What Amadeus gets wrong

BBC Culture ^ | 2/24/2015 | Clemency Burton-Hill

[Borges]

It is 30 years since Amadeus swept the board at the Academy Awards. Miloš Forman’s 1984 film of Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play, took home eight statuettes that night, including best film, best director, best actor and best adapted screenplay. Arguably the finest movie ever made about the process of artistic creation and the unbridgeable gap between human genius and mediocrity, it has taken its place in motion picture history and is invariably described as a masterpiece.

All this is despite the fact the film plays shamelessly fast and loose with historical fact, taking as its basis a supposedly bitter rivalry between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his counterpart Antonio Salieri, court composer for Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, that may have been nothing more than a vague rumour. Alex von Tunzelmann, writing in the Guardian, is one of the many historians frustrated by the glittering success of a film that is so inaccurate, historically speaking. She describes it as “laughably” wrong – “a deadly rivalry that never was, a dried-up bachelor who was actually a father of eight, and flops that were hits in reality” – and reckons nothing about the film can redeem “the fact that the entire premise – that Salieri loathed Mozart and plotted his demise – is probably not true”.

[fr_freak]

I hate arguments like this. If you want 'facts' watch a documentary. It's a great film.

If there is no need to be true to the reality, then why use historical figures at all? Why not just invent new characters, based on historical figures if you wish, and then take as much license as you care to? My objection to these historical drama pieces is that even supposedly intelligent, educated people accept them, on some level, as real, and thus have a distorted view of history. Therein lies the propaganda value of such films. If you want to destroy a country or culture, you simply make movies, plays, etc. that cast their historical figures in whichever light you want them seen.

[Mad Dawg]

Kind of you to say so.

[Obadiah]

I don’t like this article... too many notes.

[kearnyirish2]

I have no issue with the movie (because I viewed it as entertainment rather than truth), but I see your point: Too many Americans take Hollywood’s take on events as reality, and you’ll never convince them otherwise; they certainly won’t read up on it.

Just caught part of a show on “Titanic”, comparing the movie with reality. One inaccuracy was the higher death rate in second-class passengers over steerage passengers; the producers attributed this to a possible physical advantage of the average steerage passenger over office clerks and such. The movie practically has first class passengers making rafts out of the children of steerage passengers...

[Boogieman]

When legend becomes fact, print the legend.

[Boogieman]

“IMHO, one sign of a mediocre novelist is the use of too many words. Sometimes, WAY too many.”

The same thing is generally true in music too. For example, look at guitar players. Once you achieve a decent ability to play the instrument, it is not hard to improvise a guitar solo to most music, but it is hard to make a really good guitar solo. Most mediocre guitarists just try to show how technically good they are by filling up all the “space” in the solo with lots of notes, played very quickly.

That kind of works, and it can be impressive to someone watching them do it, but those aren’t the solos that anyone remembers. They don’t “stick” with you, because they have little emotional impact. So often people tell that type of guitarist to “play less”, because they are too focused on showing off to craft anything artful.

[Boogieman]

“If there is no need to be true to the reality, then why use historical figures at all? Why not just invent new characters, based on historical figures if you wish, and then take as much license as you care to?”

Well, one reason is that you can draw in the audience much easier and more quickly if you use characters they already have some familiarity with.

Sure, you could make a movie about a fictional classical composer, but nobody would have heard of him, so who cares? Plus, if he’s fictional, you’ll have to hire a composer to make up some fake music for him to have written, instead of being able to use lots of public domain classics that everyone knows Mozart wrote :)

[LaRueLaDue]

“My ears tell me Telemann was father to them all.”

Now there is a name out of the distant, Music History 335 past...

[JoeFromSidney]

And Bach would have been replaced by Haydn.

Nothing against Bach. I have quite a few recordings of his works. However, I'm convinced that Haydn's Trumpet Concerto in E-Flat Major is what the Angel Gabriel plays for his own amusement when he's off duty.

[Conservative4Ever]

I second that.

[Borges]

Titanic was pure myth making and fantasy - and succeeded beautifully. It was not intended to be a realistic docudrama about the historical event.

[Borges]

I’ve never met any educated person who thought Amadeus was anything other than an entertaining fantasy based on historical events. That’s what Peter Shaffer called his play. Do you know how many operas on historical subjects are completely off the mark in terms of actual history? No one feels misled.

[IronJack]

Agree. Haydn embodies a mathematical precision that somehow translates into utter magnificence. It’s the voice of the forces that guide the stars.

[fr_freak]

Sure, you could make a movie about a fictional classical composer, but nobody would have heard of him, so who cares? Plus, if he’s fictional, you’ll have to hire a composer to make up some fake music for him to have written,...

That's a good point about the music, but Mozart's familiarity is part of the point. People go to the movie thinking "Hey, I've heard of Mozart, let me go see a movie about his life." But it isn't his life - it's a fictional story. People may know that in their heads when they watch it, but I guarantee that whenever they hear the name Mozart, they'll think of the events of the movie. It will influence how they see him forever.

[Secret Agent Man]

You always wonder if those people who do this really despise their first name.

[fr_freak]

Do you know how many operas on historical subjects are completely off the mark in terms of actual history? No one feels misled.

Of course they don't feel misled. If people felt misled every time Hollywood pumped out pure BS, Hollywood would be bankrupt by now. The point is that even the "educated" will picture the atmosphere from the movie whenever they hear the name Mozart. Doesn't matter if they know the movie is fantasy. Only hardcore historians will be immune, and perhaps not even those.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Does this mean Wolfie wasn't really a jerk? Good. I don't like to think of him as a jerk.

He shore could write purty.

[Boogieman]

Sure, but the people making the movie care more about making a successful movie than whether people know all the true facts about Mozart. They get paid to entertain, not to educate.

[fr_freak]

Sure, but the people making the movie care more about making a successful movie than whether people know all the true facts about Mozart. They get paid to entertain, not to educate.

Of course they don't care about accuracy. That's the point. In fact, I would say inaccuracy is more what they're after. This is not a good thing. Moving pictures are the biggest propaganda machine ever invented.

[PGalt]

#1 My favorite movie. (a bunch of unknowns at the time) OUTSTANDING music…perfectly dovetailed to OUTSTANDING acting.

#2 Casablanca