American Rock Star in 18th-Century Vienna: A Review of “Amadeus”

I have watched this award-winning 1984 film several times now, and each time I watch it I hope that I will find a way to love it. I have decided that I will make no more attempts as this most recent viewing has finally brought to light the reason I cannot completely connect with Amadeus. I admit that this “discovery” is not really a discovery at all; rather it is a rationalization that affirms my first impression of the film when I saw it in 1984.

 Amadeus is the story of Viennese court composer Antonio Salieri, a man of middling talent who has received excessive praise from the emperor, perhaps as much the result of his ability to curry noble favour as of the quality of his musical compositions. Along comes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a man whose infantile behaviour marks him as a cretin but whose musical genius is nothing less than a divine gift. Mozart is unable to conceal his contempt for Salieri’s music, setting the court composer on a mission to destroy his rival.

Salieri conceives a plan to trick Mozart into composing a great requiem mass – a mass for the dead – which will be sung at Mozart’s funeral, after Salieri has brought about the composer’s death, and which Salieri will claim as his own composition. His plan fails as Mozart dies of natural causes; but “Wolfie’s” music lives on, and Salieri, consigned to the purgatory of musical has-beens, goes mad. The entire story is told to a hapless priest from Salieri’s cell in the asylum 32 years after the death of Mozart. To the priest he says, “Your merciful God: He destroyed his own beloved rather than let a mediocrity share in the smallest part of His glory. He killed Mozart and kept me alive to torture – 32 years of torture, 32 years of watching myself slowly become extinct.”

There is so much that is great about this movie. The music, the sets, the costumes, the staging of the operas are exquisite and captivating from beginning to end. Peter Schaffer’s’ screenplay is witty and intelligent and at times profound. And under the direction of Milos Forman, the story holds us entranced as it unfolds, revealing much about the characters, about eighteenth-century Viennese society and its musical life, and about the life and music of Mozart. Fiction is cleverly interwoven with fact, resulting in a story that is both complete and satisfying.

 Then there is F. Murray Abraham, whose Salieri is obsequious, cunning, tortured with frustration at the limits of his own talent and with envy at the boundless genius of his rival, and at the same time in reverent awe of the great Mozart and the divine nature of his music. He is articulate and nuanced in his madness but we do not doubt that his torment has indeed driven him mad. Abraham is nothing less than merylstreepian in the role of Antonio Salieri.

 The problem with Amadeus, for me, is that the portrayal of Mozart lacks a sense of authenticity. I understand that the character of the great composer was discerned from his letters, so the image created for the film, of a childish, profligate genius, is undoubtedly accurate. Nevertheless, the casting of the American actor Tom Hulce in the role of the composer results in pushing the character of Mozart beyond the edge of credibility; in other words, he is simply too American to be believable. I cannot help but feel that I am watching a spoiled rock star acting out his infantile fantasies in the latter decades of the twentieth century. True enough, as the film progresses we see a more intense and a more sympathetic Mozart, but the early scenes have already crystallized this puerile image and I simply cannot believe in Hulce’s Mozart.

 I recall seeing this film at the Bay Theatre in the West End of Vancouver when it came out in 1984 and being horrified by the portrayal of Mozart as a buffoon; all my illusions about this towering figure of classical music were shaken in those first few scenes of the movie. The friend with whom I attended the film, a jazz musician, was unable to sit through the whole showing; he went out for a smoke and did not return.

Perhaps this review can be taken as evidence that I have never recovered from that shock.

Image Credit

Wikipedia Amadeus Poster

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