Amadeus

Dir: Miloš Forman

1984

*****

Peter Shaffer’s stage play Amadeus, a fictionalized biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, had been a roaring success, so it was only a matter of time before Hollywood would come a-knocking. In this respect they did got two vital components right, firstly Peter Shaffer himself adapted the screenplay, and secondly the great Miloš Forman was hired to direct. According to Milos Forman's autobiography, one studio offered to fund the film on the condition that Forman cast Walter Matthau (a reported Mozart enthusiast) for the role of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Forman refused the offer, considering Matthau to be too old for the role, since he was more than sixty, and Mozart only lived to be thirty-five. In his autobiography, Kenneth Branagh says that he was one of the finalists for the role of Mozart, but was dropped from consideration when Forman decided to make the film with an American cast. Mark Hamill, who replaced Tim Curry as Mozart towards the end of the run of the stage play on Broadway, read with many actresses auditioning for Mozart's wife Constanze and after the reads, Forman decided to not cast him because of his association with the character of Luke Skywalker, believing that the audience would not believe him as the composer. Many actors have been said to have auditioned or been considered, including David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Mel Gibson. Andrew Lloyd Webber once said that he was offered the role but turned it down but I don’t believe a word of it. As great as all those actors (and musicians) would have been, the role of Mozart went to Tom Hulce, the perfect actor for the job and it is now unthinkable to imagine anyone else in the role. Rather bizarrely, but I can totally see it, Hulce used tennis star John McEnroe's mood swings as a source of inspiration for his portrayal of Mozart's unpredictable genius. This was a film of two leading actors though, F. Murray Abraham providing one the greatest performances of all time as Antonio Salieri. F. Murray Abraham originally sought for the small role of Rosenberg. During one audition session, Milos Forman asked him to read for the part of the old Salieri. His reading was so good that Forman had already decided he wanted him for the lead role but deliberately stopped short of saying "you got the part" because he knew that casting him for that would clash with his work on Scarface, so he deliberately waited until he nearly completed all his scenes. A few days later, Forman asked Abraham to do the same reading for a few more audition sessions, but his refusal to do so eventually convinced Forman to cast him there and then. The story itself follows a fictional rivalry between Mozart and Italian composer Antonio Salieri at the court of Emperor Joseph II. The film begins with an elderly Antonio Salieri confessing to the murder of his former colleague, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and attempting to kill himself by slitting his own throat. Two servants take him to a mental asylum where a priest, Father Vogler, implores him to confess. Salieri recounts how, even in his youth, he desired to be a composer, much to the chagrin of his father. He prays to God that, if he will make Salieri a famous composer, he will in return promise his faithfulness. Soon after, his father dies, which Salieri takes as a sign that God has accepted his vow. He is educated in Vienna and becomes court composer to Emperor Joseph II. Mozart arrives in Vienna to perform at the request of his employer, the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. Salieri attends the performance to meet Mozart and, despite Mozart's obscenity and immaturity, finds his talent to be transcendent. The Emperor desires to commission Mozart to write an opera and, despite the reservations of his advisers, summons him to the palace. Mozart happily accepts the job, much to the annoyance of Salieri. Mozart premieres Die Entführung aus dem Serail to mixed reviews from the Emperor. Salieri suspects that Mozart has slept with the star, Caterina Cavalieri, despite his engagement to Constanze Weber. The Emperor desires that Mozart instruct his niece, Princess Elisabeth, in music, but Salieri discourages him from doing so. Constanze visits Salieri to persuade him to make the Emperor reconsider, but she is unsuccessful. Salieri is enraged that God has bestowed upon Mozart the talent he has so desperately desired and vows to destroy Mozart. Mozart, meanwhile, struggles to find work and begins drinking. His father, Leopold Mozart, comes to visit him in Vienna. Constanze and Mozart take Leopold to a masked party (which Salieri also attends), where Mozart entertains the guests with musical antics. Leopold disapproves of his son's hedonism, and the family argues until Leopold leaves town. Salieri hires a young girl to pose as the Mozarts' maid while spying for him. She takes him to the Mozart residence, where he discovers that Mozart is working on an opera based on the play The Marriage of Figaro, which the Emperor has forbidden. When Mozart is summoned to court to explain, he manages to convince the Emperor to allow his opera to premiere, despite Salieri and the advisers' attempts at sabotage. Messengers arrive in Vienna with news of Leopold's death, and in response a grief-stricken Mozart pens Don Giovanni. Salieri recognizes the dead commander as symbolic of Leopold and hatches a plan. Wearing Leopold's party mask, Salieri visits Mozart and commissions a Requiem Mass. Salieri plots to kill Mozart once the piece is finished, then premiere it at Mozart's funeral, claiming the work as his own. At a parody of one of Mozart's own operas, Emanuel Schikaneder asks Mozart to write an opera for his theater. Mozart, desperate for money, obliges, despite Constanze's insistence that he finish the Requiem Mass. The couple fight and Constanze leaves with their young son, Karl. Mozart collapses during a performance of his finished work, The Magic Flute. Salieri takes him home and offers his assistance on the Requiem. Salieri transcribes Mozart's verbal commands, and they work through the night. The next morning, a gravely ill Mozart apologizes to Salieri for his previous behavior. A guilty Constanze returns home and locks the unfinished Requiem away, only to find that Mozart has died from overwork. Mozart is taken out of the city and unceremoniously buried in a mass grave. Having finished his tale, Salieri asks how a merciful God could destroy his own beloved just to keep a mediocrity like Salieri from sharing in his glory. As he is pushed down the hall in a wheelchair, Salieri declares himself "the patron saint of mediocrities" and mockingly absolves the other patients of their own inadequacies. Mozart's high-pitched laugh is heard as the screen fades to black. That laugh is something else. It is probably the most famous film laugh, maybe next to Jack Nicholson’s in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest also directed by Foreman as it happens. It has been claimed that the concept for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's bizarre laugh was taken from "references in letters written about him by two women who met him", that describe him as laughing in "an infectious giddy" which sounds "like metal scraping glass". No citations have ever been provided for these letters, however. There is no indication as to who wrote them, to whom or when. And in the absence of further citations, these claims of historical evidence for Mozart's laugh should be regarded as dubious at best. There is no contemporary testimony at all as to how Mozart sounded when he laughed. Indeed, Tom Hulce created the giggle after Milos Forman asked him to come up with "something extreme." "I've never been able to make that sound except in front of a camera," Hulce later said. "When we did the looping nine months later, I couldn't find the laugh. I had to raid the producer's private bar and have a shot of whiskey to jar myself into it." The film is about as perfect as you can get, for the direction, the performances, the script, the set-pieces and the costumes. All perfect. Filming wasn’t all plain sailing however. During filming in 1983, Czechoslovakia was under Communist rule. The production team was often followed around by the secret police. Milos Forman and the cast spoke about their fears that a Fourth of July prank (the unfurling of the American flag in the concert hall and the singing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" by the large cast and crew) would lead to their arrests for inciting rebellion. Many suspected that their hotel rooms had been bugged during the six months they spent filming the movie. Forman, who was considered a traitor for becoming an American citizen and not returning to the Soviet-controlled area, had previously had one of his movies banned in the country (then called the Czech Socialist Republic). There is a rumour that Forman had to sign an agreement that he would go to his hotel every night for the year that he was there and that his driver would be his best friend. If anything untoward happened during filming, Forman’s driver/best friend would most likely disappear. I have no idea whether this is true or not but I would say any risk was worth the end result. It’s a stunning film and is quite rightly considered one of the greatest ever made.