Amadeus

[Chaszz]

Well, I have to demur on 'Amadeus,' whether or not it got new listeners interested in Mozart. Though Wolfie was undoubtedly a joker, it made him out to be a barely civilized monkey, in my view. He could hardly have had the various patrons, including aristocrats, he served if he was really like that so much of the time. And if he wasn't why show him that way, except for sensationalistic effect? I was offended by it and still am.

I'm also personally opposed to significantly departing from history in fictionalized bios or epics because we live in such an illiterate age. The vast majority of people, even educated ones, have almost no knowledge of history and get whatever they do have from the pop media such as TV and movies. I think it does society a much greater service to make it as interesting and exciting as possible while keeping as much as they can within the bounds of the actual happenings.

How many of the Beethoven fans on this forum would like it if Beethoven's personality were caricatured in 'Copying Beethoven' as much as Mozart's was in 'Amadeus?' Beethoven was crude on occasion but certainly not all the time. Who here would enjoy it if he were portrayed as nothing but a crude bull in a china shop, scene after scene, even if it brought in some new listeners?

[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited 09-24-2005).]

[Rutradelusasa]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
Well, I have to demur on 'Amadeus,' whether or not it got new listeners interested in Mozart. Though Wolfie was undoubtedly a joker, it made him out to be a barely civilized monkey, in my view. He could hardly have had the various patrons, including aristocrats, he served if he was really like that so much of the time. And if he wasn't why show him that way, except for sensationalistic effect? I was offended by it and still am.

I'm also personally opposed to significantly departing from history in fictionalized bios or epics because we live in such an illiterate age. The vast majority of people, even educated ones, have almost no knowledge of history and get whatever they do have from the pop media such as TV and movies. I think it does society a much greater service to make it as interesting and exciting as possible while keeping as much as they can within the bounds of the actual happenings.

How many of the Beethoven fans on this forum would like it if Beethoven's personality were caricatured in 'Copying Beethoven' as much as Mozart's was in 'Amadeus?' Beethoven was crude on occasion but certainly not all the time. Who here would enjoy it if he were portrayed as nothing but a crude bull in a china shop, scene after scene, even if it brought in some new listeners?

[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited 09-24-2005).]

I get your point, but I can't agree with it. Nor do I agree totally with the movie. In such a mainstream media one must be reminded of things like "this is Salieri's point of view". We see it at the beggining of the movie and at the end. By then the movie has made the point to a lot of people that that was Mozart, not that that was Mozart *in Salieri's point of view*.
That for me was the only fault. However, I did enjoy it a lot, it's impossible not to laugh at the link of the Queen of the Night and his mother-in-law.

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"Wer ein holdes weib errungen..."

[Peter]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
Well, I have to demur on 'Amadeus,' whether or not it got new listeners interested in Mozart. Though Wolfie was undoubtedly a joker, it made him out to be a barely civilized monkey, in my view. He could hardly have had the various patrons, including aristocrats, he served if he was really like that so much of the time. And if he wasn't why show him that way, except for sensationalistic effect? I was offended by it and still am.

I'm also personally opposed to significantly departing from history in fictionalized bios or epics because we live in such an illiterate age. The vast majority of people, even educated ones, have almost no knowledge of history and get whatever they do have from the pop media such as TV and movies. I think it does society a much greater service to make it as interesting and exciting as possible while keeping as much as they can within the bounds of the actual happenings.

How many of the Beethoven fans on this forum would like it if Beethoven's personality were caricatured in 'Copying Beethoven' as much as Mozart's was in 'Amadeus?' Beethoven was crude on occasion but certainly not all the time. Who here would enjoy it if he were portrayed as nothing but a crude bull in a china shop, scene after scene, even if it brought in some new listeners?

[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited 09-24-2005).]

First off remember the play was based on Salieri's perspective, reminiscing years later in an asylum, having just confessed to poisoning Mozart. Schaffer was not the first to present the Salieri-Mozart murder theory, that came from Salieri himself and was even of interest to Beethoven. Pushkin wrote a play about it and Rimsky-Korsakov used this for the basis of an opera.

Mozart did have problems with his main patron Archbishop Colloredo and you only have to read the letters to see just how childish and crude Mozart could be. An example from 1785 "farewell dearest friend, dearest Hinkity Honky!, I am Punkititi, my wife is Schabla Pumfa.. etc'

Yes the film took many liberties but actually most of the main events were historically accurate, Mozart's quarrel with Colloredo, Leopold's opposition to the marriage with Constanze, the highly unusual attendance of Joseph II at the rehearsal of the Marriage of Figaro (despite having banned Beaumarchais's play) - Rosenberg's insitistence that the ballet be removed and the Emperor's insistence that it be reinstated, the production of the Magic Flute in the Freyhaus with Schikaneder himself taking the role of Papageno.

Added to this the superb performance of F Murray Abraham, and casting of the Emperor and Leopold who both looked the part, I think the film was a great success. If a few smutty jokes and a ridiculous laugh helped to convey a more human image rather than an unapproachable monument, all the better.

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'Man know thyself'



[This message has been edited by Peter (edited 09-24-2005).]

[Michael]

Originally posted by Peter:

Mozart did have problems with his main patron Archbishop Colloredo and you only have to read the letters to see just how childish and crude Mozart could be. An example from 1785 "farewell dearest friend, dearest Hinkity Honky!, I am Punkititi, my wife is Schabla Pumfa.. etc'

[/B]

Funnily enough, Beethoven in his letters was addicted to this kind of gibberish also, mostly in the form of atrocious untranslatable puns. Didn't he open or close a letter to some Baron in this fashion: "Baron...ron..ron..ron?

Michael

[Opus131]

Originally posted by Peter:

Mozart did have problems with his main patron Archbishop Colloredo and you only have to read the letters to see just how childish and crude Mozart could be. An example from 1785 "farewell dearest friend, dearest Hinkity Honky!, I am Punkititi, my wife is Schabla Pumfa.. etc'

The problem is that none of those letters rapresent Mozart general attitude (or personality), wheter private or public. The man who wrote the music was neither childish and crude, let's not forget that.

That said, the only problem i had with his characterization in Amadeus is that ultimatly the genius and the individual is never exposed.

At the end, you are left with the conviction Mozart was actually an idiot, and you end up symphatizing with Salieri, which i don't think was meant to be in that you clearly see hints at the mediocrity of Salieri as an individual and an attempt to make Mozart more human.

I never seen or read the play but would it be safe to assume the truth is revealed at the end ?

[Peter]

Originally posted by Opus131:
The problem is that none of those letters rapresent Mozart general attitude (or personality), wheter private or public. The man who wrote the music was neither childish and crude, let's not forget that.

I'm not sure that you can say the letters don't represent Mozart's personality - certainly the crudity and childishness is one aspect of it, but the letters also reveal a highly intelligent sophisticated man. As for Amadeus, it is an account of Mozart's life seen through the eyes of an insane Salieri - from HIS perspective Mozart was a bumbling idiot who just happened also to be a great composer, this is the whole point of the drama and accounts for the raving hatred and jealousy felt by Salieri. In reality, ending his days in an asylum claiming to have poisoned Mozart, who knows that Salieri couldn't have made such a confession to a priest?

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'Man know thyself'

[Opus131]

Originally posted by Peter:
I'm not sure that you can say the letters don't represent Mozart's personality - certainly the crudity and childishness is one aspect of it, but the letters also reveal a highly intelligent sophisticated man. As for Amadeus, it is an account of Mozart's life seen through the eyes of an insane Salieri - from HIS perspective Mozart was a bumbling idiot who just happened also to be a great composer, this is the whole point of the drama and accounts for the raving hatred and jealousy felt by Salieri. In reality, ending his days in an asylum claiming to have poisoned Mozart, who knows that Salieri couldn't have made such a confession to a priest?

The point is that the man shown in those letters was not the man Salieri knew, or anybody knew, because the bumbling joker existed purely outside of public knowledge for the most part, even considering the storm and stress trends that made a lot of young people of Mozart's generation act in questionable fashions.

Mozart's career would have never took flight if he acted the way he did in Amadeus.

In that light, i can only accept the film as fantasy, and even then, i would still have preferred if they tried to reveal the truth about both characters at the end of the film...

[Peter]

Originally posted by Opus131:
Mozart's career would have never took flight if he acted the way he did in Amadeus.

Mozart's career never really did 'take flight' in his lifetime - he could have done with an agent, and ironically it was his wife Constanze under the influence of her 2nd husband Nissen who posthumously became his successful business manager.

Of course Mozart wasn't a bumbling idiot in reality, but who knows how Salieri perceived Mozart when in an asylum he confessed to his 'murder'? Amadeus took Salieri's real life confession and presented a fictitious (but plausible) scenario for this - rivalry and jealousy turning to deep hatred.

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'Man know thyself'

[Steppenwolf]

Originally posted by Chaszz:

I'm also personally opposed to significantly departing from history in fictionalized bios or epics because we live in such an illiterate age. The vast majority of people, even educated ones, have almost no knowledge of history and get whatever they do have from the pop media such as TV and movies. I think it does society a much greater service to make it as interesting and exciting as possible while keeping as much as they can within the bounds of the actual happenings.

As a general comment on 'popular' depictions of history in the media I agree with it. But I disagree in its application to Amadeus.

If portraying Mozart as childish and smutty was aimed merely at dumbing-down history in order attract a large audience then I would be dead against it. But there is a serious point behind this depiction of Mozart - it is an exploration of the nature of genius, and the extent to which it can appear undeserved when arising in certain individuals. It destroys the simplistic image of the genius as a conventional saint, and shows genius as a sort of divine 'grace' that is 'given' to some individuals, who may not appear to deserve it. How could Mozart write sublime music and yet also enjoy crude, smutty jokes? How could Wagner write music of such love and humanity (eg Parsifal) and yet be deeply bigoted as an individual? This is an important theme. Another them too is the frequent 'childishness' of many geniuses, not only Mozart but also Beethoven and Wagner. Of course Mozart's childishness and crude sense of humour were exagerated, from a strict historical perspective, in Amadeus, but it served to explore these important ideas. King Richard III of England was surely not the snarling monster as depicted by Shakespeare, and yet this play is still a great work of art.

[Opus131]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Op131:

By the time he wrote Cosi' Mozart was the reconized leading Opera composer of his time. Not bad for a 30 something year old composer in the late 1700s. In my vew Mozart commercial failure has always been exagerated.

PETER:
Recognised by the connoisseurs maybe, but not by the public. In 1789 Joseph II pandering to popular demand reinstated Italian opera at the Burgtheater. Composer's such as Paisiello and Salieri dominated the scene and Mozart's Cosi was actually the most maligned and ignored of the 3 Da Ponte operas. Outside Vienna and Prague during Mozart's lifetime not one of his Italian operas was given complete in England, France, Russia, Spain, Portugal or Italy.

OP.131 -
What i'm saying is that Salieri would not have known that side of Mozart given that it existed mostly on private letters, thus, whatever mad memory he had of Wolfgang it would not have been that particular one. Possibly, he would have remembered an overly arrogant young upstarter more then anything else, even in his delirious fantasies.

PETER:
That's true if you're after a literal documentary account, but this was a drama and even though Salieri's claim is now dismissed, for a long time it was considered possible. No film is perfect and Amadeus certainly has its flaws, but its success lay in fine acting, spectacle and an entertaining well written script - taken like that it has no rivals (so far) in representing the life of a classical musician.


APOLOGIES OP.131 - I Inadvertently used the edit button to reply to your post, I didn't mean to edit it!




[This message has been edited by Peter (edited 09-26-2005).]

[untamed_personality]

Good discussion, this. It's nice to see others share my enthusiasm for this film. It's also interesting to see other opinions on it.

Amadeus cleaned up at the 1985 Academy Awards. It won eight Oscars, for: Best Picture, Best Director (Milos Forman), Best Actor (F Murray Abraham), Best Adapted Screenplay (Peter Shaffer), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and, of course, Best Sound. It also received three other nominations: Tom Hulce for Best Actor, and it was beaten to the punch by The Killing Fields for Best Cinematography and Best Editing.

I'm sure you've all seen the Director's Cut, right? It's a superb DVD, almost like watching it for the first time all over again.



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Seizing fate by the throat...