Mozart is a talented, hardworking young composer, but there is one that is jealous of his talents, Salieri.
Blaine III: In “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, Jack Nicholson was a man battling the system in a psychiatric hospital. “To me it was not just literature but real life, the life I lived in Czechoslovakia from my birth in 1932 until 1968. The Communist Party was my Nurse Ratched, telling me what I could and could not do.” Czechoslovakia was behind what was known as “the Iron Curtain” and was under control of the USSR (today, Russia), which was totalitarian. People lacked rights and their lives were controlled by the State. So for Forman, the oppression of the mental hospital was symbolic of Communism.
Blaine IV: In 1979, Milos Forman was invited to see this play called “Amadeus”, but he didn’t want to see it because a story about a composer didn’t sound interesting to him. He also thought it would be boring. But “Amadeus” was different from what Milos was expecting. It was more of a drama that he could get hooked to. After the first act of the play, Milos went to Peter Shafter, the person who wrote and directed the play. Milos told Peter how wonderful he thought it was so far and if he liked the second act then he would want to turn the play into a movie. Producer Saul Zaents, who worked with Milos on “Cuckoo’s Nest”, had seen the play too and thought it was good, but he couldn’t understand how it could be made into a film because he felt there wasn’t enough about Mozart. Milos then thought about adding music to it.
Milos invited Peter Shaffer over to his house in Connecticut for the weekend to discus how they were going to turn “Amadeus” into a movie. Milos said once that film is photography and in photography everything is real. Milos and Peter spent four months together at his house working on the screenplay. Peter Shaffer wrote the script, but some directors like Milos spend time with the screenwriter to give out suggestions on what needs to be added to the story. Plus Milos is the one who was very passionate about turning “Amadeus” into a movie. Every couple of hours Milos and Peter would listen to Mozart’s music. Listening to the music helped Peter think of lines and dialog. He wrote them down what was in his head as fast as he could before loosing it.
Peter Shaffer didn’t want just one theme of music for “Amadeus”, nor did he want it to be a background. The whole movie had to be about music and the audience would be hearing all these different sounds of music as they were watching the music. The music would be like a third character in the movie next to Mozart and Salieri.
A lot of actors wanted to play Mozart and Salieri. Milos thought it would be best if they both weren’t played by superstars, but unknown faces instead. Milos thought that if they were played by celebrities then the audience would think of that actor. Milos wanted people to think this is Mozart and this is Salieri. Milos also knew that he would need two talented actors to play these parts. F. Murray Abraham went in to audition for a small part and Milos though he was good. Milos asked if F. Murray Abraham could stay and help him by reading lines with actors who were auditioning for Mozart. Milos was impressed with F. Murray Abraham’s acting. Milos decided to test F. Murray Abraham by having him perform as elder Salieri. And after that F. Murray Abraham was all Milos could think about for the part of Salieri. His mind wasn’t completely made up yet because he wanted to check out a few more actors for the part. Several weeks later, Milos called up F. Murray Abraham saying he got the part. F. Murray Abraham was on the set of “Scarface” when he got the good news and everyone looked at him thinking how lucky he was a lucky guy because a lot of actors wanted to the part of Salieri and he got it.
Milos was hard on Tom Hulce (Animal House) when he was testing him out to see if he would be perfect for Mozart. He thought Tom was great for the role and also had him audition with other actors to see who else was good enough to be in “Amadeus”. Tom would be there for eight hours and every 20 minutes new actors would come in to audition for Tom to read lines with.
“Amadeus” was shot in Prague because that’s one of the few places that still has a 18th century style to it. It was emotional for Milos to be shooting “Amadeus” there because he is from there and he was not allowed to go back after escaping Communism. He never thought he would see his native country again. Milos then realized that he shouldn’t let something as personal as this get in the way of his work. The asylum in the movie was a war museum in real life, but before that it was military hospital. The people who worked there questioned Milos and his crew a lot because they thought they were a part of the CIA. The corridor had 75 two-ton cannons all facing each other. Milos thought they were great, but they had to get them out of that corridor so they could shoot there. The first three weeks of shooting was of elder Salieri in the hospital room. F. Murray Abraham would have to wake up every morning and have the makeup department apply prosthetics on his face for four hours to make him look old. After sitting in the makeup chair for four hours, F. Murray Abraham got tired and felt slow. But when he looked at himself in the mirror, he felt like he was someone else and that got him in the mood to act.
While Milos and the crew were shooting all the scenes as F. Murray Abraham as elder Salieri, the other actors would rehearse scenes together. Meg Tilly was going to play Constanze, Mozart’s wife, and she was great during the rehearsal. Milos thought everyone was doing a terrific job and he couldn’t wait to shoot their scenes. They were about shoot scenes involving Meg until she damaged her leg the day before shooting. She was playing soccer with some kids on the street and she tore a ligament in her leg. The doctor told Milos that she would have to wait five weeks for her to recover. They couldn’t wait five weeks because of their schedule, so they had to find another actress to play Constanze and they had two weeks to do it. They went to New York and auditioned 60 women and there were two girls that Milos had a hard time deciding who should get the part. One of those girls Elizabeth Berridge and she was nervous when she auditioned. Milos went back to shoot the movie. They flew those two girls over to Prague to test them out some more. They dressed them up in hair and makeup while Milos and the crew were making the movie. Elizabeth felt like she was apart of the film because she was all dressed up and on the set. They still couldn’t decide and this went on for a week. Elizabeth had a feeling she wasn’t going to get the part, but she appreciated them considering her, have her fly first class and spending a week in Prague. Finally Milos decided to go with Elizabeth because he loved the other girl just as much as her, but he thought she was too pretty. Elizabeth didn’t know what to say because it was very unexpected for her. So for six months Elizabeth was Constanze.
Elizabeth’s first day was the scene where Constanze goes to see Salieri and show him the sheets of music Mozart has written. She didn’t like eating the nipples of venus (a pastry) while shooting that scene. Elizabeth didn’t know that she didn’t have to eat the whole thing and she could spit it out after they were done shooting a take. The first scene Jeffrey Jones did was when his character, Emperor Joseph II, is playing the march of welcome on the piano and meeting Mozart for the first time. Jeffrey had to learn how to play the piano accurately and also badly. Tom Hulce had a piano in his room and he would spend a lot of time learning how to play the piano. The keyboards in front of Tom were silent, they couldn’t make a sound. All the music they recorded was done before shooting began. Tom had to listen to that music and make sure that the piano keys he touched matched the sound he was listening to. Tom spent three to four hours a day practicing piano.
The opera house they shot in was real and it was the only wooden opera house left in central Europe. It looked like an 18th century opera house. It was also the same opera house where Mozart himself conducted one of his operas, “Don Giovanni”. Everyone was thrilled to be shooting there. They had to light thousands of candles to light up the place. This place was capable of burning up and they had 40 firemen around the building just in case anything went wrong.
Elizabeth Berridge had never done a movie this big before in her career. The first time we are introduced to Mozart and Constance is when they are fooling around. Constance is hiding under a table and Mozart is looking for her. And then he finds her and they play under the table. Elizabeth wasn’t sure of they were shooting a take or rehearsing because Milos was mysterious at times. He did the same thing with “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Jeffrey Jones wasn’t sure if he was doing a good job with his acting because Milos wasn’t saying anything to him for a week while they were shooting. So Jeffrey asked Milos if he needed to do anything to make his performance better and Milos told him that there was no problem and he was doing a terrific job. Milos didn’t say anything because he thought it was good not to fill the actor’s heads with too much stuff and have them focus on their work. If anything went wrong or wasn’t good enough Milos would say something.
The costume designer was very clear on how he wanted the costumes to look. He would redo any costumes that looked like they needed more work before being on camera. He didn’t care how much it would cost to redo a costume.
Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham had to watch these two musicians play the scene where Salieri is helping Mozart write his last opera to see how real musicians would do it. It’s not something actors usually get to learn. There were two cameras set up focusing on F. Murray and Tom. Tom would be on the bed while F. Murray was on the bed side and the cameras were shooting them both at the same time. Due to Milos’ style and his background growing up in Central Europe and they way he photographed the movie with such beauty, he was able to show music from an artist’s point of view.
My rating on “Amadeus” is five out of five stars
Blaine IV: A couple of Miroslav Ondricek's cinematography shots explained by my dad, Blaine Harrington III
Blaine III: Coming out if the tunnel in total darkness into the light with the black costume still in silhouette.
Again, the black costume and hat are used silhouetted, with window light behind, again creating a lot of mystery.
Family Guy
The Simpsons
Episode: Magical History Tour
Plot: Marge tells Bart, Lisa and Milhouse three stories about history. The last story she tells is about Mozart and Salieri which Lisa points out is almost like Milos Forman’s film, “Amadeus." Salieri (Lisa) is jealous of her brother’s
(Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) (Bart), talents and how respected he is. Mozart has an opera coming up. Salieri goes around pretending to serve wine to get to the Emperor. Salieri puts something in it to make him fall asleep. During the opera, the Emperor passes out making it look like he is bored with the opera. Everyone else falls asleep during Mozart’s opera. The failure of his opera causes him to drink and walking in the rain while feeling depressed. Mozart becomes very ill and is dying. Mozart is on his death bed confessing to Salieri that he always thought her music (Lisa’s) would be judged the best. Mozart dies. Salieri visits the Emperor to show him her music, but the Emperor is already with someone else, Ludwig van Beethoven and declares all other music obsolete. Salieri is crushed that she will never be a respected composer, so she throws her music away, boards a carriage and is on her way to an insane asylum.
