Amadeus (film)

Amadeus is a 1984 American period biographical drama film directed by Miloš Forman and adapted by Peter Shaffer from his 1979 stage play Amadeus. The story is set in Vienna, Austria during the latter half of the 18th century, and is a fictionalized biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, described by its writer as "fantasia on the theme of Mozart and Salieri". Mozart's music is heard extensively in the soundtrack of the film. The film follows a fictional rivalry between Mozart and Italian composer Antonio Salieri at the court of Emperor Joseph II. The film stars F. Murray Abraham as Salieri (who received the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance) and Tom Hulce as Mozart (who was also nominated for the same award as Abraham).

Amadeus
Theatrical release poster by Peter Sís
Directed byMiloš Forman
Produced bySaul Zaentz
Screenplay byPeter Shaffer
Based onAmadeus
by Peter Shaffer
Starring
CinematographyMiroslav Ondříček
Edited by
Production
company
The Saul Zaentz Company
Distributed byOrion Pictures
Release date
  • September 6, 1984 (1984-09-06) (Los Angeles)
  • September 19, 1984 (1984-09-19) (United States)
Running time
161 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$18 million[2]
Box office$90 million[3]

Amadeus was released by Orion Pictures on September 19, 1984, thirteen days following its world premiere in Los Angeles on September 6, 1984. Upon release, the film received widespread acclaim and was a box office hit by grossing over $90 million.

Considered one of the best films of all time, Amadeus was nominated for 53 awards and received 40, including eight Academy Awards (as well as the Academy Award for Best Picture), four BAFTA Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and a Directors Guild of America award. As of 2020, it is the most recent film to have more than one nomination in the Academy Award for Best Actor category. In 1998, the American Film Institute ranked it 53rd on its 100 Years... 100 Movies list. In 2019, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4]

Plot

In the winter of 1823, Antonio Salieri is committed to a psychiatric hospital following an unsuccessful suicide attempt, during which he loudly confesses to murdering Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The young priest Father Volger approaches Salieri for elaboration on Salieri's confession. Salieri recounts how, even in his youth in the 1760s, 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. By 1774, Salieri becomes court composer to Emperor Joseph II in Vienna. Seven years later, at a reception in honor of Mozart's patron, the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, Salieri is shocked to discover that the transcendentally talented Mozart is obscene and immature. Salieri, a devout Catholic, cannot fathom why God would endow such a great gift to Mozart instead of him, and concludes that God is using Mozart's talent to mock Salieri's mediocrity. Salieri renounces God and vows to take revenge on Him by destroying Mozart.

While Mozart's alcoholism deteriorates his health, marriage and reputation at court, his music remains excellent. Salieri hires a young girl to pose as the Mozarts' maid while spying for him, and 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. When Mozart is informed that his father has died, he pens Don Giovanni in his grief. Salieri recognizes the dead commander in the opera as symbolic of Mozart's father and concocts a scheme; he leads Mozart to believe that his father has risen to commission a Requiem, planning to kill Mozart once the piece is finished and premiere it at Mozart's funeral, claiming the work as his own. Meanwhile, Mozart's friend Emanuel Schikaneder invites him to write an opera "for the people". Mozart obliges in spite of his wife Constanze's insistence that he finish the Requiem. The couple fight and Constanze leaves with their young son, Karl.

Mozart's new opera, The Magic Flute, is a great success, but during one performance, the overworked Mozart collapses. Salieri takes him home and persuades him to continue the Requiem, offering to record notes under the dictation of the bedridden Mozart. The next morning, Mozart thanks Salieri for his friendship, and Salieri admits that Mozart is the greatest composer he knows. Constanze returns and demands that Salieri leave immediately. In her guilt, she locks the unfinished Requiem away, only to find that Mozart has died from exhaustion. Mozart is taken out of the city and unceremoniously buried in a mass grave during a rainstorm. His mourners, daunted by the weather, watch from the city gate as the coffin is taken away. Back in the present day, Volger is too shocked to absolve Salieri, who surmises that the "merciful" God preferred to destroy His beloved Mozart rather than allow Salieri to share in His glory. Salieri promises, with bitter irony, to pray for Volger and all the world's mediocrities as the "patron saint" of their order. As Salieri is wheeled down a hallway, he absolves the hospital's patients as he passes by, and listens to Mozart's obnoxious laughter in the air.

Cast

Production

In his autobiography Beginning, 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.[5]

Mark Hamill, who replaced Tim Curry as Mozart towards the end of the run of the stage play on Broadway, recalled in an interview that he 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.[6] Tom Hulce reportedly used John McEnroe's mood swings as a source of inspiration for his portrayal of Mozart's unpredictable genius.[7]

Meg Tilly was cast as Mozart's wife Constanze, but she tore a ligament in her leg the day before shooting started.[7] She was replaced by Elizabeth Berridge. Simon Callow, who played Mozart in the original London stage production of Amadeus, was cast as Emanuel Schikaneder, the librettist of The Magic Flute.

The film was shot on location in Prague[8] and Kroměříž.[9] Notably, Forman was able to shoot scenes in the Count Nostitz Theatre in Prague, where Don Giovanni and La clemenza di Tito debuted two centuries before.[10] Several other scenes were shot at the Barrandov Studios.[11]

Forman collaborated with American choreographer Twyla Tharp.[12]

Reception

Critical reception

Amadeus holds a score of 93% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 95 reviews, with an average rating of 8.92/10. The site's consensus states: "A lavish, entertaining, powerful film about the life and influence, both positive and negative, of one of Western culture's great artists."[13] Giving the film four-out-of-four stars, Roger Ebert acknowledged that it was one of the "riskiest gambles a filmmaker has taken in a long time," but added "(here is the genius of the movie) there is nothing cheap or unworthy about the approach," and ultimately concluded that it was a "magnificent film, full and tender and funny and charming".[14] Ebert later added the film to his Great Movies list.[15] Peter Travers of People magazine said that "Hulce and Abraham share a dual triumph in a film that stands as a provocative and prodigious achievement."[16] Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic put it on his list of films worth seeing.[17] In one negative review, Todd McCarthy of Variety said that despite "great material and themes to work with, and such top talent involved," the "stature and power the work possessed onstage have been noticeably diminished" in the film adaptation.[18] The film's many historical inaccuracies have attracted criticism from music historians.[19][20]

Box office

The film grossed $52 million in the United States and Canada[2] and by November 1985, while still in theaters overseas, had grossed over $90 million worldwide to date.[3]

Accolades

In 1985, the film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, including the double nomination for Best Actor with Hulce and Abraham each being nominated for their portrayals of Mozart and Salieri, respectively. The film won eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Abraham), Best Director (Forman), Costume Design (Theodor Pištěk), Adapted Screenplay (Shaffer), Art Direction (Karel Černý, Patrizia von Brandenstein), Best Makeup, and Best Sound. The film was nominated for, but did not win Oscars for Best Cinematography and Best Editing. Amadeus, The English Patient, The Hurt Locker, The Artist, and Birdman are the only Best Picture winners never to enter the weekend box office top 5 after rankings began being recorded in 1982.[21][22][23][24] Amadeus peaked at #6 during its 8th weekend in theaters. Saul Zaentz produced both Amadeus and The English Patient.

The film was nominated for six Golden Globe Awards (Hulce and Abraham were nominated together) and won four, including awards to Forman, Abraham, Shaffer, and Golden Globe Award for Best Picture – Drama. Jeffrey Jones was nominated for Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture Drama. Forman also received the Directors Guild of America Award for his work.

At the end of the Oscar ceremony, Laurence Olivier came on stage to present the Oscar for Best Picture. As Olivier thanked the Academy for inviting him, he was already opening the envelope. Instead of announcing the nominees, he simply read, "The winner for this is Amadeus." An AMPAS official quickly went onstage to confirm the winner and signaled that all was well, before Olivier then presented the award to producer Saul Zaentz. Olivier (in his 78th year) had been ill for many years, and it was because of mild dementia that he forgot to read the nominees.[25] Zaentz then thanked Olivier, saying it was an honour to receive the award from him,[26] before mentioning the other nominees in his acceptance speech: The Killing Fields, A Passage to India, Places in the Heart and A Soldier's Story. Maurice Jarre won the Oscar for Best Original Music Score for his scoring of A Passage to India. In his acceptance speech for the award, Jarre remarked "I was lucky Mozart was not eligible this year".[27]

Historicity

From the beginning, writer Peter Shaffer and director Milos Forman both were open about their desire to create entertaining drama only loosely based on reality, calling the work "fantasia on the theme of Mozart and Salieri".[28] This allowed them to carefully pick only interesting historic details or rumors, filling in the rest with dramatic fiction.

The conflict between Mozart and an Italian "cabal" working to block his efforts in Vienna has some historical foundation, insofar as Mozart and his father did express a belief in such a plot. Ultimately, however, while Mozart and Salieri were in a sense professional rivals, records indicate Salieri expressing admiration for some of Mozart's compositions and they were on at least polite terms, but it is unclear if they were close friends.[29]

The idea of animosity between Mozart and Salieri was popularized by Alexander Pushkin in 1830 in a play Mozart and Salieri. In it, Salieri actually murders Mozart on stage. This was made into an opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov 67 years later,[28] which in turn had its first screen adaptation by silent film director Victor Tourjansky in 1917.

Another significant departure in the film is that Salieri was a married family man with eight children and at least one mistress, not a pious loner trapped in a vow of chastity.[30]

Mozart was indeed commissioned to compose a Requiem Mass by an anonymous benefactor. In reality, the patron turned out to be Count Franz von Walsegg who was in grieving after the death of his wife, not Salieri disguised as the ghost of Mozart's father.[31]

Alternate version

Amadeus premiered in 1984 as a PG-rated movie with a running time of 161 minutes. Director Miloš Forman introduced an R-rated version with nearly 20 minutes of restored footage. This version was released by the studios as a Director's Cut on September 24, 2002.[32] Forman justified why those scenes were cut in the first place in the 1995 supplemental material for Pioneer's deluxe LaserDisc. However, he explains why the scenes were eventually restored in a subsequent 2002 interview with The A.V. Club:

When you finish a film, before the first paying audience sees it, you don't have any idea. You don't know if you made a success or a flop, when it comes to the box office. And in the '80s, with MTV on the scene, we are having a three-hour film about classical music, with long names and wigs and costumes. Don't forget that no major studio wanted to finance the film, for these reasons. So we said, "Well, we don't want to be pushing the audience's patience too far". Whatever was not directly connected to the plot, I just cut out. But it was a mutual decision [to limit the running time]. I wanted the best life for the film myself... Well, once we are re-releasing it on DVD, it doesn't matter if it is two hours and 40 minutes long, or three hours long. So why don't we do the version as it was written in the script?[33]

Music

Film credits

Original soundtrack recording

The soundtrack album[34] reached #1 in the Billboard Classical Albums Chart, #56 in the Billboard Popular Albums Chart, has sold over 6.5 million copies and received thirteen gold discs, making it one of the most popular classical music recordings of all time.[35] It won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Album in 1984.[36]

  • Disc 1
  1. Mozart: Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183, 1st movement
  2. Giovanni Battista Pergolesi: Stabat Mater: "Quando corpus morietur" and "Amen"
  3. Early 18th Century Gypsy Music: Bubak and Hungaricus
  4. Mozart: Serenade for Winds in B-flat major, K. 361, 3rd movement
  5. Mozart: The Abduction from the Seraglio, K. 384, Turkish Finale
  6. Mozart: Symphony No. 29 in A major, K. 201, 1st movement
  7. Mozart: Concerto for Two Pianos in E-flat major, K. 365, 3rd movement
  8. Mozart: Great Mass in C minor, K. 427, Kyrie
  9. Mozart: Symphonie Concertante in E-flat major, K. 364, 1st movement
  • Disc 2
  1. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat major, K. 482, 3rd movement
  2. Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492, Act III, "Ecco la marcia"
  3. Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492, Act IV, "Ah, tutti contenti"
  4. Mozart: Don Giovanni, K. 527, Act II, Commendatore scene
  5. Mozart: Zaide, K. 344, Aria, "Ruhe sanft"
  6. Mozart: Requiem, K. 626, Introitus (orchestral introduction)
  7. Mozart: Requiem, K. 626, Dies irae
  8. Mozart: Requiem, K. 626, Rex tremendae majestatis
  9. Mozart: Requiem, K. 626, Confutatis
  10. Mozart: Requiem, K. 626, Lacrimosa
  11. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466, 2nd movement

All tracks on the album were performed specifically for the film. According to the film commentary by Forman and Schaffer, Marriner agreed to score the film if Mozart's music was completely unchanged from the original scores. Marriner did add some notes to Salieri's music that are noticeable in the beginning of the film, as Salieri begins his confession.

The aria "Ruhe sanft" from the opera Zaide does not appear in the film.

More Music from the Original Soundtrack

In 1985 an additional album with the title More Music from the Original Soundtrack of the Film Amadeus was issued containing further selections of music that were not included on the original soundtrack release.[37]

  1. Mozart: The Magic Flute, K. 620, Overture
  2. Mozart: The Magic Flute, K. 620, act 2, Queen of the Night aria
  3. Mozart: Masonic Funeral Music, K. 477
  4. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466, 1st movement
  5. Antonio Salieri: Axur, re d'Ormus, Finale
  6. Mozart: Eine kleine Nachtmusik (Serenade No. 13 for Strings in G major), K. 525, 1st movement, arranged for woodwind octet by Graham Sheen
  7. Mozart: Concerto for Flute and Harp in C major, K. 299, 2nd movement
  8. Mozart: Six German Dances (Nos. 1–3), K. 509
  9. Giuseppe Giordani: "Caro mio ben"
  10. Mozart: The Abduction from the Seraglio, K. 384, Chorus of the Janissaries (Arr.) and "Ich möchte wohl der Kaiser sein" ("Ein deutsches Kriegslied"), K. 539 (Arr.)

The Masonic Funeral Music was originally intended to play over the closing credits, but was replaced in the film by the second movement of the Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor[38] (included on the Original Soundtrack Recording).

Director's Cut soundtrack

In 2002, to coincide with the release of the Director's Cut of the film, the soundtrack was remastered with 24-bit encoding and reissued with the title Special Edition: The Director's Cut – Newly Remastered Original Soundtrack Recording on two 24-karat gold CDs.[39] It contains most of the music from the previous two releases, but with the following differences.

The following pieces were added for this release:

The following pieces, previously released on More Music from the Original Soundtrack of the Film Amadeus, were not included:

Awards and nominations
Year Award Category Nominated work Result Ref.
1984Academy AwardsBest PictureSaul ZaentzWon[40]
[41]
Best DirectorMiloš FormanWon
Best Actor in a Leading RoleF. Murray AbrahamWon
Tom HulceNominated
Best Adapted ScreenplayPeter ShafferWon
Best CinematographyMiroslav OndříčekNominated
Best Art DirectionPatrizia von Brandenstein
Karel Černý		Won
Best Costume DesignTheodor PištěkWon
Best MakeupDick Smith and Paul LeBlancWon
Best Film EditingNena Danevic and Michael ChandlerNominated
Best SoundMark Berger, Todd Boekelheide
Tom Scott & Christopher Newman		Won
1984Golden Globe AwardsBest Motion Picture – DramaSaul ZaentzWon[42]
Best DirectorMiloš FormanWon
Best Actor – Motion Picture DramaF. Murray AbrahamWon
Tom HulceNominated
Best Supporting Actor – Motion PictureJeffrey JonesNominated
Best ScreenplayPeter ShafferWon
1985British Academy Film AwardsBest FilmMiloš Forman and Saul ZaentzNominated[43]
Best ActorF. Murray AbrahamNominated
Best Adapted ScreenplayPeter ShafferNominated
Best CinematographyMiroslav OndříčekWon
Best Production DesignPatrizia von BrandsteinNominated
Best Costume DesignTheodor PištěkNominated
Best Makeup and HairDick Smith and Paul LeBlancWon
Best EditingNena Danevic and Michael ChandlerWon
Best SoundMark Berger, Thomas Scott
Christopher Newman		Won
1984Los Angeles Film Critics AssociationBest PictureSaul ZaentzWon[44]
Best DirectorMiloš FormanWon
Best ActorF. Murray Abraham
tied with Albert Finney for Under the Volcano		Won
Best ScreenplayPeter ShafferWon
1984American Film InstituteAFI's 100 Years...100 MoviesAmadeus#53[43]
1984American Cinema EditorsBest Edited Feature FilmNena Danevic and Michael ChandlerWon[45]
1984Casting Society of AmericaBest Casting for Feature FilmMary GoldbergWon[43]
1984Directors Guild of AmericaOutstanding Director - Motion PicturesMiloš FormanWon
1984Kansas City Film Critics CircleBest ActorF. Murray AbrahamWon
1984César AwardBest Foreign FilmAmadeusWon
1984Japan Academy PrizeBest Foreign Language FilmWon
1984David di DonatelloBest Foreign FilmWon
Best Director – Foreign FilmMiloš FormanWon
Best Foreign ActorTom HulceWon
1984Amanda AwardBest Foreign Feature FilmAmadeusWon
gollark: Through improved materials science.
gollark: Modern steel is apparently much stronger than it used to be.
gollark: Also steel, I think, in the long term.
gollark: Such as computing equipment and flash storage.
gollark: You can also look at the many examples of things getting much better through mass production.

References
  1. "Amadeus". British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved May 13, 2014.
  2. "Amadeus (1984) – Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved December 22, 2014.
  3. Watkins, Roger (November 20, 1985). "Zaentz High On Back-End Deals As 'Amadeus' B.O. Tops $90-Mil". Variety. p. 6.
  4. Tartaglione, Nancy (December 11, 2019). "National Film Registry Adds 'Purple Rain', 'Clerks', 'Gaslight' & More; 'Boys Don't Cry' One Of Record 7 Pics From Female Helmers". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved December 11, 2019.
  5. Branagh, Kenneth (1990). Beginning. New York: Norton. pp. 105–109. ISBN 978-0-393-02862-1. OCLC 20669813.
  6. Brady, Tara (November 25, 2017). "Mark Hamill: 'If I had to climb a Skellig, I was staying at the top'". Retrieved December 6, 2018.
  7. The Making of Amadeus. DVD. Warner Bros Pictures, 2001. 20 min.
  8. Prague in Films, prague.eu
  9. The château and the famous film Amadeus, kromeriz.eu
  10. Prague – The Estates Theatre, zemefilmu.cz
  11. Amadeus film locations Archived May 18, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, movie-locations.com
  12. "Twyla Tharp Recalls Amadeus, Gene Kelly, Baryshnikov as She Marks 50th Anniversary" by Jordan Riefe, The Hollywood Reporter, 2 October 2015
  13. "Amadeus Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved January 23, 2020.
  14. Ebert, Roger (September 8, 1984). "Amadeus Movie Review & Film Summary (1984)". www.rogerebert.com. Retrieved September 16, 2018.
  15. Ebert, Roger. "Amadeus movie review & film summary (1984) | Roger Ebert". www.rogerebert.com. Retrieved October 17, 2019.
  16. Travers, Peter (October 1, 1984). "Screen". People. 22 (14): 14. Retrieved September 16, 2018.
  17. Kauffmann, Stanley (October 29, 1984). "Films Worth Seeing". The New Republic. 191 (17): 24–26. Retrieved September 16, 2018.
  18. McCarthy, Todd (September 5, 1984). "Amadeus". Variety. Retrieved September 16, 2018.
  19. A Study Guide for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri's "Amadeus". Gale, Cengage Learning. ISBN 9781410392602. Retrieved August 5, 2019.
  20. von Tunzelmann, Alex. "Amadeus: the fart jokes can't conceal how laughably wrong this is". The Guardian. Retrieved August 5, 2019.
  21. The English Patient weekend box office results, BoxOfficeMojo.com
  22. Amadeus weekend box office results, BoxOfficeMojo.com
  23. The Hurt Locker weekend box office results, BoxOfficeMojo.com
  24. Birdman weekend box office results, BoxOfficeMojo.com
  25. Olivier, by Terry Coleman, 2005, p. 484
  26. "Academy Awards Acceptance Speeches". Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. March 25, 1985. Archived from the original on July 16, 2011. Retrieved February 24, 2011.
  27. Sharon Waxman (March 21, 1999). "The Oscar Acceptance Speech: By and Large, It's a Lost Art". The Washington Post.
  28. "What Amadeus gets wrong" by Clemency Burton-Hill, BBC Culture, 24 February 2015
  29. Fact or Fiction: Historical Inaccuracies in the Film Amadeus
  30. Amadeus: the fart jokes can't conceal how laughably wrong this is
  31. Amadeus: Strange but True
  32. Indvik, Kurt (July 3, 2002). "Warner Bows First Premium Video Line". hive4media.com. Archived from the original on August 28, 2002. Retrieved September 12, 2019.
  33. A.V. Club interview with Miloš Forman, April 24, 2002
  34. "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Neville Marriner, Academy Of St. Martin-In-the-Fields – Amadeus (Original Soundtrack Recording)". discogs. Retrieved September 29, 2016.
  35. "Amadeus Soundtrack". Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  36. "Past Winners: 1984 – 27th Annual Grammy Awards". GRAMMY.org. Retrieved September 29, 2016.
  37. "Sir Neville Marriner, Academy of St. Martin-In-The-Fields – Amadeus (More Music from the Original Soundtrack of the Film)". discogs. Retrieved September 29, 2016.
  38. More Music from the Original Soundtrack of the Film Amadeus, album liner notes
  39. "Sir Neville Marriner, Academy Of St. Martin-in-the-Fields – Amadeus (Original Soundtrack Recording – Special Edition: The Director's Cut)". discogs. Retrieved September 29, 2016.
  40. "The 57th Academy Awards (1985) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved October 13, 2011.
  41. "Amadeus". The New York Times. Retrieved January 1, 2009.
  42. "Amadeus". Golden Globes. Retrieved September 21, 2018.
  43. "Amadeus - Awards". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  44. "LAFCA". LAFCA. Archived from the original on January 18, 2015. Retrieved September 21, 2018.
  45. Morton, Ray (2011). Amadeus: Music on Film Series. Limelight Editions. ISBN 9780879104177. Retrieved September 21, 2018.
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