The series A posteriori le cinéma is intended as an opportunity to celebrate the 7the art by revisiting flagship titles that celebrate important anniversaries.
In Vienna, in 1823, Antonio Salieri, an old composer forgotten, like his music, has locked himself in his luxurious apartments. On the other side of the closed doors, his servants hear him screaming: “Mozart, I confess, I killed you! Forgive me!” What a strange confession, considering that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, still as famous as ever more than 30 years after his death, died of natural causes. From the psychiatric hospital where he was interned after he tried to take his own life, Salieri begins to tell his story to a young priest. This confession opens the film. Amadeusby Milos Forman, a masterpiece released 40 years ago, in September 1984.
The genesis of the film dates back to the evening of the premiere of Peter Shaffer’s original play in 1979. The filmmaker has since been running on the plethora of Oscars won by his adaptation of the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Milos Forman had been invited, but did not want to go. In the documentary about the filming ofAmadeusthe Czech-born filmmaker says: “In communist countries, we loved to make films about composers because composers make music. They don’t say anything subversive. They’re the most boring films I’ve ever seen.”
Forman was nevertheless convinced, and what he saw that evening did not bore him, on the contrary. With his characteristically abrupt frankness, he told Peter Shaffer during the intermission: “If the second part of the play is as good as the first, I will make a film of it.”
The filmmaker and the playwright worked on the screenplay for four months: it was clear from the outset that many liberties would be taken with the play. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film Equusby Sidney Lumet, based on his Tony Award-winning play (Broadway’s Oscars), Shaffer was no stranger to the exercise. What’s more, he himself had drawn very loosely on a short story by Alexander Pushkin to write Amadeusa largely… fictional biography.
The film preserved the essential plot of the play, namely the one-sided rivalry between Salieri, an elegant man and official composer of the emperor, and Mozart, a vulgar young prodigy (that laugh!), flatulent and living off patronage. Faced with his own mediocrity compared to the genius of the latter, the former takes refuge in a deleterious deceit and hatred.
Coveted roles
In 1981, Amadeus won, like Equus in 1975, the Tony for Best Play, Drama. Which explains why almost every actor old enough to play Mozart or Salieri wanted to audition.
Mark Hamill was considered for Mozart, whom he had championed on stage. Fearing that he would be too closely associated with his character of Luke Skywalker, Milos Forman preferred an unknown: Tom Hulce. In fact, it was agreed that the cast would not include any stars: Mozart’s music would be the star.
Thus, a certain F. Murray Abraham, who, not without audacity in view of his bare bank account, had refused to audition for another role, obtained Salieri’s score. In the documentary, Forman recalls having thought, concerning Abraham’s stubbornness, that this one was worthy of Salieri. For his part, the actor recalls later, with a wry smile, how he learned the good news in the middle of filming Scarface (The Scarred One), by Brian De Palma, where he played a supporting role.
“Everybody’s attitude toward me, and that of the stars in the film, changed immediately. I was no longer F. Murray Abraham, a good actor who was chasing contracts like many other good actors. I was the one who had landed the part that every English-speaking actor wanted.”
For both financial and architectural reasons, it was decided that filming would take place in Prague, where Milos Forman had not set foot since his forced exile in 1968. The production was welcomed with open arms… but was also closely monitored. Not only was the crew followed wherever they went, but some thirty members of the secret police infiltrated the 500 or so extras.
In his autobiography, Forman writes: “Czechoslovakia was still a totalitarian country when we filmed Amadeus and, as an émigré, I was considered a traitor. […] I had tried to return to Prague, even if only for a few days, a visit, a brief embrace, a shock with reality, but it took me ten years to foment my return with Amadeus. I went there as an American citizen, with an American film on which the communist government was making American money — those dollars being the main reason I was allowed to return home.
Music from within
The production encountered a major unforeseen event when Meg Tilly, the revelation of The Big Chill (Friends first) who was to play Mozart’s wife Constanze, tore a ligament and had to leave the day before filming. Elizabeth Berridge (Funhouse/Ghost Train Massacre) was chosen to replace her. Faithful, Forman reunited with Tilly in 1989 for his very beautiful Valmontwhere the actress plays Madame de Tourvel.
Tom Hulce, for his part, practiced the piano five hours a day, every day, for months. And for good reason: Milos Forman didn’t want to use the old editing trick of cutting from the inhabited face of the actor who isn’t really playing to a close-up of the hands of a real pianist. As Neville Marriner, a renowned conductor and music supervisor on AmadeusHulce did not make the slightest fingering error.
To explain the actor to the Guardian in 2023: “I took as many piano lessons as I could.” F. Murray Abraham […] came with me to see Neville Marriner’s recording at the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Abbey Road, London. Neville invited me to sneak into the middle of the orchestra so that I could have a visceral experience and live the music from the inside. In front of the camera, I played on silent keys, while the music played on stage or was relayed to me through a hidden earpiece. The scene where I improve Salieri’s walk by talking over my shoulder and the one where I play backwards were particularly frightening. It was like doing stunts.”
In fact, this last sequence where Mozart amazes the gallery under the morbidly jealous gaze of a black-masked Salieri is unforgettable. Also unforgettable are the scenes filmed in the baroque Tyl theatre in Prague, where the Don Giovanni Mozart’s The Great Hall premiered in 1788. The place was considered highly flammable at the time and was dilapidated. Despite this, chandeliers decorated with dozens and dozens of lit candles were installed to recreate the appearance of yesteryear.
In the end, the forty or so firefighters stationed behind the scenes only had to intervene once, when an actor’s headdress caught fire – no one was injured.
Momentary icon
Upon its release, the film was a critical and popular success, temporarily transforming the young, iconoclastic, pink-wigged Mozart into a pop culture idol. Proof of this is the hit song Rock Me Amadeuswhich the singer Falco released immediately afterwards, openly taking inspiration from the film.
In all, Amadeus won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay and Actor (F. Murray Abraham). Special effects legend Dick Smith (The Exorcist/The Exorcist) was also awarded for the aging makeup, requiring four hours of application, that he designed for Abraham.
Unlike Antonio Salieri, who was madly envious, Milos Forman was nothing but grateful at the end of the adventure. As he explains in his autobiography: “Even though I was still under surveillance during filming, I had at least been able to return home, so even before the nominations, Amadeus had already given me a lot.”
The movie Amadeus is available on VOD on most platforms and a 4K edition will be released in October