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Amadeus-Accuracy of the Film The film Amadeus that was based on the play of the same name by Peter Shaffer has some wonderful moments unmatched anywhere else on film. However, there are some things to keep in mind while you are watching this film. First, while the characters are two actual musical figures-Mozart and Salieri-Amadeus is a work of fiction. In spite of its title, the film is more about Antonio Salieri-and really more still about the elusive gift of creativity, a gift that seems to cause us to reminisce and fuss over long dead historical figures who may or may not have been well-liked in their own times (including some who might have favored to remain dead and forgotten). Unfortunately, this story is presented with such authority and such power that many people swallow it as gospel truth. Cinema is a powerful medium, but there are two different elements here: the story and the story telling are seperate entities.
Simply because a story is told convincingly, that has absolutely no bearing on whether it is based on fact. Some things to keep in mind: Salieri did not attempt to murder Mozart. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support this argument. Shortly before he died, Salieri did mutter something to that effect, but he was most likely suffering from a severe case of Alzheimer's Disease. To the contrary, there is real evidence that he really did help Mozart just before his death. The idea that Mozart was murdered is pretty much an idea cooked up by dramatists much later to further romanticize the tragic early death of someone as talented as Mozart.
Shaffer's stage play (on which the movie is based) much more clearly articulates his argument that Salieri knew he would never be one of the 'immortals' -- he knew Mozart was one who would be remembered throughout human history; therefore, Salieri planted the idea in the minds of historians that he had killed Mozart, forever linking their names and ensuring that he would also be remembered. Unfortunately, too many people who have seen the film miss this point. Salieri's relationship with Mozart is greatly overblown. There is little evidence to suggest that their acquaintance was more than a casual one for most of their lives. There is evidence that suggests that Salieri tried to derail some of Mozart's success, but that seems to have been common practice among opera composers jealous of each other's successes. The personal relationships of nearly all of the characters in the film are loosely based on fact -- very loosely based.
Salieri was not as bad of a composer as the film portrays him to be. He was quite talented -- not in a class with Mozart, but very popular and appreciated in his own time. Posterity has not been kind to his memory, something that happens all too frequently in our quest to find tragic heroes in posterity. The film portrays Salieri as having taken a self-declared vow of chastity to focus on his music. The real Salieri was married. Was Salieri really worried about his place in history?
Not likely. One of his pupils was Franz List. And in addition, if Salieri wanted his name to be linked to someone who would be remembered throughout history, he need not have worried. Another of his pupils and musical associates will probably be remembered longer than Mozart -- Ludwig van Beethoven, a man who single-handedly changed music history. Mozart was not the Classical version of Sid Vicious that the film portrays him to be.
True, Mozart was known to be very earthy at times, he enjoyed life and a number of vices, but this is also the man whose music portrays an angelic purity that seems out of place being written by a simple mortal. Listen to his music. Profundity like that does not come from a character whose highest intellectual and spiritual pursuits are found in playing obscene word games. In defense of Shaffer's liberties, Mozart was a highly complex character -- as we all are -- and it would be impossible to work an accurate and fair character study into two and a half hours of a film.
Besides, the film has much more ground to cover than a simple character study. Amadeus probes universal, profound, sometimes disturbing themes that transcend the personalities of both Mozart and Salieri. It is a play of ideas, in which Shaffer touches upon aspects of psychology, sociology, theology, and musicology, all of which are integrated into the Mozart-Salieri conflict. These various elements interact with each other in every speech, scene, and dialogue of both the play and the film to create a "combined aesthetic and metaphysical conundrum" (Gianakaris 1985, 89) around the eternal mystery of genius.
In the following part, I will describe the various issues and conflicts dealt with in Amadeus, as well as changes in emphasis resulting from the film adaptation. Amadeus reconstructs personages, events, as well as the spirit of the late 18 th century. Although its underlying themes are universal, it is not a parallel to contemporary events. Moreover, the action covers a period of more than thirty years. Historical dramas often depict "an age when two cultures are in conflict, one dying and the other being born" (Thrall and Hibbard, 223).
From this point of view, the play can be classified as a historical drama. Yet, Amadeus is not an objective representation of history. Shaffer merely uses historical personalities, places, and events, in order to depict a psychological situation that can arise in any century, as, in fact, it does in his other plays. Therefore, he does not stick slavishly to the acknowledged facts about Mozart, although he claims to have spent three years reading all of the available literature on the composer's life. On the contrary, he reserves the right to "the grand licence of the storyteller to embellish his tale with fictional ornament" (Shaffer 1993, 110), and he describes Amadeus as "a fantasia on events in Mozart's life" (Gianakaris 1985, 90). Like many playwrights before him, Shaffer used historical figures for dramatic purposes.
Despite this, he "rarely chose to exert his poetic license on the material and tried to maintain historical accuracy" (Plunka, 179). The emphasis in Amadeus lies on the "interior characterization, and on the motives, circumstances, and internal action" (Thrall and Hibbard, 386) of the characters. The drama starts with the confession of a murder and then "goes on to explain the why and the wherefore of this action" (Thrall and Hibbard, 386). This focus on the interior activity of the characters is typical of psychological plays and films. In Amadeus, the psychological elements are presented in a psychoanalytic manner regarding the portrayal of Salieri and the development of his mental condition. Although the title suggests Mozart to be the protagonist, it is really Salieri and not Mozart who occupies the centre of the stage and whose mind we are invited to enter.
The dramatic situation is that of a deathbed confession. At the same time, it resembles a psychoanalytic session in which the narrator is the patient and the audience takes over the role of the analyst. Shaffer has already applied the same device in his other plays (such as The Royal Hunt of the Sun or Equus), as it enables him to control the dramatic pace and allows for flashbacks and interior monologues. Moreover, "his narrators control the prism through which the work is viewed" (Stern, 638); this allows him to manipulate the spectators' reception of the events on stage.
In the play, Salieri is the narrator who, at the same time, recounts his own story. He is at no time objective and we see the action on stage only through his eyes, often clouded with envy, hate, and pain. He starts with an invocation to the audience in which he begs the spectators to come and be his confessors (Play, 14). Then he begins to tell his tale in a manner resembling a patient's monologue to his analyst. At times he gets excited, and is then again distracted by such trivialities as cakes or his servants. The audience is subjected to something that appears to be a free flow of Salieri's consciousness, but his narration is only seemingly incoherent.
In reality, he is leading his listeners deep into his mind, so that they can experience his tragedy almost directly. Amadeus shows "two men of widely differing temperaments linked by a common spiritual bond" (Smith, 352). Throughout the plot, Salieri is shown to develop a love-hate relationship with his rival. Although he pretends only to despise the childish and obscene Mozart, there is a part of him that admires him for his independence. One example of this is Mozart's libertine behaviour: Salieri is enraged when Mozart seduces his prize pupil Katherina Cavalieri, but only because he regrets not having done it himself when he was given the opportunity. He feels cheated and the incident merely nourishes his hate.
One way of interpreting this relationship is to regard Mozart as the alter ego of Salieri, the personification of all the instincts and secret wishes that he had stifled in himself all his life, in short -- his id. This conflict between the id and the superego is carried out on several levels. For example, it is expressed in the clash between Salieri and Mozart: Salieri is shown as being strongly dominated by his superego, which manifests itself in his permanent and obsessive attempts to be in control of himself as well as of the situation around him. [... ] In contrast, Mozart is presented as being dominated much more by his id. (Huber and Zapf, 305) The only weakness that Salieri allows himself is a taste for sweets, which he positively devours throughout the play. His sweet tooth is obviously a compensation for his poor sex life.
While trying to seduce Constant, Salieri tells her: "I live on ink and sweetmeats. I never see women at all... " (Play, 52). In the play, he is married to a woman whose main quality is "lack of fire" (Play, 18), and freely admits that "[his] invention in love, as in art, has always been limited" (Play, 60). Nevertheless, he later breaks his vow of sexual virtue and makes Katherina Cavalieri his mistress. In the film, he is presented as strictly celibate, like a mad Satanist monk. There is also a conflict between Mozart and his father Leopold, a strong and domineering superego.
Since Mozart is shown as immature and irresponsible, he is never able to free himself from Leopold's overpowering influence and always remains the little boy who fears his severe father. In his immaturity, his irresponsibility and childish behaviour, as well as his sexual profligacy, Mozart represents the id. His father, on the other hand, is the controlling agent who looks after his son's interests, but demands subordination in return. In the end, both psychological conflicts end in disaster. Bibliography: Esslin, Martin. Review of Amadeus.
Plays and Players 27 (November 1979): 20. Faulstich, Werner. Einfuhrung in die Filmanalyse. Literatur im Grundstudium 1. 3 rd rev. ed. Tubingen: Narr, 1980.
Faulstich, Werner. Die Film interpretation. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988. Gianakaris, C.
J. "Drama into Film: The Shaffer Situation. " Modern Drama 28, No. 1 (1985): 83 - Klein, Dennis A. "Amadeus: The Third Part of Peter Shaffer's Dramatic Trilogy. " Modern. Plunka, Gene. A. Peter Shaffer: Roles, Rites, and Rituals in the Theatre. Rutherford, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1988. Shaffer, Peter. "Paying Homage to Mozart. " The New York Times Magazine, 2 September 1984: 22 - 23, 27, 35, 38.
Shaffer, Peter. "Postscript: The Play and the Film. " In his Amadeus. London: Penguin, 1993. Stern, Carol Simpson. "Shaffer, Peter (Levin). " Contemporary British Dramatists. Ed. K. A.
Werner. London: St. James Press, 1994. 636 - 641. Huber, Werner, and Hubert Zapf. "On the Structure of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus. " Modern Drama 27, No. 3 (1984): 299 - 313.
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