately, Salieri feels that he is a martyr of God’s plot. Although Salieri served God devotedly, he remained just an ordinary musician--the divine inspiration spoke not through his but through his rival’s work. Salieri is full of both admiration and hatred for Mozart: but whereas Mozart’s music was to survive through the ages, Salieri’s music fell largely into oblivion.

Trivia

The shooting was under the control of the Czech State Security and communist authorities who received funding from American backers. “That was the only reason why we could shoot the movie in Prague,” Forman later said.
The budget of the movie was 18 million dollars. However, it made a 55 million dollar profit during the first month after the premiere, even though it was only shown in 100 cinemas.
In order to play the role of Mozart convincingly actor Tom Hulce practiced the piano for four hours a day,
Forman reconstructed the presentation of “Don Giovanni“ in the Count Nostitz Theatre in Prague. This was where the famous Mozart opera debuted on 29th October 1787 billed under its full name “Il dissoluto punito ossia il Don Giovanni” (“Punished Rake, or Don Giovanni”).
The author of the theatrical play and the screenwriter Peter Shaffer based Mozart’s biography on a legend which was spread by Puskin. According to this legend, a jealous Saliery made an attempt on Mozart’s life and poisoned him. However, in the movie the brilliant composer died of pneumonia, poverty, and exhaustion.
The mysterious man who came to see Mozart while he was ill to order the requiem was incorrectly portrayed in the movie as Salieri. In fact, it was Count Franz von Walsegg Stuppach.
Allegedly, at the beginning of the preparation the authors were thinking about Mick Jagger playing the role of Mozart.
The theatrical play “Amadeus” by Peter Shaffer debuted in London’s National Theater in 1979.

Milos Forman about the movie

“You know in communist countries they love to make movies about composers because composers don't talk, they make music so therefore they don't say anything subversive.”
“What works in the theatre where characters and decorations are parts of the play would be ridiculous on the screen, where, on the contrary, you have to capture the reality as precisely as you can.”

Making of

The Making of Amadeus

60min., color
Director and producer: Bill Jersey
A Quest Production
© 2002 The Saul Zaentz Company

Soundtrack

Amadeus: The Complete Original Soundtrack Recording

Music:	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Giuseppe Giordani, and Antonio Salieri
Performed:	Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields orchestra conducted by Sir Nevill Marriner
© 1991 Saul Zaentz Comp.

CD 1

Symphony No. 25 In G Minor, K. 183; 1st Movement
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields orchestra conducted by Sir Nevill Marriner