An Analysis of Historical and Musical Elements in the Film "Amadeus" (Part I)

Amadeus (1984)

Amadeus, a film produced by director Milos Forman, is one of the most acclaimed films ever created in the 20th century. It was first released in 1984, with the director’s cut releasing in 2002 with additional twenty minutes. The film may not be the most popular film for the people of X-generation who may have been too young to come across such work, but it certainly boasted enormous popularity within the previous generations and had received numerous awards and acknowledgments. In 1985, the film went on to win eight Oscar awards, including Best Picture, Actor, Director, and Sound; in total, it won 41 awards and 14 nominations. As one can see from the impressive list of awards, the film has no reason to be not considered as the best film of all-time.

Before going any further, the writer must make a clarification to respect and give credit to the person responsible for the work’s originality. Amadeus is a re-created film adapted from the original play, written by Peter Shaffer, that enjoyed tremendous success prior to the film’s popularity with general public. First airing in 1979 at London’s Oliver Theatre, the play proceeded to open in American theatres the following year, capturing huge interest from the mass media and a string of awards, including five Tonys – one for best drama.[1] Famous cities around the world, such as Berlin, Paris, and Sydney, quickly picked up on the productions of Amadeus and soon led to the director Milos Forman signing to direct a film version of the play. As the play globetrotted around the countries, Shaffer not only allowed translations into various languages, but also continually revised the stage version with, in his words, “a nearly obsessive pursuit of clarity, structural order, and drama.”[2]After the film production was confirmed, Shaffer and Forman brainstormed together to create a work that can account for a larger and less-sophisticated audience. They came to consensus that they were not writing neither a documentary nor a biography of Mozart; rather, they are creating a story with “fictional ornament” that can “enthrall [Mozart’s] audience and emblazon his theme.”[3]

Due to its inevitable deviation from the historical truth, the film could not escape criticisms that entailed from the experts who carried strict standards in interpreting history. Amidst this controversy, one of the critics named Jane Perry-Camp from Florida State University released an essay “Amadeus and Authenticity,” in 1984. Within her essay, she claimed there were “lists upon lists” of factual errors and so-called falsity in the film Amadeus, asserting that historical mistakes and semi-mistakes are legion.[4] One can read her essay and almost immediately perceive that she was harshly critical in her review of the film. Primarily, she voiced concerns that the film would most likely have a negative cultural influence on the audience. Emphasizing that the film-makers are victimizing Mozart for commercial interests, she implied that the only “salvaging force in Amadeus [was] Mozart’s music.”[5] As if Perry-Camp was not harsh enough, Joseph Horowitz, a famous classical historian, went on to express that the work was ‘a gaudy pageant that was straight Hollywood’ and an ‘overdose of bathos and banality’ with a ‘smorgasbord’ soundtrack ‘in which all the food blandly intermingles on a single huge, sloppy platter.’[6] Criticizing from a different perspective, musicologist Simon P. Keefe pointed out a key feature from a movie that ran contrary to history. He claimed that:

“Salieri as harbinger of Romantic thought and imagery was at odds with late 18th-century contemporaries who appear in the film. His obsession with Mozart’s genius, for example, is not at all shared by the Emperor and Rosenberg, or by the Viennese audience, who apparently fail to appreciate it in Figaro and especially, judging by the empty seats in the auditorium and the feeble applause, in Don Giovanni. Romantic orientations bear witness, then, more to Salieri’s authorial input and to his perceptions of himself 30 to 40 years earlier than to historical and hermeneutic inconsistency on the part of Shaffer and Forman.”[7]

According to Keefe, the Romantic perception of Salieri was not coherent with the actual history and was, therefore, a form of misinterpretation by the film.

However, many others defended the film makers by claiming there was nothing wrong with distorting the history for the purpose of moviemaking. For example, Robert Marshall, a Mozart historian and the author of the book, Mozart Speaks: Views on Music, Musicians, and the World, made a critical remark indicating that “creative artists carry poetic licenses - license to kill factual truth when it stands in the way of poetic or dramatic truth.”[8] To support his argument, Marshall released essays defending the film’s historical elements that were different from the truth.

Within his essays, Marshall focused first on Mozart’s character that was portrayed in Amadeus. He noted that Mozart’s initial beginnings of life were filled with information; his father, Leopold, kept every record of him and every letter – over 1,200 of them. However, when Mozart became independent and left his father, documents became scarce. Some documents were even purposely destroyed by Constance, Mozart’s wife, who was not a fan of Leopold, and Mozart also did not care too much about keeping personal letters.[9] As a result, his adult years were filled with gaps and historians could only speculate about the most significant times of Mozart. The argument was that “when we do not have the facts about the life of great individuals, they are replaced with myths.”[10] According to Marshall, something was needed to explain what made Mozart so extraordinary and to account for the achievements and destinies of this godly figure. The mythology surrounding Mozart was also always changing and the one suggested by Shaffer and Forman was quite different from the Romantic period’s depiction of Mozart, which portrayed him as serene, harmonious, virtuous and worthy of respect and adulation, much like his music. The one created by the directors was an immature brat who was hotheaded and spoiled.[11] Even in the film, there is an iconic line by Mozart, where he admits his character and bluntly states to Emperor Joseph II, “I am a vulgar man! But I assure you, my music is not.” Because not much factual evidence was available regarding Mozart’s personality, it was the directors’ free will to create Mozart’s character in accordance with the plan for the film.

*continues on Part II