One of my favorite stories about Mozart concerned his hatred of a popular singer. Seeing that she had a proclivity to drop her head on low notes and raise her chin high and high notes, he deliberately wrote a piece that violently alternated between highs and lows, causing her head to bob up and down like a chicken. He was kinda that way.
You can argue that Salieri is an unreliable narrator in the movie. It’s believed he got dementia and started believing the rumors about him killing Mozart himself.
@@TheJabbate1that's how I saw it. The last year of Salieri's life, he had a nervous breakdown, attempted suicide, and was committed to a mental hospital. There were allegations that Mozart was poisoned and the Mozart and him were bitter rivals, but Salieri denied that and both respected each other. But in the movie- in the end, Salieri just accepts the rumors as truth and creates a story all around it. Anyone who does a cursory search of Salieri would see he had kids. I think this was the director's hint that "Nah, this isn't what happened, just what he believes."
Yes, he taught Schubert and Beethoven. He taught for free, to honor the charity he got as a youth. There was a big birthday of Salieri that Schubert attended, but Beethoven did not, which caused some sore feeling amongst many of Salieri's students. This is not a fair representation of the man, but it is such an amazing story of the tension between virtue and talent.
Accurate part is how they buried him and his dead is most likely kidney failure because bacteria infection , sepsis cures have got better in last 30 years .
Fun Fact: For the death bed scene none of the actors knew each other's lines. Each of them were given an earpiece, musicians dictated terms to the actors and it was done on the fly. That moment of Salieri's frustration of not keeping up, then getting it is the actor getting lost and then getting back on track with the scene. What talent! Also, the scene that always gets me is when Salieri reveals his big plan and the expression on the priest's face is just one of abject horror at the monstrosity of Salieri's blasphemy. He wants to kill Mozart and by doing so humble God himself. Such powerful acting.
If you recall, F. Murray Abraham was in Last Action Hero, and this movie is why Danny said he couldn't be trusted because he killed Mozart (”Who is Moe Zart?").
I wrote a paper on this film on my music theory class in college. Its themes of dreams, talent, faith, and envy are fleshed out so deeply in this wonderful film. The set up is relatively simple, but the subtext is extensive and it’s executed to perfection. Salieri did teach many better known composers than himself and he did in fact not have a rivalry with Mozart. They weren’t friends, but were friendly and respected each other .
Salieri is also still commonly performed and studied even today. His music is far from dead, he just isn't in the company of composers like Bach, Beethoven and Mozart.
Nostalgia Critic hit the nail on the head with this. What we are seeing is what Salieri recalls in his dimentia addled mind. It is his view of Mozart. As such we see truthful observations such as the outlandishly childish behavior, and Salieri’s own demons injected into his observations.
One of my favourite bits of movie trivia... during the night of the Oscars, as the evening progressed it was getting quite evident to people that Amadeus was going for a clean sweep at all the awards for the year. I don't recall who it was, but when the winner of the best score went up and gave their speech, the first words out of their mouth were "I'd like to thank Mozart for not being alive..." 😂😂😂
I remember that too! All I could remember was that it was a music category...so with that in mind I was able to find the exact quote. Maurice Jarre, accepting Best Score for "A Passage to India," brilliantly started his speech : "I was lucky Mozart was not eligible this year." The audience roared with laughter. You can find the clip on UA-cam, search out "Maurice Jarre winning Original Score for "A Passage to India."
@@amstrad00 Yup, Prince won for best SONG score. Maurice Jarre won for best original score. And the actual line was "I was lucky Mozart was not eligible this year." Crowd goes wild.
I recall something similar when Return of the King was sweeping the Oscars. The winner of Best Foreign Film (I think for Triplets of Belleville) thanked Return of the King for not qualifying for this award.
Clarifying some of George's points: Salieri taught Mozart's son, Beethoven, Schubert, and Liszt. Elizabeth Berridge was around 22 when filming the movie. The only two sons that lived to adulthood did not have any children, so there are no descendants of Mozart alive today. I was surprised to find out Meg Tilly was originally cast as Constanze Mozart. She was such a very bright candle at that time, I'm surprised she burned out so fast. At least she did Valmont.
@@jacksonmay153 Yeah, people have been trying very hard to ascribe any illegitimate children to either of Mozart's sons, but they truly just didn't have any.
Beethoven also studied with Franz Joseph Haydn. He had come to Vienna to study with Mozart but it’s unknown if the two ever actually met, likely due to Mozart’s death in 1791.
@@matthewcastleton2263 As far as I know, Beethoven met Mozart once when he was young and Mozart noticed his talent, but no relation developed beyond that.
Man, I never realized that. I theoretically know enough of Latin, Greek and German to translate all three of the names, but I just never put it together.
F Murray Abraham gives one of the best performances of all time - this movie deserved all the awards it got. Easily in my top 3 of all time, can watch it over and over.
Now here is the question. Do you like the original cut or the extended? Me personally I prefer the original cut, as the extended is well... has too many notes.
@@YukoValis One thing about the extended cut is when I saw the theatrical release I didn't understand why when she returns from the spa she clearly hates Salieri. When I saw the extended cut it was explained.
@@TreantmonksTemple That is honestly a good point. Originally I thought she was upset at the work and Salieri being a representation of said work. Only in the extended did we find out why she had reason to hate him.
@@YukoValis I'd keep about half of the additional material in the Director's Cut - keep the scene after the opera in the dressing room between Salieri and Katherina and the extended scenes with Salieri and Constanza. Overall I prefer the DC, but could take or leave the parts where Mozart's being smeared / looking for work.
@@gp8209 - yeah, the 2 scenes of Mozart wanting teaching gigs at the house with the dogs was really not necessary for the story (although it did punctuate the falling on bad times)
Tom Hulce, mostly known to the time of this film, as a character in Animal House, is amazing in this movie! He was nominated for Best Actor at the 1985 Academy Awards, but lost to Abraham, who played Salieri.
He was also the original Danny Kaffee in the stage premiere of A Few Good Men, AND is the voice, singing and talking, of Quasimodo in Disney's "Hunchback of Notre Dame".
And the acceptance speech by Abraham in the Oscars was the most heart felt tribute to Hulce: "the only thing missing is to have Tom Hulce standing here right next to me".
I could be mistaken, but I don't think he "lost to" Abraham because Tom would've been nominated for best actor and Abraham for best supporting actor. They wouldn't have been in the same category.
Amadeus was originally a play by Peter Shaffer that premiered in London with Simon Callow playing Mozart (he plays the actor with the theatre company who has him write The Magic Flute). It premiered on Broadway with Ian McKellen (Salieri) and Tim Curry (Mozart), and they were both nominated for Tonys (McKellen won).
Tom Hulce (Mozart) did put int the time and effort to learn the piano, especially Mozart's pieces. He even learned to play that pieace up side down. This is why it's so well played.
Re: Simone's comment on not being able to draw things how she sees imagines them...now imagine you had practiced and worked your whole life to improve your art, and you suddenly realized not only were you not that good, but this other knucklehead made such beautiful art almost as if on a whim. I love the scene where Mozart meets the emperor. He improves Salieri's welcome March (which is really a Mozart piece) with absolutely zero effort. It's just fun for him.
I just finished the the reaction and wanted to comment that the solemnity and seriousness of current classical concerts in halls is kinda new in the big scheme of time, remember that back in the day this was the form of entertainment of a huge amount of people not only the aristocrats, this was their cinema, their literal concerts so a lot of concert halls (that still exists and are used for classical music in the contemporary way) didnt have seats in front of the stage or they were very easy to remove, they were literal venues and people went crazy, they yelled, they danced, they cried, they requested encores, they booed the parts they didnt like, they asked to repeat the parts they liked, it was a concert like today's rock concerts in many ways. Recently some videos went viral of the Oxford Symphonic Orchestra performing at a rock festival called Truck Festival, it was the orchestra in a concert stage (under the rain actually, they were under the roof of the stage of course) and people in front of them like they were a pop band and the reaction is amazing, they mosh pit to the tune of the orchestra and that energy wasnt that far off of how it was in Mozart's time and Mozart played to that. Of course, there were concerts intended for aristocrats and nobility and composers weren't able to attend to all concerts to direct so of course Mozart had prioirties elsewhere but he was a rockstar in the same way, I dont know, Metallica are rockstar mosh pit included. Then during the Victorian era a lot of things changed in the entertainment space and the way we appreciate classical concert today started to take shape. There is a whole conversation for years now in the classical circles of trying to make an effort to appeal to the public like in the way it was appreciated at some point in time, like literal pop music.
One of my favorite stories about Mozart and Salieri is the time they went to see The Magic Flute together. Mozart described in a letter, “He heard and saw with all his attention, and from the overture to the last choir there was not a piece that didn’t elicit a ‘Bravo!’ or ‘Bello!’ out of him.” I love the image of the two of them sitting in a balcony seat. Every time one of Wolfie's favorite passages comes up, he goes "see what I did there?" and cackles, and Salieri responds, "ah, bravo, bello!" with big Italian hand gestures.
"Amadeus" won eight Oscars that year. The winner of "Best Original Score" that year was "A Passage to India". As they recieved the prize they commented "I'm so glad that Amadeus wasn't eglible for this category". :)
Milos Forman also directed "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (which won all five major Academy Awards) which also dealt with the fine line between genius and insanity. (He also directed "Man on the Moon", the biopic about comedian Andy Kaufman starring Jim Carrey - also about the fine line between genius and insanity.)
Just a note on the burial. Mozart was, essentially, a servant, a composer for hire. He had the burial that most Viennese got at the time. Only if you were noble did you get a memorial, but it wasn't in a communal grave pit, it was a simple single grave with no markings.
Mozart had long since ceased to be a servant; he was a master craftsman, on a social level with painters, sculptors, goldsmiths and architects. Respectably middle class-- and yes, such folk got respectable burials, provided of course they had money. Mozart was broke, but in fact Baron von Swieten paid for a respectable funeral. But that isn't why he was buried outside the city walls. That was done with *everybody* in Vienna at the time, a custom stemming from the days of regular plague outbreaks. The term "common grave" has been misinterpreted as "mass grave," but that is an error. He was buried in an individual grave, but it was a commoner's grave, which by law could be dug up and re-used after ten years, the bones moved to an ossuary. Only the nobility could expect permanent postmortem housing.
Salieri was a great composer, at least in his day. He just had the great, great misfortune of being alive at the same time as Mozart. A bit like Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare (if you don't know Christopher Marlow, that's my point).
3:09 - "The old age makeup is really good!" - Simone. Makeup legend Dick Smith won an Oscar for his makeup work in this film. Also known for "Death Becomes Her" (1992) "The Hunger" (1983) "Little Big Man" (1970) "The Godfather" (1972) "The Exorcist" (1973) "Scanners" (1981) and SO many more!! The age makeup in this film continues to hold up today as one of the greatest, most subtle, believable age makeups in cinema history.
Unfortunately, historians have been very skeptical of that picture for more than a couple of reasons, and it's considered incredibly unlikely that it's her in the photograph
I saw this movie as a child and remember being so deeply affected by it. It was the first movie I saw that sort of transcended mere entertainment and made me feel and think things beyond excitement or danger or laughter. It awakened me to the idea of art. Even just watching your reaction, it made me tear up again.
Historical note: the basis of this movie was the widespread rumours that Salieri poisoned Mozart, based mostly on the fact that the man died at an unusually young age. Salieri, being the court composer, was well-regarded in his time and did contribute much to the musical landscape, including a well-regarded opera based on Don Quixote. Despite the rumors, there is little to suggest that the two men were anything but colleagues operating under mutual respect and admiration.
To add to this, the persistent rumors of Salieri's involvement weighed heavily on him and contributed to a series of nervous breakdowns in his later years. This movie could very well be depicting one of those breakdowns, where he has convinced himself the rumors are true and confabulated this horrific tale of his own guilt, in a sort of false confession.
@@wolfofthewest8019 I do like this reading but also as someone who's had delusions about being responsible for deaths usually it's pretty clear there's nothing to the claim when it's a delusion. For example my delusion was that I was patient zero for Covid and a single cough snowballed into 7 million deaths for which I was now responsible (a pretty harrowing thing to believe, as I genuinely did in my state). Clearly nothing there. But even if Salieri didn't literally murder Mozart himself he did contribute (in the movie)
@@NTA_Luciana He contributed in the movie, yes -- but the movie isn't purporting to show what *actually* happened, rather it's showing what Salieri *confessed* to happen. Salieri is confabulating (making things up). For example, we know the true identity of the man who anonymously commissioned the Requiem (it was some minor nobleman who wanted to take credit for Mozart's work), but Salieri confesses that it was him. Since we know that's untrue, we should also suspect that Salieri was, in reality, likely guilty of nothing more than being slightly jealous of Mozart and, like most people, disgusted by his juvenile antics.
@@wolfofthewest8019 if the film was a purely subjective fake confession then why does it show things that Salieri wouldn't have known to begin with? Particularly Mozart's domestic life pre-Cynthia Nixon. Like how is he confessing that?
@@wolfofthewest8019 Idk my conception of the film was that the flashbacks are the "real" movie and the confession stuff was just a framing device that sits on top. I didn't consider that the confession aspect would leak back into the flashbacks
Elizabeth Berridge (Constanze) was 22 at the time. The had cast Meg Tilly, but she had to quit because of a soccer injury. Cynthia Nixon was just 18. Hats off to your instant recognition. I literally didn’t notice who it was for 20 years.
I loved the ending between Mozart and Saleri. One part is the dictation of notes under scored by the music. As noted a great way to show composition. The other is for a brief moment Saleri was one with Mozart. For that moment Saleri was touched by God.
@32:31 a Ducat contains about 3.5 grams of gold, so 100 ducats is 350 grams of gold. Gold is trading at about 65 USD/gram, so 100 ducats is worth approximately 22, 750 USD.
yes and no. Nowadays we would just be using it for the gold content, but it is different when talking about buying power. From what I found in looking it up, most non-skilled employment got you about 20 a month. Skilled labor 40-50. So he gave Mozart 2-3 months worth of money, and promised another 100 ducats after. That would have been 6 months worth for a single piece of work.
I’d also recommend a film called “Immortal Beloved” about Beethoven and featuring Gary Oldman. It was the film that first brought Oldman to my attention and made him one of my favourite actors.
The portrayal of Mozart and Salieri always reminds me of Spongebob and Squidward. There’s even a thing called Salieri Syndrome that accurately represents the kind of relationship those two characters have with respect to their musicianship.
Salieri's music is actually quite good. Not as good as Mozart, but not far off. According to all accounts, that hyena-like cackle is accurate. One of Mozart's friends described his laugh as "the noise made by scraping a cobblestone down a piano string">
In the movie "Last Action Hero", the actor who plays Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) is introduced, and the kid says to the Arnold character, "Watch It Jack, He Killed Mozart"
This is my all time favorite movie. It has probably the most important lesson for any artist, whether you’re a composer or in my case, a painter: no matter how talented you are, or how celebrated and successful you get, you WILL be surpassed by someone better. Surprisingly, it’s also not as inaccurate as the public perception might have you think. The channel History Buffs has an excellent video about it.
The title, Amadeus, also ties into the theme of the film, Latin for "beloved of God", or in German he is often referred to as Gottlieb, which has the same meaning. While it is entirely unlikely that Salieri ever historically harmed Mozart, it soon became an urban legend of its time. Pushkin wrote a play, Mozart and Salieri, in 1830 about the gossip that Salieri had killed Mozart, so the story itself has its own kind of history.
Good reaction. BTW, the poster art is referring to the 1979 award winning stage play. It was extremely popular, hence, " Everything you've heard is true." Also, the style of poster art is based on the playbill.
Our Sixth Grade Music teacher had us watch this. Cardboard over the TV for the 2 seconds of naughty scene. I’m so glad he did because I rewatch it all the time and it gave me a respect for Classical Music.
By design or stroke of luck, this movie came out not long after they finally invented high-quality sound for home video tape. Just a year or two earlier, the music would’ve been about the quality of AM radio, but as it was, the sound for people at home could be almost as good as being in a theater. In fact, this is the kind of movie that made selling someone a “home theater system” possible. Mozart’s father is played by Roy Dotrice, who appeared in the “Beauty and the Beast” TV series with Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton, and in “The Cutting Edge” as the skating trainer Pamchenko. His daughter played Jane Banks in “Mary Poppins.” 18:31 Good catch. She was 18 when this came out, 14 years before “Sex and the City” even began. 26:51 That’s the thing about Mozart: his music is probably the most “catchy” classical there is. Even if you don’t know the names of the pieces, you probably know half a dozen Mozart songs. Heck, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ is Mozart.
Mozart has many catchy tunes, but the tune to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" was pre-existing as a French folk song under the name, "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman" (Ah, Mother, If I Could Tell You) when Mozart used it to compose a series of variations.
This movie portrays hate and jealousy like most movies portray love and admiration. It's fascinating. I cannot wait until I'm off work to watch this reaction from you guys. In my personal top 10!
Fun fact. F. Murray Abraham , Salieri was also Omar in the movie Scarface and he would fly from Miami to Prague to film the scenes. They made both movies the same year even though Amadeus came out a year after.
Most people have what you call a mind's eye and can see things in their heads, visualizing whatever they want. Much fewer people have what you call a mind's ear and can hear music and voices in their heads. I have aphantasia, which means my mind's eye is blind and I am unable to visualize things in my head, but I have a very strong mind's ear and can hear music plaing in my head like elivator music everywhere I go. The not-so-great part is that I don't always have control over the playlist. Sometimes the songs get stuck on repeat, and I just can't stop them.
I went to the North Carolina School of the Arts, Tom Hulce's alma mater. He graduated 5 or 6 years before I attended, but he often came to performances put on. He was Uber-supportive of the school and felt he owed it a debt that he wished to continue fulfilling. Anyway, the first time I met him was us both being in attendance of a series of 1 act plays, literally weeks after Amadeus has been released. He sat near the back (I was up front) and he was introduced as a distinguished Grad during the opening House announcement. Instead of standing and receiving the greeting applause from the attendees, he let out that famous Amadeus cackle. The entire audience gut-laughed and it took 5 mins to halt, so they could start the show. He ended up teaching several classes over my years as a visiting instructor and is really a very cool guy.
@@johannesvalterdivizzini1523 Oh damn, I didn't notice Tom Hulce in Animal House at all. It's so hard to concentrate on anything else with people like John Belushi, Donald Sutherland, Karen Allen, Kevin Bacon and Stephen Furst to see.
Yup. It was filmed in Prague and most of the emperor's palace interiors and few exteriors were filmed in a small town in eastern Czechia called Kromeriz in the archbishop's chateau. It was cheaper than filming in Vienna. I grew up in Kromeriz and I was a little kid when it was being filmed. The same chateau was used in bunch of other hollywood productions, even one about Beethoven called Immortal Beloved with Isabela Rosselini and Gary Oldman as Beethoven. And I managed to be an extra in that one while I was in high school. FYI Amadeus was one of the few big Hollywood productions filmed in the early 80s while there was still heavy communism in, at the time still called, Czechoslovakia.
I have to agree that the scene at the end where Mozart and Salieri were working in his bedroom, is my favorite scene in the movie. To see the creativity just pouring out of Wolfgang is amazing, and tragic at the same time. Thomas Hulce did a great job as W.A. Mozart, almost as good as his role of Pinto in "Animal House". HaHaHaHa. The emperor was played by Jeffrey Jones, the Principal in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". HaHaHaHa.
Salieri was a sought after teacher. Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Ludwig van Beethoven, Anton Eberl, Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart were among the most famous of his pupils.
Mozart’s last work was his Requiem, the “Lacrimosa” movement in particular was left unfinished. It was actually completed by a former student of his (if I recall). In those days, the lower class sometimes really were buried in a mass grave. We don’t really know the exact final resting place of Mozart. Someone began a rumor about Salieri being jealous, which then turned into legend over the years. This stageplay-turned-movie capitalizes on that conspiracy theory. In fact, Mozart and Salieri were professional contemporaries. For reference, I’m a classically trained pianist/composer. This movie is “standard” in music school when you learn about this period and all the players of the time. Even though it’s historical fiction, it’s beloved by most and enjoyed for what it is. The role of Salieri is some of my absolute favorite acting in any movie. The actor deserved his Oscar he won for that role. And the movie deserves its best picture win of 1984.
When I was young and this movie was out and Falco had a hit song called 'Amadeus' playing on the radio, we would substitute the words 'I'm a Danish' and sing: "I'm a Danish, I'm a Danish, I'm...a Danish, I'm a Danish, I'm a Danish, I'm...a Danish, I'm a Danish, I'm a Danish, oh oh oh I'm a Danish. Come on and eat me, I'm a Danish!"
I saw it staged in a ramshackle early 19th Century music-hall in London, which was still in the process of being restored. The setting was brilliantly atmospheric, and the fact that most of the cast were actor/musicians who also played the incidental music was extra special. A fantastic production.
13:13 George wondering about the exchange of rings... The exchange of rings in germanic tradition goes back as far as there are written records, to the iron age or late migration era, but there is archaeological evidence that it is even older than that. The ceremonial exchange of rings was not primarily between husband and wife, but between lord and vassal, or in those days rather between a chieftain and his warriors. The ring symbolised a bond of loyalty and friendship, but also a way of binding a subject to a ruler, through honor. The customs can also be traced back to ancient greece and rome, it is likely that the Germanic tibes picked it up from them, but it is clear that the germanics were absolutely obsessed with rings. In Scandinavia, there have been treasure hoards found, dating back to the 4'th century, containing hundreds of kilos(!) Of gold rings, some of them as thick as your finger, and large enough to be worn around the neck. The tradition of wedding rings dates back to the middle-ages in europe.
I saw this in the theater. The music was so powerful and the colorful performances were hypnotic. Needless to say, the movie was very popular and won 8 Oscars including Best Picture.
Just wanted to say I love y'all. Both of you are so excellent together. Your videos are made so much the better by what you each bring to them. I'd watch either of you separately, but together, you're so much fun! Thanks for all the videos!
That grand golden opera house still exists. It's known as The National Theater in Prague. I watched a performance of "Don Giovanni" there (where Mozart himself conducted). The movie was actually shot in Prague (not Vienna)--there are many 18th century buildings still standing there.
Love this movie! I saw it in a packed theater in Dallas when it first came out and when FMA put that crucifix into the fire, the entire audience gasped in shock. I enjoyed rewatching this one with you both! Thank you for sharing it. 🙂 Oh, and there's a 2 volume recording of the soundtrack out there that you can grab. Really good stuff!
This movie has been a favorite of mine since my childhood. I saw it in the theater and it completely captivated me. Now true I wasn't that familiar with who Mozart was but the story was just something that was mesmerizing even at a young age. To be gifted is mind-blowing
My late father in law was able to "hear music just by reading sheets", and he could also write down complete arrangements just by listening. It's pretty usual for musician to be able to pick up some melodies and chords, but he was really next level, very impressive. And he wasn't even a trained musician, just a music lover who had a very good musical education during his years in school.
AFAIK, the wig thing is because many of nobility had syphilis and their hair started to fall. So they started wearing wigs and then the rest started emulating them (hopefully just the wigs part, but who knows? :) )
Not really. Wigs became fashionable in the latter part of the 17th century (starting with the court of Louis XIV in France) and continued in style up until the Napoleonic era, largely because the fashion (for both sexes) was for incredibly elaborate, and huge, hairdos that took hours and hours to create- much simpler just to put your hair on on than sit in a chair all day.
@@solicitr666that was after, he’s right original wigs and heavy make up started to be used because of lice, syphilis, and all the poisons that were being discovered and released in products made at the time without knowing it.
In addition to this being a work of fiction, it should be remembered that Salieri is a very biased narrator. This helps explain the omission of such characters as Lorenzo Da Ponte, who would be expected to show up in a more conventional biopic. The make-of DVD featurette for this filmis one of my favorites and is available on this platform.
To this day, we don't know exactly what killed Mozart -- some kind of staph infection, likely. But his last days were horrible. He said on his deathbed that he thought he had been poisoned, later retracted that... but the damage was done, and Salieri's reputation suffered as suspicion was cast upon him. He and Mozart were rivals but there doesn't appear to have been any bad blood between them. In fact, Mozart's younger son, Franz Xaver (also called Wolfgang by his family) was taught by Salieri. He had only been 4 months old when his father died, and he was a composer too. The older of Mozart's two surviving children, Karl, became a merchant rather than a musician. Neither of his sons had children, so the Mozart line died with them, sadly.
The Salieri welcome march scene is my fav. The subtlety of having Mozart rewrite it on the fly into one of his famous pieces, "Non più andrai, farfallone amoroso," it handily implies that Salieri could have the gift, but can't go that little extra distance. He is too consumed by jealousy. Mozart has no possessiveness in that moment, only joy. So "making Salieri's music his own" isn't malicious. It's like Johnny Cash owning Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt." That song is Cash's now, something NIN said themselves. Music and art should be about collaboration and joy. But because of wealth, patrons (record cos) and so on, it creates jealousy and stratification.
14:14 In the director's cut, that is actually what happens, explicitly. Constanze returns that night to do what must be done for her husband, but Salieri has a last-minute change of heart (or panic) and summons a servant to show her out.
"Amadeus" = from "loved by God" in Latin. The supreme, deliberate irony being that a film that is really about and from the perspective of Salieri is named for Mozart. Like with Braveheart, there's a bunch of stuff that's true - letters from the time testify to Mozart being childlike, hyperactive, immature, with a scatological sense of humour, and he really was commissioned anonymously to write a requiem (though not by Salieri). And a bunch of stuff that takes great dramatic licence - Salieri was married, with several children, and the real-life "rivalry" between them was, I believe, concocted decades after their deaths from *one* mildly disparaging remark that Salieri wrote about him on *one* occasion; otherwise, history says they were acquainted just fine in life. I note you didn't (appear to) watch the longer Director's Cut, unless the two extra scenes I recall were just cut from this edit (the one where Constanze meets Salieri "after dark", and the one(s) with the barking dogs). Another commenter called them "superfluous"; I thought the former scene gave greater weight to why she was so displeased to find him in their bedchamber, and you could make the superfluity argument for many of the opera scenes. I dunno - something something too many notes. I had the pleasure of watching this in Edinburgh several years ago, with the Scottish Symphony Orchestra playing the music *live* beneath a screening of the film; it remains one of the best nights out I've ever had. Peter Shaffer also did the play "Equus", which is perhaps even more greatly disturbing, albeit doesn't have a film adaptation nearly as good, and "The Royal Hunt of the Sun". For more of the director Milos Forman, I don't think you've covered One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Another multiple Oscar winner, with early starring roles for Jack Nicholson, Christopher Lloyd *and* Danny deVito, a resounding movie. Thanks for all you do! (and then have to edit yourself doing...)
The letters have been misunderstood. The scatological stuff was a family joke, and his letters were written to entertain. If he was really "hyperactive", they would be a mess to read, but they are generally focused and to-the-point. This is just another example of myths that get passed around the classical music community as "knowledge"; ironic considering that many classical fans consider themselves intellectually superior. CineBinge did indeed what the so-called director's cut, which like all such things was really a studio cash-grab. The original theatrical version is what became a classic and won all those awards. The "director's cut" is a weaker movie, suffering from superfluous scenes and poorer pacing.
I actually prefer the Director’s Cut. I think the extra scenes do more to show how much Mozart’s wife loved him and just how slimy Salieri was. Before the Director’s Cut, I was always curious why she got so furious at Salieri for being in their house at the end when she was fond of him the whole movie.
As often as I had seen this, I only recently saw the director's cut, and yeah... although it still kinda made sense. I'd always thought it was because he walked away and didn't help Mozart get the position. And the line "I regret we have no servants to show you out" I thought was a dig letting Salieri know that she knew Lorl had been his spy.
Great reaction. Thank you. Bit O' Trivia - Mark Hamill played Wolfgang in the Amadeus play on Broadway. The producers were considering him for the film. However, his schedule conflicted due to working on Return of the Jedi. Mark was an amazing Amadeus. It was like seeing a bit of embryotic Joker he would create later for animated Batman. Beautiful and brilliant as always. Thank you again for all the great reactions and please never stop.
I remember being confused as to why they chose Mozart’s middle name for the title instead of his first or last. Finally looked it up, and Amadeus is a Latinate name that means “loved by God.” An apt choice after all, considering Salieri’s fixation.
As a Children of Bodom fan the line "From now on we are enemies...you and I" is more to me than just a cold af quote from this classic of a movie...I jumped up when I heard it in the movie because I only knew it as the opening line to arguably one of (if not THE) best melodic deathmetal album(s) in history (album: Hatebreeder; song: Warheart)
Seriously an all-time favorite of mine. That scene of dumping Mozart into a common grave just breaks my heart every time. He gave the world such amazing music, and his body was just thrown out like trash.
The variation thing is painted in the movie as a jerk move but it was a pretty common thing to do in the day, it was an exercise for composers but also a form of shared creation experience, there is no reason why somebody like Salieri would find it offensive or anything, they were basically remixing music (in the sheets) before remixing as a modern concept existed.
One of the monuments of Viennese music is Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. The music publisher/producer Diabelli proposed a simple waltz tune and circulated it among the contemporary leading composers - including a 13-year-old Liszt - with the idea that each would compose one variation on it and he would publish them all as a set. Well, Beethoven couldn't do just one, he wrote 33! And masterful they are, too.
@@lobachevscki It's one of my favorite movies, I know how it's depicted in the movie. After first being introduced to Mozart he tells him he composed some variations on Mio Caro Adone and calls it, "A funny little tune but it yielded some good things." and then after playing Solieri's march he says, "The rest is just the same isn't it? It does't really work does it?" So after disparaging one of Solieri's works, he, minutes later disparages another...on their first meeting.
@@TreantmonksTemple That would be a straightforward lecture but In the context of the movie making the variation is whats the problem Mozart is never painted as a bad person, if anything at the end Mozart confesses his admiration for Salieri so the comments were never in bad faith to begin with, thats kind of the point of the movie. Memorizing dialogues doesnt mean you understood a movie.
Hey, George and Simone! This is an extraordinary movie and my all-time favorite. The Director's Cut adds superfluous scenes. The theatrical cut is best. It was originally an 1830 short story called "Mozart and Salieri" written by Alexander Pushkin which was adapted into an 1897 opera also called "Mozart and Salieri" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The 1979 London stage play adaptation was written by Peter Shaffer and debuted at the Royal National Theatre with Paul Scofield as Salieri and Simon Callow as Mozart. Callow played the head of the working class theater company who commissioned Mozart's "Magic Flute" opera in the film. The 1981 Broadway production starred Ian "Gandalf" McKellen as Salieri, Tim "Wadsworth" Curry as Mozart and Jane "Dr. Quinn" Seymour as Constanze. The production won multiple Tony Awards. The 1999 Broadway revival starred David "Poirot" Suchet as Salieri and Michael "Lucian" Sheen as Mozart. This production was similarly lauded. The 1984 film by Milos Forman won multiple Oscars including Best Actor for F. Murray Abraham as Salieri. The play is a fictionalized dramatization but Mozart was a prodigy, a spendthrift and an impractical creative type in life. He is buried in an unknown pauper's grave and is considered the greatest composer who ever lived.
I’ve read a couple of great Mozart biographies and he died wealthy and laid in state, in Austria, at the time of his death. Thousands attended his funeral, including the king.
This movie was huge when it came out & won 8 Oscars. It's an incredible movie that shows a breadth of Mozart's life, including funny, goofy stuff & the dark stuff. Not strictly historically acurate of course, but a great film nonetheless. The most recent belief as to his cause of death is from kidney failure post-strep throat viral infection. Not too 'flashy' but not a nice death without modern medicine & pain meds etc.
Another movie moment that features Mozart (besides Shawshank mentioned by George) is The Big Lebowski when the Philip S. Hoffman character tells The Dude that Mr. Lebowski has secluded himself in the
I'm performing the Requiem as a tenor in the choir next month and I cannot express the excitement I feel! This reaction came in perfect timing! I love that you guys focused on the writing of Confutatis! It's my favourite part of the piece, next to the Kyrie and the famous Dies Irae
@@UlimorUdamenta Apparently, Mozart had originally planned some epic ten voice fugue at the end of the Lachrymosa. I can just imagine Sussmayr saying, "nah, I'm good with just an Amen cadence."
@@kojiattwood more like a speculation than a concrete plan. They did find a sketch, but it was suggested by two musicologists that it was meant for the Requiem. Sadly, we will never know.
It's not QUITE as inaccurate as people think. Yes, it does paint a poor picture of Salieri. It actually tones DOWN how off-the-scale wild and immature Mozart was, cuts some major players out, changes the order of events to some degree... but consider this: Salieri, IRL, did spend his last few years in an asylum suffering from dementia. Literally every single inaccuracy this movie has--right down to Salieri's own jealousy--can be dismissed as the product of a failing mind. I wouldn't be surprised if the real Salieri did harbor at least SOME bitterness about the level of genius Mozart had vs his own, among other things; I mean, who WOULDN'T feel that way to some degree? But our emotions can easily distort our memories--and vice versa--even WITHOUT old age and dementia playing a part.
"not even remotely historically accurate". this applies to the murderous plans of salieri. other points about their lives in vienna, the music, the age at which mozart dies, (35) the fact that he was buried in a mass grave for paupers, the fact that salieri lived far longer, and was much more successful, despite being far less talented, mozart's unhealthy relationship with his father, mozart's drinking and refusal to save any of his money, the way court was set up and the struggles mozart had to face to get his works programmed, this is all so accurate, and this list constitutes so much more than "remotely", that it renders your comment somewhere between false and absurd. lets just say, " salieri wasnt actually jealous of mozart so far as we know, and it is fiction to believe he was plotting to kill him, but in the other historical details, the accuracy is very good".
To be fair to the movie makers: That (unfounded) rumor that Salieri killed Mozard was not their invention. IIRC it came into existence shortly after Mozart died.
I don't know what happened to Tom Hulce..There are a lot of obstacles to continuing to be a a great and famous actor. But as long as people watch movies, he will always be remembered. The same goes for F. Murray Abraham (maybe more so). For that matter, what about Elizabeth Berridge's performance as Mozart's wife? "Wolfie!" An impeccably acted movie. Tremendously well written and directed too.
32:44 my favorite scene in the movie, and you two spoke the exact several reasons why. Also, hearing it all together at the end really did forever change how I listened to classical music after that -- with much more appreciation of how it comes about. Was pretty young seeing this in the theater, and it's a treat to see a younger generation getting so much out of this great movie. Thanks for posting.
This movie was my introduction to classical music. I ended up using one of his pieces in my wedding, for us walking down the aisle. Which I got from the soundtrack album, which was 3 CDs, back when people used CDs for music.
Wonderful film however not accurate in portraying Salieri as envious or a killer. He was a very successful composer. Mozart did make fart jokes, they were in his notes 😁
One of my favorite stories about Mozart concerned his hatred of a popular singer. Seeing that she had a proclivity to drop her head on low notes and raise her chin high and high notes, he deliberately wrote a piece that violently alternated between highs and lows, causing her head to bob up and down like a chicken.
He was kinda that way.
Also, fart and poo jokes. SO many fart and poo jokes.
lol that's great
LOL.....God I Hope That's true.
This is Top Tier Pettiness
@@Replicaate "Licht Mein Arse" was a good one!
As dirty as it does Salieri, the speech at the end about being the saint of mediocrity hits so hard. One of my personal favorite speeches.
One of the most relatable quotes, at least for me.
As someone who has no real natural talent, who sometimes feels a twinge of envy for those who do, I find it immensely relatable.
@@jculver1674 I don't have an ounce of musical talent, but I such an appreciation for it.
You can argue that Salieri is an unreliable narrator in the movie. It’s believed he got dementia and started believing the rumors about him killing Mozart himself.
@@TheJabbate1that's how I saw it. The last year of Salieri's life, he had a nervous breakdown, attempted suicide, and was committed to a mental hospital.
There were allegations that Mozart was poisoned and the Mozart and him were bitter rivals, but Salieri denied that and both respected each other.
But in the movie- in the end, Salieri just accepts the rumors as truth and creates a story all around it.
Anyone who does a cursory search of Salieri would see he had kids. I think this was the director's hint that "Nah, this isn't what happened, just what he believes."
Yes, he taught Schubert and Beethoven. He taught for free, to honor the charity he got as a youth. There was a big birthday of Salieri that Schubert attended, but Beethoven did not, which caused some sore feeling amongst many of Salieri's students. This is not a fair representation of the man, but it is such an amazing story of the tension between virtue and talent.
Don't forget Flizst!
this is a movie based on a play loosely based on some events in the lives of legendary composers. I'm not taking this seriously as history.
@@MichaelJohnson-vi6eh I agree! And I don't, just want to make sure nobody else does, either.
He taught Mozart's son as well.
Accurate part is how they buried him and his dead is most likely kidney failure because bacteria infection , sepsis cures have got better in last 30 years .
Fun Fact: For the death bed scene none of the actors knew each other's lines. Each of them were given an earpiece, musicians dictated terms to the actors and it was done on the fly. That moment of Salieri's frustration of not keeping up, then getting it is the actor getting lost and then getting back on track with the scene. What talent!
Also, the scene that always gets me is when Salieri reveals his big plan and the expression on the priest's face is just one of abject horror at the monstrosity of Salieri's blasphemy. He wants to kill Mozart and by doing so humble God himself. Such powerful acting.
@@Cadinho93 it's the greatest film ever made.
If you recall, F. Murray Abraham was in Last Action Hero, and this movie is why Danny said he couldn't be trusted because he killed Mozart (”Who is Moe Zart?").
I was just about to post that. 😂
@@MrDman21 same
John Practice:
How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
Jack Slater:
By practice. John Practice!
Practice: Moe who?
Slater: Zart.
He killed Amadeus.
The dwarf who says, "I'm sick of that tune" is Kenny Baker, who played R2-D2 in the Star Wars movies and Fidget in Time Bandits.
He's in The Elephant Man too.
Beat me to it.
Good to know.
I wrote a paper on this film on my music theory class in college. Its themes of dreams, talent, faith, and envy are fleshed out so deeply in this wonderful film. The set up is relatively simple, but the subtext is extensive and it’s executed to perfection.
Salieri did teach many better known composers than himself and he did in fact not have a rivalry with Mozart. They weren’t friends, but were friendly and respected each other .
Salieri is also still commonly performed and studied even today. His music is far from dead, he just isn't in the company of composers like Bach, Beethoven and Mozart.
@@applegeepedigree Though, funnily enough, it did enjoy a resurgence after the film's release.
Salieri's good stuff too. Less catchy than Mozart, but still great
I’m glad to hear that.
Nostalgia Critic hit the nail on the head with this. What we are seeing is what Salieri recalls in his dimentia addled mind. It is his view of Mozart. As such we see truthful observations such as the outlandishly childish behavior, and Salieri’s own demons injected into his observations.
The "Unreliable Narrator" trope
@@benschultz1784The best kind!
The part where Mozart dictates to Salieri is one of my favorite movie scenes ever.
It's a mirror to the "Welcome March" scene. Love the musical transformation there.
@@RideAcrossTheRiverthat “welcome march” later became the famous aria “Non più andrai,” which is one of Figaro’s arias in Le Nozze
One of my favourite bits of movie trivia... during the night of the Oscars, as the evening progressed it was getting quite evident to people that Amadeus was going for a clean sweep at all the awards for the year. I don't recall who it was, but when the winner of the best score went up and gave their speech, the first words out of their mouth were "I'd like to thank Mozart for not being alive..."
😂😂😂
I remember that too! All I could remember was that it was a music category...so with that in mind I was able to find the exact quote. Maurice Jarre, accepting Best Score for "A Passage to India," brilliantly started his speech : "I was lucky Mozart was not eligible this year." The audience roared with laughter. You can find the clip on UA-cam, search out "Maurice Jarre winning Original Score for "A Passage to India."
You can find the clip of Prince accepting the award for best score that night and he at no point says that line.
@@amstrad00 Yup, Prince won for best SONG score. Maurice Jarre won for best original score. And the actual line was "I was lucky Mozart was not eligible this year." Crowd goes wild.
I recall something similar when Return of the King was sweeping the Oscars. The winner of Best Foreign Film (I think for Triplets of Belleville) thanked Return of the King for not qualifying for this award.
Clarifying some of George's points: Salieri taught Mozart's son, Beethoven, Schubert, and Liszt. Elizabeth Berridge was around 22 when filming the movie. The only two sons that lived to adulthood did not have any children, so there are no descendants of Mozart alive today.
I was surprised to find out Meg Tilly was originally cast as Constanze Mozart. She was such a very bright candle at that time, I'm surprised she burned out so fast. At least she did Valmont.
"so there are no descendants of Mozart alive today" that is very sad
@@jacksonmay153 Yeah, people have been trying very hard to ascribe any illegitimate children to either of Mozart's sons, but they truly just didn't have any.
Beethoven also studied with Franz Joseph Haydn. He had come to Vienna to study with Mozart but it’s unknown if the two ever actually met, likely due to Mozart’s death in 1791.
@@matthewcastleton2263 As far as I know, Beethoven met Mozart once when he was young and Mozart noticed his talent, but no relation developed beyond that.
At least she did Mary Loomis
*Wolfgang Amadeus Theophylius Gottlieb Mozart.
His middle names all mean "God Love" in Latin, Greek, and German.
Super cool trivia, thank you!
Man, I never realized that. I theoretically know enough of Latin, Greek and German to translate all three of the names, but I just never put it together.
@@baguettegott3409 benefits of classical learning
Amadeus and Gottlieb both mean "loved by god", Theophylius means "god loving", I sense a theme there...
Only is Latin.
As has been said, in German it's Gottlieb and in Greek it's Theophilus.
"That was the second time I thought about killing Mozart..."
🤣 Simone is seriously hilarious.
Française en haute
F Murray Abraham gives one of the best performances of all time - this movie deserved all the awards it got. Easily in my top 3 of all time, can watch it over and over.
Now here is the question. Do you like the original cut or the extended? Me personally I prefer the original cut, as the extended is well... has too many notes.
@@YukoValis One thing about the extended cut is when I saw the theatrical release I didn't understand why when she returns from the spa she clearly hates Salieri. When I saw the extended cut it was explained.
@@TreantmonksTemple That is honestly a good point. Originally I thought she was upset at the work and Salieri being a representation of said work. Only in the extended did we find out why she had reason to hate him.
@@YukoValis I'd keep about half of the additional material in the Director's Cut - keep the scene after the opera in the dressing room between Salieri and Katherina and the extended scenes with Salieri and Constanza.
Overall I prefer the DC, but could take or leave the parts where Mozart's being smeared / looking for work.
@@gp8209 - yeah, the 2 scenes of Mozart wanting teaching gigs at the house with the dogs was really not necessary for the story (although it did punctuate the falling on bad times)
Tom Hulce, mostly known to the time of this film, as a character in Animal House, is amazing in this movie! He was nominated for Best Actor at the 1985 Academy Awards, but lost to Abraham, who played Salieri.
I like how he gave the Mozart character an almost new wave look, eventhough it's set in the 1700s.
the irony
He was also the original Danny Kaffee in the stage premiere of A Few Good Men, AND is the voice, singing and talking, of Quasimodo in Disney's "Hunchback of Notre Dame".
And the acceptance speech by Abraham in the Oscars was the most heart felt tribute to Hulce: "the only thing missing is to have Tom Hulce standing here right next to me".
I could be mistaken, but I don't think he "lost to" Abraham because Tom would've been nominated for best actor and Abraham for best supporting actor. They wouldn't have been in the same category.
Amadeus was originally a play by Peter Shaffer that premiered in London with Simon Callow playing Mozart (he plays the actor with the theatre company who has him write The Magic Flute). It premiered on Broadway with Ian McKellen (Salieri) and Tim Curry (Mozart), and they were both nominated for Tonys (McKellen won).
And in the Broadway version, Mozart was played by Mark Hamill.
I saw it in London with Frank Langella as Salieri
Great cast too ! This must've been so good...
I would give my left nut to see a recording of the McKellen/Curry production. I mean I'm trans so I'd give up my left nut anyway but still.
Inspired by the Pushkin play "Mozart and Salieri" (1830).
Tom Hulce (Mozart) did put int the time and effort to learn the piano, especially Mozart's pieces. He even learned to play that pieace up side down. This is why it's so well played.
Re: Simone's comment on not being able to draw things how she sees imagines them...now imagine you had practiced and worked your whole life to improve your art, and you suddenly realized not only were you not that good, but this other knucklehead made such beautiful art almost as if on a whim.
I love the scene where Mozart meets the emperor. He improves Salieri's welcome March (which is really a Mozart piece) with absolutely zero effort. It's just fun for him.
I just finished the the reaction and wanted to comment that the solemnity and seriousness of current classical concerts in halls is kinda new in the big scheme of time, remember that back in the day this was the form of entertainment of a huge amount of people not only the aristocrats, this was their cinema, their literal concerts so a lot of concert halls (that still exists and are used for classical music in the contemporary way) didnt have seats in front of the stage or they were very easy to remove, they were literal venues and people went crazy, they yelled, they danced, they cried, they requested encores, they booed the parts they didnt like, they asked to repeat the parts they liked, it was a concert like today's rock concerts in many ways. Recently some videos went viral of the Oxford Symphonic Orchestra performing at a rock festival called Truck Festival, it was the orchestra in a concert stage (under the rain actually, they were under the roof of the stage of course) and people in front of them like they were a pop band and the reaction is amazing, they mosh pit to the tune of the orchestra and that energy wasnt that far off of how it was in Mozart's time and Mozart played to that. Of course, there were concerts intended for aristocrats and nobility and composers weren't able to attend to all concerts to direct so of course Mozart had prioirties elsewhere but he was a rockstar in the same way, I dont know, Metallica are rockstar mosh pit included.
Then during the Victorian era a lot of things changed in the entertainment space and the way we appreciate classical concert today started to take shape. There is a whole conversation for years now in the classical circles of trying to make an effort to appeal to the public like in the way it was appreciated at some point in time, like literal pop music.
One of my favorite stories about Mozart and Salieri is the time they went to see The Magic Flute together.
Mozart described in a letter, “He heard and saw with all his attention, and from the overture to the last choir there was not a piece that didn’t elicit a ‘Bravo!’ or ‘Bello!’ out of him.”
I love the image of the two of them sitting in a balcony seat. Every time one of Wolfie's favorite passages comes up, he goes "see what I did there?" and cackles, and Salieri responds, "ah, bravo, bello!" with big Italian hand gestures.
Among "Best Picture" winners at the Oscars, I've felt for a long time that this was one of the most worthy.
Right???
"Amadeus" won eight Oscars that year. The winner of "Best Original Score" that year was "A Passage to India". As they recieved the prize they commented "I'm so glad that Amadeus wasn't eglible for this category". :)
Milos Forman also directed "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (which won all five major Academy Awards) which also dealt with the fine line between genius and insanity.
(He also directed "Man on the Moon", the biopic about comedian Andy Kaufman starring Jim Carrey - also about the fine line between genius and insanity.)
Forman also tackled music in the film adaptation of Hair.
@@kathyastrom1315 A fine hairline between genius and insanity
"The People vs Larry Flint" too 👍 insane director, to us - czech movie fans - he's basically a god. 😁
i feel very proud to be czech like him!!
Just a note on the burial. Mozart was, essentially, a servant, a composer for hire. He had the burial that most Viennese got at the time. Only if you were noble did you get a memorial, but it wasn't in a communal grave pit, it was a simple single grave with no markings.
Mozart had long since ceased to be a servant; he was a master craftsman, on a social level with painters, sculptors, goldsmiths and architects. Respectably middle class-- and yes, such folk got respectable burials, provided of course they had money. Mozart was broke, but in fact Baron von Swieten paid for a respectable funeral.
But that isn't why he was buried outside the city walls. That was done with *everybody* in Vienna at the time, a custom stemming from the days of regular plague outbreaks.
The term "common grave" has been misinterpreted as "mass grave," but that is an error. He was buried in an individual grave, but it was a commoner's grave, which by law could be dug up and re-used after ten years, the bones moved to an ossuary. Only the nobility could expect permanent postmortem housing.
Salieri was a great composer, at least in his day. He just had the great, great misfortune of being alive at the same time as Mozart. A bit like Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare (if you don't know Christopher Marlow, that's my point).
3:09 - "The old age makeup is really good!" - Simone.
Makeup legend Dick Smith won an Oscar for his makeup work in this film.
Also known for "Death Becomes Her" (1992) "The Hunger" (1983) "Little Big Man" (1970) "The Godfather" (1972) "The Exorcist" (1973) "Scanners" (1981) and SO many more!!
The age makeup in this film continues to hold up today as one of the greatest, most subtle, believable age makeups in cinema history.
Although Mozart died at an early age, his wife Constance lived a life long enough that there is a photo of her with others.
Unfortunately, historians have been very skeptical of that picture for more than a couple of reasons, and it's considered incredibly unlikely that it's her in the photograph
There is a photo of their oldest son
His wife Constanza was a member of the Weber family. She is a relative of the later German composer Carl Maria von Weber.
The Emperor's Sister, who fears her own people, was Marie Antoinette.
Marie Antoinette deserves her own max original (a lot of the European leadership of the late 18th century does).
History says Mozart laughed “like a braying jackass”(donkey in context)
So like Seth Rogen?
And he loved crude humor. Wrote a musical piece called "Lich Mein Arscht" or something like that which means 'lick my ass' lol.
@@DomSithejust way more high pitched
Bet you ten bucks the jackass part was more literal than figurative
Who is this "history" person?
You're absolutely correct George, Salieri was a HIGHLY respected musician who provides an invaluable link not only to Beethoven but to Liszt as well!
Fun fact,for the movie oppenheimer Christopher Nolan told Robert Downey Jr. To watch Amadeus for his role
I can totally believe it - the vein of envy runs very similarly in both the Salieri and Strauss characters.
I saw this movie as a child and remember being so deeply affected by it. It was the first movie I saw that sort of transcended mere entertainment and made me feel and think things beyond excitement or danger or laughter. It awakened me to the idea of art. Even just watching your reaction, it made me tear up again.
Historical note: the basis of this movie was the widespread rumours that Salieri poisoned Mozart, based mostly on the fact that the man died at an unusually young age. Salieri, being the court composer, was well-regarded in his time and did contribute much to the musical landscape, including a well-regarded opera based on Don Quixote.
Despite the rumors, there is little to suggest that the two men were anything but colleagues operating under mutual respect and admiration.
To add to this, the persistent rumors of Salieri's involvement weighed heavily on him and contributed to a series of nervous breakdowns in his later years. This movie could very well be depicting one of those breakdowns, where he has convinced himself the rumors are true and confabulated this horrific tale of his own guilt, in a sort of false confession.
@@wolfofthewest8019 I do like this reading but also as someone who's had delusions about being responsible for deaths usually it's pretty clear there's nothing to the claim when it's a delusion. For example my delusion was that I was patient zero for Covid and a single cough snowballed into 7 million deaths for which I was now responsible (a pretty harrowing thing to believe, as I genuinely did in my state). Clearly nothing there. But even if Salieri didn't literally murder Mozart himself he did contribute (in the movie)
@@NTA_Luciana He contributed in the movie, yes -- but the movie isn't purporting to show what *actually* happened, rather it's showing what Salieri *confessed* to happen. Salieri is confabulating (making things up). For example, we know the true identity of the man who anonymously commissioned the Requiem (it was some minor nobleman who wanted to take credit for Mozart's work), but Salieri confesses that it was him. Since we know that's untrue, we should also suspect that Salieri was, in reality, likely guilty of nothing more than being slightly jealous of Mozart and, like most people, disgusted by his juvenile antics.
@@wolfofthewest8019 if the film was a purely subjective fake confession then why does it show things that Salieri wouldn't have known to begin with? Particularly Mozart's domestic life pre-Cynthia Nixon. Like how is he confessing that?
@@wolfofthewest8019 Idk my conception of the film was that the flashbacks are the "real" movie and the confession stuff was just a framing device that sits on top. I didn't consider that the confession aspect would leak back into the flashbacks
Elizabeth Berridge (Constanze) was 22 at the time. The had cast Meg Tilly, but she had to quit because of a soccer injury. Cynthia Nixon was just 18. Hats off to your instant recognition. I literally didn’t notice who it was for 20 years.
I loved the ending between Mozart and Saleri.
One part is the dictation of notes under scored by the music. As noted a great way to show composition.
The other is for a brief moment Saleri was one with Mozart. For that moment Saleri was touched by God.
@32:31 a Ducat contains about 3.5 grams of gold, so 100 ducats is 350 grams of gold. Gold is trading at about 65 USD/gram, so 100 ducats is worth approximately 22, 750 USD.
yes and no. Nowadays we would just be using it for the gold content, but it is different when talking about buying power. From what I found in looking it up, most non-skilled employment got you about 20 a month. Skilled labor 40-50. So he gave Mozart 2-3 months worth of money, and promised another 100 ducats after. That would have been 6 months worth for a single piece of work.
That's interesting considering that a Troy ounce of gold is 31.1 ounces of .999 pure. Divide by 10 of course. Great comment!
By the way, the emperor's sister is actually marie Antoinette, and she was the one mozart proposed to when she helped him sit up when they were young
I’d also recommend a film called “Immortal Beloved” about Beethoven and featuring Gary Oldman. It was the film that first brought Oldman to my attention and made him one of my favourite actors.
The portrayal of Mozart and Salieri always reminds me of Spongebob and Squidward. There’s even a thing called Salieri Syndrome that accurately represents the kind of relationship those two characters have with respect to their musicianship.
Salieri's music is actually quite good. Not as good as Mozart, but not far off.
According to all accounts, that hyena-like cackle is accurate. One of Mozart's friends described his laugh as "the noise made by scraping a cobblestone down a piano string">
In the movie "Last Action Hero", the actor who plays Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) is introduced, and the kid says to the Arnold character, "Watch It Jack, He Killed Mozart"
This is my all time favorite movie. It has probably the most important lesson for any artist, whether you’re a composer or in my case, a painter: no matter how talented you are, or how celebrated and successful you get, you WILL be surpassed by someone better.
Surprisingly, it’s also not as inaccurate as the public perception might have you think. The channel History Buffs has an excellent video about it.
The title, Amadeus, also ties into the theme of the film, Latin for "beloved of God", or in German he is often referred to as Gottlieb, which has the same meaning.
While it is entirely unlikely that Salieri ever historically harmed Mozart, it soon became an urban legend of its time. Pushkin wrote a play, Mozart and Salieri, in 1830 about the gossip that Salieri had killed Mozart, so the story itself has its own kind of history.
Good reaction. BTW, the poster art is referring to the 1979 award winning stage play. It was extremely popular, hence, " Everything you've heard is true." Also, the style of poster art is based on the playbill.
Our Sixth Grade Music teacher had us watch this. Cardboard over the TV for the 2 seconds of naughty scene.
I’m so glad he did because I rewatch it all the time and it gave me a respect for Classical Music.
By design or stroke of luck, this movie came out not long after they finally invented high-quality sound for home video tape. Just a year or two earlier, the music would’ve been about the quality of AM radio, but as it was, the sound for people at home could be almost as good as being in a theater. In fact, this is the kind of movie that made selling someone a “home theater system” possible.
Mozart’s father is played by Roy Dotrice, who appeared in the “Beauty and the Beast” TV series with Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton, and in “The Cutting Edge” as the skating trainer Pamchenko. His daughter played Jane Banks in “Mary Poppins.”
18:31 Good catch. She was 18 when this came out, 14 years before “Sex and the City” even began.
26:51 That’s the thing about Mozart: his music is probably the most “catchy” classical there is. Even if you don’t know the names of the pieces, you probably know half a dozen Mozart songs. Heck, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ is Mozart.
Mozart has many catchy tunes, but the tune to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" was pre-existing as a French folk song under the name, "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman" (Ah, Mother, If I Could Tell You) when Mozart used it to compose a series of variations.
This movie portrays hate and jealousy like most movies portray love and admiration. It's fascinating. I cannot wait until I'm off work to watch this reaction from you guys. In my personal top 10!
Fun fact. F. Murray Abraham , Salieri was also Omar in the movie Scarface and he would fly from Miami to Prague to film the scenes. They made both movies the same year even though Amadeus came out a year after.
Most people have what you call a mind's eye and can see things in their heads, visualizing whatever they want. Much fewer people have what you call a mind's ear and can hear music and voices in their heads. I have aphantasia, which means my mind's eye is blind and I am unable to visualize things in my head, but I have a very strong mind's ear and can hear music plaing in my head like elivator music everywhere I go. The not-so-great part is that I don't always have control over the playlist. Sometimes the songs get stuck on repeat, and I just can't stop them.
I went to the North Carolina School of the Arts, Tom Hulce's alma mater. He graduated 5 or 6 years before I attended, but he often came to performances put on. He was Uber-supportive of the school and felt he owed it a debt that he wished to continue fulfilling.
Anyway, the first time I met him was us both being in attendance of a series of 1 act plays, literally weeks after Amadeus has been released.
He sat near the back (I was up front) and he was introduced as a distinguished Grad during the opening House announcement.
Instead of standing and receiving the greeting applause from the attendees, he let out that famous Amadeus cackle. The entire audience gut-laughed and it took 5 mins to halt, so they could start the show.
He ended up teaching several classes over my years as a visiting instructor and is really a very cool guy.
And apparently has impeccable comedic timing lol
I first saw him in "Animal House" as Pinto, and h's comic timing was showcased pretty well. That may have been his first film role.
"Instead of standing and receiving the greeting applause from the attendees, he let out that famous Amadeus cackle."
This is AMAZING. lmaooooo
@@johannesvalterdivizzini1523
Oh damn, I didn't notice Tom Hulce in Animal House at all.
It's so hard to concentrate on anything else with people like John Belushi, Donald Sutherland, Karen Allen, Kevin Bacon and Stephen Furst to see.
Love this anecdote!
Most of it was filmed in Prague where I live…so there are a lot of places in it that I know well.
Yup. It was filmed in Prague and most of the emperor's palace interiors and few exteriors were filmed in a small town in eastern Czechia called Kromeriz in the archbishop's chateau. It was cheaper than filming in Vienna.
I grew up in Kromeriz and I was a little kid when it was being filmed.
The same chateau was used in bunch of other hollywood productions, even one about Beethoven called Immortal Beloved with Isabela Rosselini and Gary Oldman as Beethoven.
And I managed to be an extra in that one while I was in high school.
FYI Amadeus was one of the few big Hollywood productions filmed in the early 80s while there was still heavy communism in, at the time still called, Czechoslovakia.
Salieri was also music teacher of Mozart Jr. The eldest of Mozart's 6 children. You got the others right, too.
I have to agree that the scene at the end where Mozart and Salieri were working in his bedroom, is my favorite scene in the movie. To see the creativity just pouring out of Wolfgang is amazing, and tragic at the same time. Thomas Hulce did a great job as W.A. Mozart, almost as good as his role of Pinto in "Animal House". HaHaHaHa. The emperor was played by Jeffrey Jones, the Principal in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". HaHaHaHa.
Salieri was a sought after teacher. Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Ludwig van Beethoven, Anton Eberl, Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart were among the most famous of his pupils.
Mozart’s last work was his Requiem, the “Lacrimosa” movement in particular was left unfinished. It was actually completed by a former student of his (if I recall). In those days, the lower class sometimes really were buried in a mass grave. We don’t really know the exact final resting place of Mozart. Someone began a rumor about Salieri being jealous, which then turned into legend over the years. This stageplay-turned-movie capitalizes on that conspiracy theory. In fact, Mozart and Salieri were professional contemporaries. For reference, I’m a classically trained pianist/composer. This movie is “standard” in music school when you learn about this period and all the players of the time. Even though it’s historical fiction, it’s beloved by most and enjoyed for what it is. The role of Salieri is some of my absolute favorite acting in any movie. The actor deserved his Oscar he won for that role. And the movie deserves its best picture win of 1984.
When I was young and this movie was out and Falco had a hit song called 'Amadeus' playing on the radio, we would substitute the words 'I'm a Danish' and sing:
"I'm a Danish, I'm a Danish, I'm...a Danish, I'm a Danish, I'm a Danish, I'm...a Danish, I'm a Danish, I'm a Danish, oh oh oh I'm a Danish.
Come on and eat me, I'm a Danish!"
Imagine seeing the original stage play version of Amadeus (winner of the Tony Award for Best Play) - with a live orchestra playing the music!
I saw it staged in a ramshackle early 19th Century music-hall in London, which was still in the process of being restored. The setting was brilliantly atmospheric, and the fact that most of the cast were actor/musicians who also played the incidental music was extra special. A fantastic production.
F. Murray Abraham was old Zero Mustafa in Grand Budapest. I love his performance in Amadeus. He's a wonderful actor.
26:30 The tiny man on the horse was none other than Kenny Baker, the man who drove R2D2 in STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE.
I'm sick of that tune!
13:13
George wondering about the exchange of rings...
The exchange of rings in germanic tradition goes back as far as there are written records, to the iron age or late migration era, but there is archaeological evidence that it is even older than that.
The ceremonial exchange of rings was not primarily between husband and wife, but between lord and vassal, or in those days rather between a chieftain and his warriors. The ring symbolised a bond of loyalty and friendship, but also a way of binding a subject to a ruler, through honor.
The customs can also be traced back to ancient greece and rome, it is likely that the Germanic tibes picked it up from them, but it is clear that the germanics were absolutely obsessed with rings. In Scandinavia, there have been treasure hoards found, dating back to the 4'th century, containing hundreds of kilos(!) Of gold rings, some of them as thick as your finger, and large enough to be worn around the neck.
The tradition of wedding rings dates back to the middle-ages in europe.
I saw this in the theater. The music was so powerful and the colorful performances were hypnotic. Needless to say, the movie was very popular and won 8 Oscars including Best Picture.
I always heard that wigs became popular because people kept their really short due to head lice.
Just wanted to say I love y'all.
Both of you are so excellent together. Your videos are made so much the better by what you each bring to them.
I'd watch either of you separately, but together, you're so much fun!
Thanks for all the videos!
Mozart got revenge when he got thrown out of the helicopter in Scarface 😂
That grand golden opera house still exists. It's known as The National Theater in Prague. I watched a performance of "Don Giovanni" there (where Mozart himself conducted). The movie was actually shot in Prague (not Vienna)--there are many 18th century buildings still standing there.
Milos had the music play aloud in most scenes as the actors did their thing. So cool.
Love this movie! I saw it in a packed theater in Dallas when it first came out and when FMA put that crucifix into the fire, the entire audience gasped in shock. I enjoyed rewatching this one with you both! Thank you for sharing it. 🙂 Oh, and there's a 2 volume recording of the soundtrack out there that you can grab. Really good stuff!
We saw this in school for some reason. But I haven't seen it since. I can still remember that crazy laughter
This movie has been a favorite of mine since my childhood. I saw it in the theater and it completely captivated me. Now true I wasn't that familiar with who Mozart was but the story was just something that was mesmerizing even at a young age. To be gifted is mind-blowing
My late father in law was able to "hear music just by reading sheets", and he could also write down complete arrangements just by listening. It's pretty usual for musician to be able to pick up some melodies and chords, but he was really next level, very impressive. And he wasn't even a trained musician, just a music lover who had a very good musical education during his years in school.
R.I.P. Falco
AFAIK, the wig thing is because many of nobility had syphilis and their hair started to fall. So they started wearing wigs and then the rest started emulating them (hopefully just the wigs part, but who knows? :) )
Prostitutes even started to wear pubic wigs (murkins)
Not really. Wigs became fashionable in the latter part of the 17th century (starting with the court of Louis XIV in France) and continued in style up until the Napoleonic era, largely because the fashion (for both sexes) was for incredibly elaborate, and huge, hairdos that took hours and hours to create- much simpler just to put your hair on on than sit in a chair all day.
@@solicitr666that was after, he’s right original wigs and heavy make up started to be used because of lice, syphilis, and all the poisons that were being discovered and released in products made at the time without knowing it.
In addition to this being a work of fiction, it should be remembered that Salieri is a very biased narrator. This helps explain the omission of such characters as Lorenzo Da Ponte, who would be expected to show up in a more conventional biopic. The make-of DVD featurette for this filmis one of my favorites and is available on this platform.
Such a monumental movie. One of my very favorites. The Confutatis scene at the end always gives me goosebumps.
To this day, we don't know exactly what killed Mozart -- some kind of staph infection, likely. But his last days were horrible. He said on his deathbed that he thought he had been poisoned, later retracted that... but the damage was done, and Salieri's reputation suffered as suspicion was cast upon him. He and Mozart were rivals but there doesn't appear to have been any bad blood between them. In fact, Mozart's younger son, Franz Xaver (also called Wolfgang by his family) was taught by Salieri. He had only been 4 months old when his father died, and he was a composer too. The older of Mozart's two surviving children, Karl, became a merchant rather than a musician. Neither of his sons had children, so the Mozart line died with them, sadly.
Opera was for the people. The pop music of its time and the singers the stars
The Salieri welcome march scene is my fav. The subtlety of having Mozart rewrite it on the fly into one of his famous pieces, "Non più andrai, farfallone amoroso," it handily implies that Salieri could have the gift, but can't go that little extra distance. He is too consumed by jealousy. Mozart has no possessiveness in that moment, only joy. So "making Salieri's music his own" isn't malicious. It's like Johnny Cash owning Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt." That song is Cash's now, something NIN said themselves.
Music and art should be about collaboration and joy. But because of wealth, patrons (record cos) and so on, it creates jealousy and stratification.
To wit, the 'Romeo character' bar scene in _Shakespeare In Love._
14:14 In the director's cut, that is actually what happens, explicitly. Constanze returns that night to do what must be done for her husband, but Salieri has a last-minute change of heart (or panic) and summons a servant to show her out.
"Amadeus" = from "loved by God" in Latin. The supreme, deliberate irony being that a film that is really about and from the perspective of Salieri is named for Mozart.
Like with Braveheart, there's a bunch of stuff that's true - letters from the time testify to Mozart being childlike, hyperactive, immature, with a scatological sense of humour, and he really was commissioned anonymously to write a requiem (though not by Salieri). And a bunch of stuff that takes great dramatic licence - Salieri was married, with several children, and the real-life "rivalry" between them was, I believe, concocted decades after their deaths from *one* mildly disparaging remark that Salieri wrote about him on *one* occasion; otherwise, history says they were acquainted just fine in life.
I note you didn't (appear to) watch the longer Director's Cut, unless the two extra scenes I recall were just cut from this edit (the one where Constanze meets Salieri "after dark", and the one(s) with the barking dogs). Another commenter called them "superfluous"; I thought the former scene gave greater weight to why she was so displeased to find him in their bedchamber, and you could make the superfluity argument for many of the opera scenes. I dunno - something something too many notes.
I had the pleasure of watching this in Edinburgh several years ago, with the Scottish Symphony Orchestra playing the music *live* beneath a screening of the film; it remains one of the best nights out I've ever had. Peter Shaffer also did the play "Equus", which is perhaps even more greatly disturbing, albeit doesn't have a film adaptation nearly as good, and "The Royal Hunt of the Sun". For more of the director Milos Forman, I don't think you've covered One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Another multiple Oscar winner, with early starring roles for Jack Nicholson, Christopher Lloyd *and* Danny deVito, a resounding movie.
Thanks for all you do! (and then have to edit yourself doing...)
Psychologist nowadays have suggested that Mozart had highly-functional Autism and tourettes
The letters have been misunderstood. The scatological stuff was a family joke, and his letters were written to entertain. If he was really "hyperactive", they would be a mess to read, but they are generally focused and to-the-point. This is just another example of myths that get passed around the classical music community as "knowledge"; ironic considering that many classical fans consider themselves intellectually superior.
CineBinge did indeed what the so-called director's cut, which like all such things was really a studio cash-grab. The original theatrical version is what became a classic and won all those awards. The "director's cut" is a weaker movie, suffering from superfluous scenes and poorer pacing.
I actually prefer the Director’s Cut. I think the extra scenes do more to show how much Mozart’s wife loved him and just how slimy Salieri was. Before the Director’s Cut, I was always curious why she got so furious at Salieri for being in their house at the end when she was fond of him the whole movie.
You need to see the Director's Cut to understand why Constanza is so angry with Salieri at the end.
As often as I had seen this, I only recently saw the director's cut, and yeah... although it still kinda made sense. I'd always thought it was because he walked away and didn't help Mozart get the position. And the line "I regret we have no servants to show you out" I thought was a dig letting Salieri know that she knew Lorl had been his spy.
The obscene giggle from Tom Hulce is what drives the comedy high points, that and Simones reaction to his laugh 😂😂
Great reaction. Thank you.
Bit O' Trivia - Mark Hamill played Wolfgang in the Amadeus play on Broadway. The producers were considering him for the film. However, his schedule conflicted due to working on Return of the Jedi. Mark was an amazing Amadeus. It was like seeing a bit of embryotic Joker he would create later for animated Batman.
Beautiful and brilliant as always. Thank you again for all the great reactions and please never stop.
I remember being confused as to why they chose Mozart’s middle name for the title instead of his first or last. Finally looked it up, and Amadeus is a Latinate name that means “loved by God.” An apt choice after all, considering Salieri’s fixation.
All three of his middle names meant something similar.
As a Children of Bodom fan the line "From now on we are enemies...you and I" is more to me than just a cold af quote from this classic of a movie...I jumped up when I heard it in the movie because I only knew it as the opening line to arguably one of (if not THE) best melodic deathmetal album(s) in history (album: Hatebreeder; song: Warheart)
Fitting that Alexi Laiho, arguably a genius in another genre who died too young, would've felt something for the life of Mozart.
As an amateur, playing the piano takes time. Time and patience not on with the piano but with yourself. I believe in you!! 😊👍
Seriously an all-time favorite of mine. That scene of dumping Mozart into a common grave just breaks my heart every time. He gave the world such amazing music, and his body was just thrown out like trash.
The variation thing is painted in the movie as a jerk move but it was a pretty common thing to do in the day, it was an exercise for composers but also a form of shared creation experience, there is no reason why somebody like Salieri would find it offensive or anything, they were basically remixing music (in the sheets) before remixing as a modern concept existed.
One of the monuments of Viennese music is Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. The music publisher/producer Diabelli proposed a simple waltz tune and circulated it among the contemporary leading composers - including a 13-year-old Liszt - with the idea that each would compose one variation on it and he would publish them all as a set. Well, Beethoven couldn't do just one, he wrote 33! And masterful they are, too.
The "jerk move" isn't making a variation of the piece, it's disparaging the initial piece before making the modifications.
@@TreantmonksTemplethat's not what is depicted in the movie so I recommend watching it again.
@@lobachevscki It's one of my favorite movies, I know how it's depicted in the movie.
After first being introduced to Mozart he tells him he composed some variations on Mio Caro Adone and calls it, "A funny little tune but it yielded some good things."
and then after playing Solieri's march he says, "The rest is just the same isn't it? It does't really work does it?"
So after disparaging one of Solieri's works, he, minutes later disparages another...on their first meeting.
@@TreantmonksTemple That would be a straightforward lecture but In the context of the movie making the variation is whats the problem Mozart is never painted as a bad person, if anything at the end Mozart confesses his admiration for Salieri so the comments were never in bad faith to begin with, thats kind of the point of the movie.
Memorizing dialogues doesnt mean you understood a movie.
Hey, George and Simone! This is an extraordinary movie and my all-time favorite.
The Director's Cut adds superfluous scenes. The theatrical cut is best.
It was originally an 1830 short story called "Mozart and Salieri" written by Alexander Pushkin which was adapted into an 1897 opera also called "Mozart and Salieri" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
The 1979 London stage play adaptation was written by Peter Shaffer and debuted at the Royal National Theatre with Paul Scofield as Salieri and Simon Callow as Mozart. Callow played the head of the working class theater company who commissioned Mozart's "Magic Flute" opera in the film.
The 1981 Broadway production starred Ian "Gandalf" McKellen as Salieri, Tim "Wadsworth" Curry as Mozart and Jane "Dr. Quinn" Seymour as Constanze. The production won multiple Tony Awards.
The 1999 Broadway revival starred David "Poirot" Suchet as Salieri and Michael "Lucian" Sheen as Mozart. This production was similarly lauded.
The 1984 film by Milos Forman won multiple Oscars including Best Actor for F. Murray Abraham as Salieri.
The play is a fictionalized dramatization but Mozart was a prodigy, a spendthrift and an impractical creative type in life. He is buried in an unknown pauper's grave and is considered the greatest composer who ever lived.
Thank you so much for reacting to Amadeus. It's definitely a forgotten gem
In the Roman Empire purple was the color of royalty.
As was the case in the Byzantine Empire
I’ve read a couple of great Mozart biographies and he died wealthy and laid in state, in Austria, at the time of his death. Thousands attended his funeral, including the king.
This movie was huge when it came out & won 8 Oscars. It's an incredible movie that shows a breadth of Mozart's life, including funny, goofy stuff & the dark stuff. Not strictly historically acurate of course, but a great film nonetheless. The most recent belief as to his cause of death is from kidney failure post-strep throat viral infection. Not too 'flashy' but not a nice death without modern medicine & pain meds etc.
Another movie moment that features Mozart (besides Shawshank mentioned by George) is The Big Lebowski when the Philip S. Hoffman character tells The Dude that Mr. Lebowski has secluded himself in the
I'm performing the Requiem as a tenor in the choir next month and I cannot express the excitement I feel! This reaction came in perfect timing! I love that you guys focused on the writing of Confutatis! It's my favourite part of the piece, next to the Kyrie and the famous Dies Irae
Such a shame he didn't get a chance to finish it
@@kojiattwood Indeed. We're doing the well known Süssmayr edition. I think he did a decent job finishing the piece hehe
@@UlimorUdamenta Apparently, Mozart had originally planned some epic ten voice fugue at the end of the Lachrymosa. I can just imagine Sussmayr saying, "nah, I'm good with just an Amen cadence."
@@kojiattwood more like a speculation than a concrete plan. They did find a sketch, but it was suggested by two musicologists that it was meant for the Requiem. Sadly, we will never know.
Fun movie.
Not even remotely historically accurate and makes Mozart's friend Salieri a villain just because there has to be one.
But fun.
It's not QUITE as inaccurate as people think. Yes, it does paint a poor picture of Salieri. It actually tones DOWN how off-the-scale wild and immature Mozart was, cuts some major players out, changes the order of events to some degree... but consider this: Salieri, IRL, did spend his last few years in an asylum suffering from dementia. Literally every single inaccuracy this movie has--right down to Salieri's own jealousy--can be dismissed as the product of a failing mind. I wouldn't be surprised if the real Salieri did harbor at least SOME bitterness about the level of genius Mozart had vs his own, among other things; I mean, who WOULDN'T feel that way to some degree? But our emotions can easily distort our memories--and vice versa--even WITHOUT old age and dementia playing a part.
It's based on a play I believe.
"not even remotely historically accurate". this applies to the murderous plans of salieri. other points about their lives in vienna, the music, the age at which mozart dies, (35) the fact that he was buried in a mass grave for paupers, the fact that salieri lived far longer, and was much more successful, despite being far less talented, mozart's unhealthy relationship with his father, mozart's drinking and refusal to save any of his money, the way court was set up and the struggles mozart had to face to get his works programmed, this is all so accurate, and this list constitutes so much more than "remotely", that it renders your comment somewhere between false and absurd. lets just say, " salieri wasnt actually jealous of mozart so far as we know, and it is fiction to believe he was plotting to kill him, but in the other historical details, the accuracy is very good".
To be fair to the movie makers: That (unfounded) rumor that Salieri killed Mozard was not their invention. IIRC it came into existence shortly after Mozart died.
@@russellward4624 Yes, it's based on the play "Amadeus" by Peter Schaffer, who in turn was inspired by Pushkin's 1830 play "Mozart and Salieri".
I don't know what happened to Tom Hulce..There are a lot of obstacles to continuing to be a a great and famous actor. But as long as people watch movies, he will always be remembered.
The same goes for F. Murray Abraham (maybe more so).
For that matter, what about Elizabeth Berridge's performance as Mozart's wife? "Wolfie!"
An impeccably acted movie. Tremendously well written and directed too.
Regarding clothing: Mozart used to wear a bright red frock, even if at that time red was a colour only aristocrats were allowed to wear.
32:44 my favorite scene in the movie, and you two spoke the exact several reasons why. Also, hearing it all together at the end really did forever change how I listened to classical music after that -- with much more appreciation of how it comes about. Was pretty young seeing this in the theater, and it's a treat to see a younger generation getting so much out of this great movie. Thanks for posting.
Lice. Lots and lots of lice. That's why most of them wore wigs, head had to be shaven to get rid of the parasites.
This movie was my introduction to classical music. I ended up using one of his pieces in my wedding, for us walking down the aisle. Which I got from the soundtrack album, which was 3 CDs, back when people used CDs for music.
Wonderful film however not accurate in portraying Salieri as envious or a killer. He was a very successful composer.
Mozart did make fart jokes, they were in his notes 😁
"There's a lot of farting during the night,
and the farts resound with thunderous might."
-- W.A. Mozart
His letters are a lot of fun.