Saturday | December 14, 2019 7:00 pm

Amadeus

Screening on Film

Directed by Milos Forman.
With F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge.
US/France/Czechoslovakia/Italy , 1984, 35mm, color, 158 min.
Print source: Academy Film Archive

Its radical approach rendered nearly invisible due to its enormous popularity, Milos Forman’s much lauded adaptation of Peter Shaffer’s play embraces a particular kind of “realistic” revisionism to rework Mozart’s biography as a narrative doorway to his music. Using Shaffer’s theatrical stylization “as a springboard for another vision,” Forman disregards historical accuracy for a “fantasia on the theme of Mozart and Salieri.” Forman creates his own mythic, naturalist opera both situated within and transcending its own time and place through sumptuous and meticulous period set design paired with more contemporary language and behavior. Just as Mozart makes a case to Emperor Joseph II for setting the drama of common mortals in The Marriage of Figaro to the decadent otherworldiness of opera, Forman persuasively combines the ordinary with the extraordinary, the comic and the grotesque, the torment and tragedy, and all the natural and supernatural forces that seem to conspire when making great works of art. The central “gods”—Mozart the Boy Genius and Salieri, the seething “Patron Saint of Mediocrity”—are also empathetic outsiders with relatable neuroses. The preternaturally gifted Mozart can be kind of a punk: broke and living with his wife in a messy apartment, he drinks and parties and defies authority. He can also be unnervingly childish and arrogant. Meanwhile, the duplicitous, vengeful, outwardly subservient Salieri is also funny, sensitive and painfully self-aware. The entire cast of primarily unknown American and British character actors speak in their own accents and disappear into seemingly custom-tailored roles.

To recreate 18th century Vienna, Czech expat Forman was allowed to return to Prague with its streets and buildings—including the Tyl Theater in which Don Giovanni originally premiered—largely unaffected by modernity. Both the film and the operas within the film are lavishly staged and costumed—bathed in a delicate color palette that darkens and fades as psychic and physical distress take over the composer—and buttressed, above all, by the music. The film succeeded in not only introducing Mozart’s music to young audiences, but also conveying its complexity and emotional density—sometimes quite literally through Salieri’s angst-ridden, awe-struck commentary. In keeping with the enduring accessibility of Mozart’s compositions, Forman’s extravagant, successful experiment continues to defy age… and mediocrity. – Brittany Gravely

Amadeus introduction by Haden Guest and Brittany Gravely. Read transcript

Audio transcription

For more interviews and talks, visit the Harvard Film Archive Visiting Artists Collection page.

Haden Guest 0:00
I'd like to introduce someone who will be familiar to many of you, who are members of the Harvard Film Archive. It's Brittany Gravely, who is our designer, she designs our wonderful catalog, as well as our publicist, and this is one of her favorite films. And so I'm so pleased that she can say a few words about Amadeus. Please join me in welcoming Brittany Gravely. [APPLAUSE]

Brittany Gravely 0:25
Thanks. Thank you for coming out tonight to see Amadeus. Amadeus is one of these films that I have this completely different relationship to because of the formative part it played in my existence. I actually initially saw it on VHS in seventh grade English class. And it totally like blew me away and immediately knocked Raiders of the Lost Ark off my "best film ever," that coveted spot of best film of all time. It was such a rapturous emotional experience for me that I became completely obsessed with the movie and the music. And it's one of those adolescent obsessions that now seems just like embedded in my DNA. So it's hard for me to really see this film in any kind of critical or objective way. I'm sure a lot of you have that thing, that teenage thing or younger thing where it's just like, I just love it. And even if maybe there's things that I could criticize about it, I can't really see them. So this veil kind of makes it hard for me to tell if the film is genius or mediocrity. So necessarily, my introduction is going to be from this perspective of a teenager growing up in 1980s suburbia, and experiencing this world. At that point I don't know if I had ever seen artistic creation depicted so decadently and dramatically on screen. I related in part to Salieri because I would sweat and toil and want to be a really good student all the time. And I adored Mozart, the rebellious and genius partier who put his art above everything else. There might be some stereotyping of the artistic genius in this film, but I feel like it convincingly depicts that thrill and ecstasy of experiencing great art, which then mixes with envy and bitter angst when the appreciator is another artist. Some of the scenes verge on or actually seemed to embrace the kind of didacticism in illustrating these moments of inspiration of the artistic process, or more often the description of the layers within a piece of Mozart's music usually by his supposedly nemesis Salieri. It's no surprise that this film remains a hit in schools and it's successfully introduced the music of Mozart to many teenagers, not just me. I did love Mozart's music after this film. But as for Mozart himself, I actually got a little bored reading a biography about him. And I realized it was Milos Forman and Peter Shaffers' idea of Mozart that I really fell in love with and that obsessed me. And their idea of Salieri and this whole world, created on screen, which seems both stylized in this way and really naturalistic at the same time. I had never seen period pieces where the people ever looked messy, behaved awkwardly or took their wigs off. It wasn't until relatively recently that I realized everyone in the film uses their natural accent and most of them are American. It didn't occur to me as a kid, but now I see that the film was also the way the dialogue is spoken, it's in a contemporary way. So with lesser known character actors that just kind of like now, they just seem made for these roles. And most of the actors in this film are primarily known for this film, to this day. And I did read that the film was mostly shot in Prague, in buildings that were hardly changed from the 18th century, including the actual theater where Don Giovanni originally premiered. (And a side note - Milos Forman defected to America from Czechoslovakia and was allowed to go back just to shoot this film.) So I felt from the casting to the cinematography, to the editing, to the production design, everything seemed invisibly crafted. For me it was this really seductive recreation of a time and a place, physically and emotionally. When I think of the things that would make me swoon as a teenager, it's not usually the iconic scenes. Although all the Emperor's catchphrases were spoken frequently throughout my house over the years. But I think of the changing light in Wolfgang and Constanze's apartment, I think of the sweaty actors fresh from the stage half in costume, and the little side glances. The delicate palate of the film which fades with Mozart's declining sanity, and the masterful rhythm of F. Murray Abraham's dramatic narration. I was particularly struck by the beautiful sets, costumes, and staging of the operas within the film. I had never seen anything like it. I would sometimes watch parts of operas on PBS, but they always look so spare and uninteresting to me that they didn't really capture my imagination. And I always wished I could go inside this film and watch these operatic productions in their entirety. Even Salieri's.

As I'm sure most of you know, the Mozart-Salieri rivalry is a fabrication, but Forman was able to make a film about genius using actual music that people actually adore. That enabled him to craft a believable, engrossing drama around it. Not like the films that are supposed to be about great artists but then the the art or music that you make for the film is so underwhelming that it's hard to fathom why all the actors on screen are awestruck. For all the times I've seen the film, if you can believe it, this will be the first time I've seen the original release on 35 millimeter. Most the time I was watching it on television. Milos Forman released a director's cut several years ago, which you probably know, which to me ruined the drama, mystery and flow of the original. It removed certain poetic edits, fleshed out details that were better left unsaid, added unnecessary scenes and made Salieri much creepier and more evil, thus a less complex character than in the original film, so strangely, for such a popular film, this is actually a rare opportunity. So just out of curiosity, has anyone in here never seen it? Oh, good. All right. Well, everyone, enjoy. [APPLAUSE]

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