What do you get when you have a young genius, a crazy and jealous nemesis, a landlady’s attractive daughter, father/son problems, and too much Austria even for the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger? Amadeus. This 161 minute film wonderfully depicts the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the late 1700s. One was one of the best composers who have ever lived, and one was lucky enough to be somewhat remembered today. I’m not going to spell out the whole plot for those of you who would like to eventually see this film, but I will tell you what I got out of it, and what it really portrays for me.
Mozart was one of the best composers who has ever lived, and we know this, but 
what many don’t seem to know is that Mozart had a lot of haters. Aside from Mozart being an abnormally, and what some may even call divine, composer, he was a man whose passion and way of life caused others to envy all that he had, and even wish to destroy it. That is what this movie is about on the surface. We have the relatively small, erratic and passionately insane Mozart, and we also have the jealous, old, conniving, and somewhat respected Antonio Salieri. Salieri’s jealousy of Mozart causes him to do things that only someone who is power hungry enough would be able to do. In one of the many scenes with Salieri, depicted by F. Murray Abhraham, and a priest, he says that “The only thing that worried me was the actually killing…how does one do that, how does one kill a man? It’s one thing to dream about it, but very different when you have to do it with your own hands.” This guy was buggin to say the least. Mozart was too damn good, too damn cocky, and too damn crazy for someone like Salieri who was so concrete in his life and work, that it’s no surprise he thought of Mozart as his nemesis.
It seems as thought Mozart was really too good for anyone in the world that couldn’t understand what it really meant to be passionate about something. Music wasn’t Mozart’s life, it was Mozart himself. People like Salieri couldn’t even begin to understand why or how someone like Mozart could have been created, which caused them to say things such as “Mozart, govern your tongue!” Mozart had to rise above all of the true insanity of the world just to be able to let himself be heard. In a scene with Mozart and Emperor Joseph II, everyone is basically saying that Mozart is crazy and disgusting, but he makes a plea to the emperor by saying “Forgive me your majesty, I’m a vulgar man but I assure you my music is not,” which shows that Mozart really didn’t give a damn about what anyone thought of him, because what people saw wasn’t really all of him. Who he really was was embodied through his music, and that was what he ultimately wanted to be judged by. Despite all of this, the haters were still out there and had to do all they could to stop Mozart from living musically.
Salieri’s cleverness and two-timing eventually caused Mozart to go from being an energetic, charming, and spontaneous maestro to basically becoming a crackhead with a quill in his hand who was still able to churn out brilliance among what seemed to be a life of sudden and unexpected chaos. Salieri just couldn’t give it up, he couldn’t accept that someone like Mozart really existed in the world among all of the bland mediocrity that he knew throughout his whole life. There was a great scene where Mozart was doing his thing in an opera and Salieri was watching and said to himself, “God was singing through this little man to all the world…unstoppable. Making my defeat more bitter with every passing bar.” He sort of reminded me of the jealous kid in high school who would sit in a corner with clenched fists and a tight jaw crying on the inside because of the fact that he wasn’t good enough to bring the hottest girl to the prom. The thing is that Salieri was a pretty good composer himself, but that he always let his thoughts about Mozart take him over and prevent him from being truly free of all hate and jealousy.
I enjoyed the film despite the fact that it was a little long, and had some weird parts in it. There was one scene with a lot of little people running around on stage while sausages, a bottle of champagne, and birds flew out of a horses butt, which was a little weird to say the least. The film also seemed to lose speed around 1:52 and then pick up the intensity again half an hour later, which provided for some awkward moments to say the least. I also did some research and found out that this portrayal of Salieri being extremely envious is highly fictionalized, but that doesn’t really take away from the movie itself to me.
What I loved most about the film, was the fact that it spoke about the true nature of passion. That was the true message of the film. Mozart was the embodiment of relentlessly burning passion. He breathed musical composition, he slept musical composition, he ate musical composition, and even made love to musical composition. This crazy crackhead was the universe’s manifestation of all that music and true passion is supposed to be! He didn’t care what anyone had to say about the world and that is why we know who he is today. He didn’t have a lot of money, and in his spare time he loved to make songs and joke about fecal matter. I have had this guy on my damn iTunes for years and I’m even listening to the Marriage of Figaro as I type this. I feel all that was and is Mozart through listening to the pieces that he composed. When people TRULY become their passion, success–in whatever way you define it– is reall
y inevitable. Mozart didn’t die on December 5th, 1791. This man is immortal. His love for life never ceased, and that is why he is truly one of the greatest to have ever composed. I might just be ignorant to the great composers of the world, but I had never even heard of Antonio Salieri until I watched Amadeus.
The acting is good, the plot is great, and the message is there, but can only be seen by those who are really able and willing to see it. I give it a 9/10, and it was also nominated for 53 awards and won 40. Even though the character of Salieri was half fool half tool, he did say something at the end of the movie that really spoke to me. He said it when he was leaving his little confession session with the dumbfounded priest: “I will speak for you father, I speak for all mediocrities of the world. I am their champion, I am their patron saint.” Watch this movie, you might learn something about the world, about mediocrity, and about true passion from it.
