Orion flick
Writers as far back as the nineteenth century had been inspired by the legendary contention between Antonio Salieri , Court Composer of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II , and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , the phenomenal prognostication who stormed into the court at Vienna and showed up Salieri for the comparative mediocrity that he was . Alexander Pushkin had adapted the story as a dramatic play in 1830 ; Nikolai Rimsky - Korsakov as an opera in 1897 . And then , most famously and lastingly , there was the stage play , Amadeus , written by Peter Shaffer , which strike London and then Broadway by tempest in 1979 and 1981 , respectively .
In brusk order , Shaffer adaptedAmadeusinto a screenplay , which was directed by the Czech master copy Milos Forman . This version , too , was a sensation , make headway eight Oscars and widespread acclaim . F. Murray Abraham won the Oscar for his transcendently saturnine Salieri ; Tom Hulce ’s inanely titter , faunlike Mozart is just as good , though not as well - remembered today , perhaps because Hulce largely retire from act decades ago .
Orion Pictures
This lush , spectacular film was regarded as one of the greatest ever made when it was first released , yet it ’s not as talk about or amply appreciated as some of its other 1984 brother likeGhostbusters , Beverly Hills Cop , or evenGremlins . However , its influence is still ascertain and felt today in both obvious imitators ( Oppenheimer ) and unbelievable admirer ( WandaVision).Amadeusis a picture with curiously unseeable ethnic wallop , but one that keep inspiring and charm openhanded blockbusters , Oscar - come through picture , and small - screen triumphs .
A tall tale worth telling (and borrowing)
In the 40 eld since its release on September 19th , 1984 , the story ofAmadeus — make full with triumphal music , agonising jealousy , shatter faith , and a twisted religious crusade — has never really left us . cheer filmmakers on both sides of the Atlantic , in genres as widespread as phantasy , scientific discipline fiction , and diachronic drama , from Oscar bait to the Marvel Universe , Amadeushas a paradigmatic complex body part that still enthralls . One man , sincere , dedicated to his nontextual matter , nominally well - behaved , strives all his lifespan to be a great artist , and achieves with his study only the noesis that he will never ultimately measure up . Another piece , less substantial , more fashionable , attain surpassing immensity without really try . And God , in a way , is indicted for it .
That the story is not remotely historically true is not really the distributor point . Salieri , revisionist musical historiographer have argue , was a better composer than Shaffer had him crack up to be ; the supposed rivalry between the Italian and the Austrian composer is completely undocumented .
In fact , Salieri latertaught Mozart ’s son pianoforte – hardly a thing one does for one ’s mortal foe . Still , there wererumorsas early as the metre of Mozart ’s death , in 1791 , that Salieri had poison him – malicious falsehoods that ultimately drove Salieri to a aflutter dislocation . But nonetheless , the dichotomy of the man who ferment severely for a average grade and the Isle of Man who observe his way to genius as if by chance event was intriguing even at the sentence . The enquiry is why – and what give it the stay power that echoes through film and TV history even up until today ?
The rivalry continues in Oppenheimer
Shaffer ’s concern was artists , or at least the artistically disposed . In his 1973 playEquus , a child head-shrinker obsessed with the ancient world bemoans the less gods and aesthetic pursuits of contemporaneity . In his 1990 playLettice and Lovage , a cleaning woman who give tours of onetime Tudor mansions plans to bomb a Brutalist concrete monstrosity in London . By contrast , the film maker Christopher Nolan , whose background parallels Shaffer in some authoritative ways ( not least that they both spent their youths moving somewhat freely between the U.S. and the U.K. ) , is more interested in scientists , explorer , and generally more muscular , less contemplative chassis . But the same premise hold .
Nolan has been opened about the influence ofAmadeusonOppenheimer , his 2023 Best Picture achiever , which frame the story of the eponymous atomic pioneer as a contention between Oppenheimer himself and his patron - change state - persecutor , Lewis Strauss of the Atomic Energy Commission . In the film , Oppenheimer ( Cillian Murphy ) and Strauss ( Robert Downey Jr. ) first converge in Princeton , New Jersey , in 1947 ; Strauss is at the sentence a board member of the Institute for Advanced Study , placing him in a scientific milieu and thus metaphorically contending with Oppenheimer on the latter ’s “ own turf . ”
Oppenheimer take on that an pedantic figurehead like Strauss must have some noesis of science . He asks : “ You ’re a physicist by preparation , Mr. Strauss ? ” Strauss demurs , but Oppenheimer observe pushing , “ You never thought of studying physics formally ? ” Strauss the Elder answer , “ I had offers . But I chose to sell shoes . ” Oppenheimer lets a smiling ( or something close to it – does Murphy ever grin ? ) diffuse across his face .
Oppenheimer:Science as art and genius as fait accompli
Throughout the photographic film , Strauss is posited as malignantly jealous of Oppenheimer ’s scientific insightfulness , a gentleman positioned on the edges of serious science who is nonetheless unequipped to hire with it in a serious direction . Strauss ’ regard for Einstein , which Oppenheimer brush aside , his attempt to prevent the exportation of atomic isotope , which Oppenheimer ridicules in front of a Congressional panel – these things mean the attack of a sassy and impelled man attempting to muscle in on a field for which he is simply not award godlike giving , as Oppenheimer is .
The distinction between geniuses and strivers is recurrent in Hollywood pic ( see most of the pic of Brad Bird ) . The suggestion is that some of us are just special , and others are not , and that however hard those of us in the “ not ” class might endeavor to measure up , the best thing to do is simply to get out of the way and let geniuses genius , so to talk .
Oppenheimerattempts to be a measured portrait of its key fiber , acknowledge – if briefly – the moral inconsistency that made him complicit in developing the most destructive arm in the story of the cosmos . But finally , whatever the consequences of his work , it lionizes him for being self - plainly brilliant , and condemns Strauss for being , well , not .
Nolan has been influenced by Amadeus since The Prestige
Oppenheimerisn’t the only Nolan moving-picture show to operate along Shafferian lines . InThe Prestige(2006 ) , Hugh Jackman ’s Robert Angier and Christian Bale ’s Alfred Borden are rival 19th - century wizard in a standardised mold . The working - social class Borden has devise an ingenious thaumaturgy he calls The Transported Man , in which he appears to teleport himself across a room ; the aristocratic Angier becomes obsess with discover how Borden achieves the ostensibly impossible effect in Holy Order to steal it for himself .
In a steampunk turn , the dire Angier contracts Nikola Tesla ( David Bowie ) to make him a machine that creates exact duplicates of human beingness – every time the joke is performed , the original Angier is dropped into a water cooler and swim , and the clone continues Angier ’s life . Borden , meanwhile , turns out to have plainly been a pair of indistinguishable twin all along – a pedestrian but ultimately ego - evident divine revelation .
Angier ’s resorting to a sort of technical “ god ” – up to of powers men of his meter feared in the same way they did the supernatural – straight parallels Salieri ’s journey inAmadeus , aspointed out by theObserver ’s film critic Philip Frenchat the meter ofThe Prestige ’s release . Salieri , a devout Catholic , makes a heap with God as a tike , offering him spiritual pureness in exchange for musical excellence . Discovering in his adulthood that , as he interpret it , God has “ choose for Your pawn a self-aggrandising , lustful , smutty , childish boy ” ( Mozart ) , he goes from talk terms with God to war with him , vowing to “ block and harm Your beast as far as I am able-bodied . ” Bowie ’s flyaway Tesla functions as Angier ’s “ God ” figure in this twist .
Amadeus’ influence on the MCU
Kathryn Hahn has made a calling of unexpected intensiveness . Her upcoming reprisal of the role of Agatha Harkness , a reality - distorting crone , in Disney + ’ sAgatha All Alongwill no doubt be as effective as , if middling less surprising than , her debut as the quality in the miniseriesWandaVision(2021 ) . From the beginning , Hahn has framed Harkness ’ rivalry with Marvel antihero Scarlet Witch ( Elizabeth Olsen ) in the context of use ofAmadeus .
In a 2021 interviewwith the New YorkTimes , she told Dave Itzkoff , “ We talked a band about Amadeus and Salieri , in terms of their relationship — Agatha wishes that she could make the sort of euphony that the Scarlet Witch just had by nature . For someone that has spent century study this , to touch a young person to whom it comes wholly naturally , it ’s maddening and you want to experience why . ”
WandaVisionholds its card close to its vest , mask Agatha as “ Agnes , ” the daffy next - room access neighbor in a series of augmented reality based on television situation comedy ostensibly being projected / created by Scarlet Witch . Mozart , inAmadeus , also see Salieri as being a protagonist , or at least harmless , to begin with .
But by direct contrast , Salieri comport his whisper campaign against Mozart in the melodic roach of Vienna ( “ mess up everything , ” as Agatha might put it ) behind Mozart ’s back . Since the motion picture ’s position lie with Salieri , it does n’t have the luxury of hide that from the audience . Even the sequence in which Salieri appears in Carnival masque and disguise to commission the Requiem that ultimately , Darkhold - like , drain the life and power from Mozart , it ’s gauzy to the interview that we ’re sell with a intimate public figure .
Mozart and Salieri aligned
But perhaps Scarlet Witch ’s ultimate turn to the dark side , inDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness(2022 ) , is the forerunner of a future conjunction between Scarlet Witch and Agatha , a prospect for Agatha to gain proximity to some of that “ completely natural ” energy and to profit , at least somewhat , from the experience . This contingency , after all , is the lustrous point in the otherwise pitch - blackAmadeus – andthe view that make the film .
Hulce ’s Mozart , occupied simultaneously with the composition ofThe Magic Fluteand theRequiem(fictionally ) commissioned by Salieri , suffer the event of unbridled alcoholism and dissipation , and give up by his married woman and tiddler , finally founder while conducting . Salieri , ineffective to keep from idolizing this “ instrumental role of God , ” takes him home and deal for him , even as he in secret plots to claim to have written theRequiemhimself after Mozart conk . In a breathtaking exhibit of collaborative play by Hulce and Abraham , Salieri act as transcriber for the ongoingRequiemas Mozart dictates from his deathbed .
Salieri ’s pen shin to keep up with Mozart ’s volatile brilliance — “ You go too tight , ” he mutter breathlessly , “ you go too tight ! ” But as the score to this unfinished masterpiece swell under the vista , Salieri begin to see what Mozart is going for , and is , unavoidably , infected with the delight of composition — “ That ’s wonderful ! ” For a moment , he , too , is part of the work of star . For a present moment , he is spill the beans with the voice of God .
And Mozart break down , spent , onto his pillow . “ I ’m so ashamed , ” he pass off . “ I was gooselike . I recollect you did not like for my work – or me . Forgive me . Forgive me ! ”
And it is this unimaginable forgiveness , this unacceptable 1 , the transhumanist wonder of creation , that lead us to envy and analyze originative installation with such heedless wantonness . It ’s this forgiveness – the blessing of the flair – which we assay when we rejoin toAmadeus , again and again .
Amadeusis available to rent or purchase fromAmazon Prime Videoand other major digital vendors .
