Amadeus (Special Edition) > Reviews > Loved by God and me

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Outstanding
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Weak
How does it compare to similar films?	Outstanding

Advantages:	Superb music, script, sets, acting
Disadvantages:	None

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I have a particular soft spot for the music of Mozart and this 1984 film based on Peter Shaffer’s 1979 stage play and directed by Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest), is therefore a firm favourite of mine. But rather than celebrating the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart directly it focuses on the reminiscing of an aged and insane Antonio Salieri - the “forgotten” court composer of Emperor Joseph II at the time of Mozart’s time in Vienna. Although the historical details of the plot are no more than hearsay and supposition, this hardly matters. The story is so beautifully written and moving that you cannot help but be moved by it. I don’t want to give too much of the story away as I would hope that you would want to go away and experience it for yourself. Rather than spoilers, I would prefer that you had pointers!

I first saw this film in the late 80’s and had watched my “recorded off the telly” version for years until it eventually gave up the ghost. I didn’t replace it for one reason or another but when I saw they had brought out a director’s cut edition with 20 minutes extra footage I put it straight on my Christmas list. I wasn’t sure what the new scenes would add to it and in fairness they don’t add much except for expanding a few scenes (giving the opportunity for more music) and perhaps making sense of one scene at the end which never quite made sense to me from the original film.

The backdrop of this film is full of colour and the wonderful architecture of Prague (notably the Count Nostitz Theatre where Don Giovanni had been premiered 200 years before) and Vienna helps recreate beautifully the atmosphere of late 18th century Vienna. The costumes are lavish and the scenes are huge. The opera productions and stages are as meticulously planned as you would expect from any real opera company. You cannot take your eyes off the film. And the soundtrack is beautifully constructed using mostly Mozart’s music – each piece carefully selected in keeping with the mood and pace of the scene. Even if you cannot get anything else from this film the music is sure to move you. But with the superb acting, backdrop, sets, costumes and music combined, we have a film which well deserved the 8 Oscars that it won.

So what is the story? At its highest level the story is of how an embittered Salieri set into motion a series of events which led to the demise and death of Mozart. But it is far deeper and much more complex than that. It explores issues such as inadequacy, humiliation, jealousy, longing, anger, power and betrayal.

The film opens simply enough with the elderly Antonio Salieri (played by Abraham F Murray who won the Oscar for best actor with this role) calling the name of Mozart (played by Tom Hulce who was nominated for best actor with this role) as he attempts suicide and his consequent incarceration in the local lunatic asylum. Here a priest is called to take his confession and it is here where the story, told through flashback, begins to unfold. We also begin to see that Salieri’s issues lie more with God than with Mozart himself.

We go back to Salieri’s childhood and how he admired Mozart’s talent from the stories he had heard about him. And more especially longed for his father, a local merchant, to show him the same devotion as Mozart’s father did his son. We see how religiously devout Salieri is, praying for the opportunity to worship God through music, praying for a sign – even offering his chastity and industry to God if he should grant this deepest wish. Taking the sudden death of his father to be that sign, he set off to Vienna to begin his musical career and eventually become the court composer to Emperor Joseph II (played by Jeffrey Jones).

Despite Salieri’s great admiration of Mozart he had never met him. Anxious to do so he attended a performance at the residence of Mozart’s employer, where he tried to guess which one of the many men in the room had been granted this talent. In a side room he voyeuristically sees an uncouth young man frolicking with a lady friend. This may have been a thrill to him until music can be heard in the background and the man gets up hurriedly and says “my music, they’ve started without me”. At this point Salieri feels shattered. He cannot believe that God had put so much talent into this vulgar man. Yet his admiration for Mozart’s music, in which he still believed you could hear the voice of God, outweighed his shock at seeing the kind of man Mozart was. But it is from this encounter and Mozart’s arrival in Vienna that we see all the threads of inadequacy, humiliation, jealousy, longing, anger, power and betrayal coming through. We witness how Salieri’s decline as a human being and his anger towards God begins. We see scene after scene of Mozart unwittingly humiliating Salieri and Salieri using his position as court composer and proximity to the emperor, conspiring to damage Mozart’s reputation. But the target of his malice was God – he wanted to hurt God by harming his chosen one. He may have secretly adored the beauty of Mozart’s music and secretly attended every performance but he wanted God to love him as much as he did Mozart. But when in his mind he felt utterly betrayed by God, his actions take a far darker turn.

The influence of Mozart’s father (played by Roy Dotrice) on his son was great and Salieri witnessed this at a masquerade earlier in the film. Mozart, although hard working with his composition, was a fun loving man who enjoyed his women (Salieri happened to be in love with one of his conquests) and wine and was hopeless with money. This behaviour angered his father who after rowing with Mozart’s wife (played by Elizabeth Berridge) left Vienna and returned to Salzburg. But his sudden death meant that Mozart had no chance to make amends and no chance to seek the approval of his father who he ultimately loved deeply. The death of his father brought about extreme guilt from Mozart and it was this that Salieri used to complete his “triumph” over God. Using Mozart’s grief and guilt as a weapon, Salieri in disguise commissions Mozart, now desperate for money, to write a requiem mass. But Salieri’s plan to commission a requiem mass is made even more sinister by the fact that he intended it to be used at Mozart’s own funeral and Salieri would take full credit for writing the music in honour of his friend. He felt that by doing this he would be laughing at God rather than God laughing at him.

The events leading up to tragedy of Mozart’s death which Salieri believed was God saying that he would rather kill Mozart than allow Salieri just one triumph are obviously based more around the fictional than the historic. But the use of the music, the intensity of the acting and the harrowing and sorrowful final scenes will touch even those who profess to not liking classical music and remain with you for a very long time. As the haunting 2nd movement of Mozart’s Piano concerto in D minor begins, Salieri announces himself as the patron saint of mediocrities and the final line “Mediocrities everywhere….I absolve you all…" wraps the whole film up superbly. As the scene fades you find yourself sitting through the credits as the music continues to a calm and inevitable conclusion.

Would I recommend this film? Simple answer – yes.

The main cast are as follows:

Abraham F Murray – Antonio Salieri
Tom Hulce – Mozart
Elizabth Berridge – Constanza Mozart
Roy Dotrice – Leopold Mozart
Simon Callow – Schikaneder
Jeffrey Jones – emperor Joseph II
Charles Kay – Count Orsini-Rosenberg
Roderick Cook – Count Von Strack
Richard Frank – Father Vogler
Patrick Hines – Cappelmeister Bonno
Cynthia Nixon – Lorl

Run time is 153 minutes

You can buy the special edition easily and is currently under £6 on www.amazon.co.uk - at that price you can't afford to miss it!