# Amadeus (1984) | Ep. 63 - Part 1

An episode of [All The Right Movies](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1471502633), 16 Aug 2025, 1 h 26 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO9171755843.mp3

Mediocrity has a patron saint, and his name is Salieri. John, Westy, and Matt begin the story of Miloš Forman's lavish, Oscar-sweeping account of genius, jealousy, and a laugh that echoes through cinema history. In Part 1 we cover the film's opening, director Miloš Forman, the cast, and the second act — including the stage-to-screen journey and the extraordinary performances that anchor it all. Part 2, covering the crew, the finale, reception, and the film's legacy, is available now. Connect with ATRM: To support what we do, access our archive and listen to exclusive episodes, become an ATRM patron: Listen on Patreon Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Twitter/X: @ATRightMovies YouTube: Subscribe to our channel Instagram: @allthe_rightmovies Threads: @allthe_rightmovies Facebook: Join our movie group Bluesky: @alltherightmovies.com TikTok: @alltherightmovies Website: alltherightmovies.com

## Transcript

[0:04] All the right movies. Tell us about first guy Amadeus
[0:10] Mozart Mozart, Mozart. He creates music for the gods.
[0:17] He is passionate. He burns with.
[0:19] Fire. He is an.
[0:20] Angel. He is a devil.
[0:28] Amadeus the man, the music, the motion picture.
[0:34] Everything you've heard is true. Amadeus was released in 1984 and
[0:43] became an instant modern classic.
[0:45] Milos Foreman's period biopic about the rivalry between
[0:48] composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri.
[0:52] The film is an exploration of jealousy, genius and divine
[0:55] injustice. My name's John, and the
[0:57] performing monkeys with me are Matt.
[1:00] Tis miraculous. And Westie.
[1:03] Forgive me Majesty, I'm a vulgar man, but I assure you my music
[1:07] is not. It's the 18th century and all
[1:10] the right movies are in Vienna via Prague to talk the man, the
[1:13] murder and the myth about the music.
[1:16] Too many notes. Hello and welcome to all the
[1:39] highbrow movies. I mean, right movies.
[1:42] Very nice. Giggly and dirty minded
[1:44] creatures crawling on the floor. And the podcast on classic and
[1:48] hit films. That's us.
[1:49] This episode has been a long time coming.
[1:52] It has been very long for you especially.
[1:56] As always, we're telling the story of Hollywood 1 movie at a
[1:59] time, but today it's through the voice of God.
[2:01] It is, as we talk Milos, Mozart, the patron St. of mediocracies,
[2:06] and Amadeus. Yeah.
[2:08] Sounds a lot I'm. Just going to have a nip.
[2:10] Sounds a lot. As always.
[2:13] As always. Yeah, nothing changes.
[2:17] Well, before we start making our all night confessions, should we
[2:19] plug our own divine compositions on Patreon?
[2:22] I'll go on then, might as well. Absolutely.
[2:25] Well, if you're a regular listener to our ATRM Classic
[2:27] podcast, you can help support what we do by becoming an ATRM
[2:30] patron. Patrons get access to our bonus
[2:33] podcast episode called Double Feature, where we talk about two
[2:36] films that may get the ATRM Classic treatment, and the Watch
[2:39] List, where we review more modern releases.
[2:42] And you will also gain access to our whole podcast archive full
[2:45] of bonus episodes and archived ATRM Classic episodes.
[2:49] So if you like biopics, we have The Social Network.
[2:52] If period films are your thing, Master and Commander is in
[2:55] there. It is.
[2:57] Hundreds of hours worth of other stuff as well.
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[3:22] that as well at all the right movies.com.
[3:25] That's my new shirt. But enough about us for now.
[3:28] Yeah, back to the Today. And it's Amadeus.
[3:31] It is. I chose this one, in case you
[3:33] weren't aware. Matt, did you?
[3:36] Well, listening to you was like listening to the voice of God.
[3:38] So you first. Oh, thank you.
[3:40] Why are we talking Amadeus? Well, this one I didn't get to
[3:43] till I was well into my 20s, and I dismissed it for two reasons.
[3:46] Firstly, the biopic is probably my least favorite genre.
[3:50] They're essentially all the same, they just hit the same
[3:52] notes, nor pun intended. And a biopic about a classical
[3:55] composer, the topic I've got very little interest in.
[3:58] That was the first thing that turned me off it.
[4:01] But secondly, the other thing I knew about it was this was one
[4:03] of the big Oscar winners of the 80s.
[4:05] Nothing that decade in particular has a pretty poor
[4:08] lineup of big best picture winners.
[4:11] You know, Out of Africa, Gandhi, The Last Emperor, all these
[4:14] bloated films that, yeah, the big and the epic and the
[4:17] sweeping, they're all a bit of a slog to get through.
[4:19] And The Quiet Door, I thought Amadeus was just going to be
[4:22] like that. But that's the thing in terms of
[4:25] biopics, it turns the genre on his head.
[4:27] And to do something genuinely different with it.
[4:29] And then in terms of those films that were winning the Oscars in
[4:31] the 80s, this is just so completely different because I
[4:34] was not expecting this to be as much fun as it is.
[4:37] Nice. Yeah, similar for me, but I was
[4:39] about 17 or 18 when I first saw Amadeus.
[4:42] I've been going through this phase where I was obsessed with
[4:44] Mozart for some reason. Wow.
[4:46] I think the whole musical genius thing fascinating me.
[4:49] I mean that makes perfect. Sense.
[4:54] Like writing symphonies at 8 years old, like Mozart.
[4:56] Not me, obviously. Yeah.
[4:59] And then I heard there was this film about Mozart, the Wooden
[5:01] Lords of Oscars, and I was like, well, this sounds awesome.
[5:04] So I was all over it. Yeah.
[5:05] And then I watched it and realized it's not totally about
[5:07] Mozart as much as it is his petty little mate.
[5:10] Yeah. But it still floored me.
[5:13] First time I was crawling on the floor like Mozart.
[5:16] And it's still extraordinary to me.
[5:18] Yeah. Usually I kind of play my cards
[5:20] close to my chest at the start of our episodes, but this time
[5:22] seems a bit pointless. So this is getting a 10 and the
[5:27] rest of the show I'll be explaining or trying to explain
[5:29] why I think so highly of it. Brilliant, yeah.
[5:32] And I think highly of it, and maybe everywhere you can think
[5:35] highly of a film and all the ways we talk about the
[5:37] direction, the writing, the cast, the visuals, design work,
[5:41] all fantastic. The story of how was made is as
[5:43] huge as the film as well. Yeah, and I mean, the music's
[5:46] not bad, is it? I mean, it's all right, fills a
[5:49] hole, doesn't it? It's up there.
[5:51] And also, there's one scene in particular that might be my
[5:54] favorite in any film ever. OK, if you're familiar with the
[5:56] film, you probably know which one I'm talking about.
[5:58] So that's coming as well. Yeah.
[6:00] OK. And Speaking of geniuses Westie,
[6:03] rumour has it that you hadn't seen Amadeus before doing this
[6:06] episode. Rumour has it.
[6:07] Been completely ignoring me for decades.
[6:10] I know, not ignoring you, just kind of sidestepping you a
[6:13] little bit. I'm used to that.
[6:15] That's right. Yeah, I know.
[6:16] I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm not.
[6:17] Didn't watch this until I was in the mid 40s.
[6:19] That's not mid 20s. Yeah, this is a new one for me.
[6:24] And it was one that again, really put me off and I don't
[6:27] know why because I got into really pretentious films a long
[6:29] time ago, but it seemed pretentious just from the
[6:32] artwork. It seemed like a massive slug.
[6:34] It was almost like looking at Metropolis or something.
[6:36] It was like, oh right, OK, that's fine.
[6:38] Yeah. And then I've seen Barry Lyndon
[6:40] like 4 times and I haven't watched Down a Day.
[6:42] It's outrageous. But I have I've seen it fair few
[6:45] times over this over the past weeks.
[6:47] And it that would have been a hard thing to do if it wasn't so
[6:50] captivating, which it is. I mean, I'm not going to give me
[6:53] score away right now, but I'm glad it's in there.
[6:56] I'm really glad I've watched it. I just love everything about it,
[6:58] to be honest of the sentiment of it.
[7:00] I love the performances of it. I love the pace and I love the
[7:02] music. Not that I'd sit and listen to
[7:04] Mozart, just any headphones going, you know?
[7:05] Yeah, it makes us very anxious in some parts because it's just,
[7:08] it's so much to it, so intricate, which we'll get into
[7:11] all of that. It's just a really good, really
[7:13] cultivating film and I'm very excited to talk about it.
[7:15] I'm not too sure what me and Matt are doing here, but we'll
[7:18] try and fit something in somewhere.
[7:21] Get a word in that for you somewhere, I'm sure.
[7:22] Yeah, we'll try to. Yeah.
[7:24] So Amadeus was produced by the Soulsance Company, distributed
[7:27] by Orion Pictures and Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment and
[7:30] released on September the 19th, 1984.
[7:33] Filmed almost entirely on location in Prague,
[7:36] Czechoslovakia, the film was directed by Milos Forman,
[7:39] written by Peter Schaeffer, adopting his own stage play of
[7:41] the same name, and stars Tom Holsters, Mozart, F Marie,
[7:45] Abraham Salieri and Elizabeth Beridge as Constanza.
[7:49] Time to face the music then, should we?
[7:51] And dance. Yeah, it's 1823 in a Viennese
[7:54] society, and an old man's confession is about to change
[7:57] everything. It's the beginning of Amadeus.
[8:03] The beginning. Amadeus opens with a classic
[8:08] narrative device, a suicide attempt that leads to a murder
[8:12] confession that drops us back 30 years earlier.
[8:14] Mid opera. It does.
[8:15] That old chestnut. Yeah, they're going to be
[8:17] talking about the meeting between our two lead characters
[8:20] in Salieri and Mozart. But to start, it's all Salieri,
[8:23] a young priest and some timeless music.
[8:27] Vienna, 1823. I'm Antonio Salieri, once the
[8:30] most famous composer in Europe. S prayers.
[8:32] No prayers. Yeah.
[8:33] Is causes off to an asylum where he confesses to murder and tries
[8:36] to slit his own throat. He does.
[8:38] Visited by Father Vogler, played by Herman Meckler, Salieri takes
[8:41] us back to when he first encountered the musical
[8:43] phenomenon that was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, tells the priest
[8:48] to leave him alone and then doesn't shut up for the next 10
[8:50] hours. Wesley.
[8:52] Sounds familiar, doesn't it? So you're the perfect guy to
[8:55] start with this opening. Yeah, yeah.
[8:58] I mean, this opens exactly the way I thought it was going to,
[9:00] to the point where I was like, really, just really knows
[9:03] exactly what you'd expect. And it is, I mean, it's very
[9:06] shocking, the reveal of Sillieri when you open that door and you
[9:08] see him just like, what's happening?
[9:10] Where's this going? And I love the way this is cross
[9:13] cut at the very start with the first movement.
[9:14] You've got people dancing, celebrating the music and
[9:17] getting carried through as the credits are rolling.
[9:19] So it's almost like we haven't really got time for credits.
[9:23] Yeah, yeah. So we need to move the story on.
[9:25] We've got to fit the credits in somehow.
[9:27] But it sets the tone for the rest of the film of how he's
[9:29] just so broken down and tired of everything.
[9:32] But still, the music's being celebrated.
[9:34] Yeah. Which is great.
[9:35] Some great lines when it's back and forth with the priest.
[9:38] I love that when he says, you know, your confession for God's
[9:40] forgiveness. I think so, yeah.
[9:41] He just needs to hear that and says, well, have I got a point
[9:43] for you? Yeah.
[9:45] He's got exist. And here we go.
[9:46] And the transition to the younger Cilieri is absolute
[9:50] magic. Oh, brilliant.
[9:51] Really love that. And then when he starts playing
[9:53] the music and he said, you recognize that?
[9:56] And then he's like, no, no, no, really.
[9:59] Can you? But you studied music?
[10:00] Yeah. Yeah, I studied it.
[10:01] Yeah. OK.
[10:01] But you don't know what that is. What about this one?
[10:04] Then he's just straight in. Then he says, I didn't know you
[10:07] wrote that. I didn't.
[10:08] That was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
[10:11] But the way he says Amadeus, and he looks up to the sky and he
[10:15] says he was my idol. And then we cut.
[10:17] Yeah, it's great. So.
[10:18] You don't know where you stand and it's just full of regret,
[10:21] but at the same time you don't quite know if it was his fault,
[10:24] if he feels guilty for something, if he misses him too
[10:26] much. You don't know where you are
[10:27] with it. So it's a brilliant start to a
[10:30] really brilliant narrative and a really great introduction to the
[10:32] character. Because F Murray and Harper were
[10:34] going to keep going through. This is unbelievable.
[10:37] But just this moment where you go from young to old.
[10:40] He was my idol. Bang, we're in.
[10:42] Yeah, I look how it just drops us right in.
[10:44] There's no build up, old man screaming Mozart and trying to
[10:48] kill himself. But it does set the tone
[10:50] distances itself straight away from your more stuffy period
[10:52] picture. But one with the priest and
[10:55] Salieri, that's where it really starts to move.
[10:57] And I think it's a pretty perfect setup for what we're
[10:59] going to get. Yeah, F Marie Abraham as the old
[11:01] Salieri is instantly magnetic. I love it when the priest says
[11:05] all men are equal in God's eyes and Salieri turns to face him in
[11:08] his wheelchair. Like, are they?
[11:11] Yeah. Don't we know it's that first
[11:12] time around? But on re watches, it's massive,
[11:14] sets up the plot. And that's one of the themes of
[11:16] the film. Yeah.
[11:17] And like the rest of the film, it's inventive in its use of
[11:20] music. It's only a couple of minutes or
[11:21] so before we get our first flashback.
[11:23] You mentioned it, Westie, when we cut Salieri conducting his
[11:25] opera. And there's no 30 years earlier
[11:28] in the title cards. This is way too slick for that.
[11:31] It transitions on the music as it does all the way through.
[11:34] Yeah. And let us know that when we
[11:35] hear music, it's often going to be in characters heads, which
[11:38] works so well as we'll talk about.
[11:41] I find this about as an engaging of film as I've seen, and it's
[11:43] there kind of right from the start, I think.
[11:46] In Vincent Skee Valley was an actor who met Milos Foreman in
[11:49] the 1960s and appeared in all this Hollywood films.
[11:52] He plays Frederickson and Cuckoo's Nest in here.
[11:55] He plays Sally Aries Valley in She Valley, said before Amadeus,
[11:59] he had made guest appearances on a few TV shows, enough to shoot
[12:02] in a shot where all he had to do was walk in a frame.
[12:04] He said Foreman shouted, cut and said from television is ruining
[12:08] you. Fair enough.
[12:10] Television is joining you. Yeah.
[12:12] Probably more like that. We had the Valley is trying to
[12:15] entice Salieri out with a big plate of food.
[12:18] Yeah, you'd like Salieri. I have a Creamer cake for you.
[12:21] I mean, that would work on me, to be fair.
[12:23] The guy carrying it's just stuff on his face with.
[12:26] Disgusting. Horrible.
[12:27] Licking it, it's horrible. Just licking it off, yeah.
[12:29] And it sets up Salier with love with desserts, which is a nice
[12:32] touch. Yes, that's his insecurity all
[12:34] the way through the film, isn't it?
[12:35] Yeah, That's his one weakness. Yeah, yeah.
[12:38] And as we talked about, Salieri's room in the mental
[12:40] hospital was set built for the film.
[12:42] But the scenes that take place in the corridor outside his room
[12:45] were filmed in Valedovna in Prague, a dormitory built for
[12:48] war veterans in the 1730s. And it was used until 1935 and
[12:53] was a museum when Amadeus came to film there.
[12:55] Kind of tell it there's a bit of a history there when you're
[12:57] going through that corridor. Yeah, it looks great.
[12:59] I mean, we're seeing when the priest arrives, then when he's
[13:01] pushing Salieri round in the final scene and he's like, I
[13:04] absolve you to everyone. Mediocrity.
[13:07] People just like chained to the wall by the neck.
[13:09] Brutal are all horrible. Yeah, yeah, no cameos from
[13:12] Cookie's nest, which would have been nice.
[13:14] That would have been nice. I think it might have just been
[13:16] a bit too on the nose. Yeah, and the music at Salieri
[13:19] face the priest and says that was Mozart.
[13:22] It's a serenade called Einheim Nax Music.
[13:25] It's one of more talks about well known pieces today, and he
[13:28] wrote it in 1787 around the time he was writing Don Giovanni.
[13:31] But it wasn't actually published until 182736 years after he
[13:36] died, when Constanza sold it to a German publisher.
[13:39] Yeah, it's a bit of beat to put in Don Giovanni, I think Most
[13:42] Miserable or Forever and the Siever.
[13:46] Salieri and the Priest are set in 1823, so 4 years before that
[13:49] music was even published, meaning the Priest couldn't have
[13:52] known it, right? So form a decision to favour art
[13:55] over historical accuracy. Something else we'll be talking
[13:57] about that's there from the start of the film as well.
[14:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then after this, we'll make
[14:02] the man himself. And it's such a great setup
[14:04] because who could this Mozart look like?
[14:06] And let's face it, Salieri is expecting someone who's regal
[14:09] and refined is himself. But what I love about it, for
[14:12] all his preenin and pomposity, as soon as he spies a chance to
[14:15] get stuck in a food without someone seeing, he's straight in
[14:18] there. Yeah, yeah, I chopped the ball.
[14:20] Yeah. Great.
[14:20] Yeah. Yeah, but I genuinely think this
[14:22] is one of the best character introductions in cinema because
[14:25] you put yourself in Salieri shoes and you have to pretend
[14:28] you don't know. Because this guy, this vulgar
[14:31] fool Colin, stands there. A shit wit and all that nonsense
[14:34] backward talk. Just an absolute idiot.
[14:37] And I think it's also worth bearing in mind Foreman doesn't
[14:39] move the camera in any extravagant way that caught
[14:42] attention to itself unless he's got a really good reason to do
[14:45] so. So when this idiot who we think
[14:47] he is says oh, to play my music and stands up in realized this
[14:51] is Mozart and you get that push in on Salieri's face, just a
[14:56] ghast. It's so effective.
[14:58] Yeah, yeah. It definitely is slightly
[15:01] strange guy Salieri, I think, creeping around this party,
[15:04] staring at everyone's faces. Are you web?
[15:06] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is a great way to
[15:08] introduce a title character. Like you said, Mark, we are like
[15:10] Salieri, but probably expecting to see Mozart show up as some
[15:13] smart, well spoken genius, not some giggling man boy like he
[15:16] does. Yeah.
[15:17] My favorite bit, though, was after the concert, when Salieri
[15:20] comes across Mozart sheet music. We hear the music in Salieri's
[15:23] head as he reads it, and we get the first scene of all Salieri
[15:26] describing Mozart's music, and it's glorious.
[15:30] Where he's like, like a rusty squeeze box grey, and then
[15:34] suddenly, high above it, an oboe.
[15:37] Yeah. And we hear exactly what he's
[15:39] describing as he describes it. I'm not doing it justice there
[15:41] because it's stunning the way they put it all together.
[15:44] Yeah. And this is like what, 8 minutes
[15:45] in or something? What's great as well though is
[15:48] how it develops the Mozart Salieri rivalry.
[15:50] Like straight away. It's not just simple jealousy.
[15:52] Salieri's excited to meet Mozart at first.
[15:55] The anger only comes when he realizes Mozart isn't what he
[15:58] expected. A musical genius should be
[16:00] dignified and classy like Salieri, not this bubbling sex
[16:04] crazy idiot. If anything it tells us more
[16:06] about Salieri than Mozart. He's pretty narcissistic I
[16:09] think. And Elizabeth Barrett said a
[16:12] film in the scene where Constanza and Mozart are
[16:14] crawling around on the phone wasn't easy.
[16:16] She said every time Tomaholz dragged her along the floor, the
[16:19] carpet friction caused her dress to slide down and exposed her
[16:22] chest. She did cover herself up
[16:23] performing, kept telling. Rush out and keep going.
[16:26] You look great. Not the point, Milos.
[16:29] To be fair, it's. Really not the point.
[16:32] I think that seems a good inroad of Constanza as well.
[16:35] Stands here to our pals. That's what I'll be calling her.
[16:37] Yeah. Yeah.
[16:37] But within seconds to sing them together, I'm thinking, how does
[16:40] she tolerate this guy? Yeah.
[16:42] Shit and fart jokes. Awful.
[16:44] Yeah. And a patient obviously just
[16:46] wear thin later on. Yeah, historians have studied
[16:49] letters written by the real Mortar and said he did seem to
[16:52] have the same kind of humor we see on the film.
[16:55] He would often sign off letters with trism, which was Mozart
[16:57] backwards, and when he was in Vienna he wrote a piece of music
[17:01] called Lekmidan Ashfin Richt Son Sober which translate to lick my
[17:08] arse nice and clean. Nice talk, sugar mouth.
[17:12] Yeah, lovely, lovely German there as well.
[17:14] Musty. Oh.
[17:15] Thanks, but. That moment when he's talking
[17:17] backwards is when we find out that he's Mozart.
[17:19] He's got his head like in Stanzi's chest, and we hear the
[17:21] orchestra starting up and he suddenly transforms, stands up,
[17:24] and he's like, my music great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[17:28] And the camera pushes right in on Salieri as he realizes it's
[17:31] one step away from Jaws. Like a Dolly zoo, I.
[17:33] Know that, doesn't it? Yeah, and that's the opening to
[17:37] Ahmed is suicidal Salieri and a foul mouth, but genius Mozart,
[17:42] the composer. Battle lines are drawn.
[17:44] Time to meet their boss, I think.
[17:47] OK. Having established Salieri's
[17:51] hatred for Mozart pretty much instantly, we now see them
[17:54] thrown together in the Imperial Viennese court, summoned by
[17:58] Emperor Joseph the Second, played by Jeffrey Jones.
[18:00] Mozart's commissioned to write an opera.
[18:02] He accepts and sits himself down at the old Joanna, humiliating
[18:06] Salieri in the process. Yeah, there it is, Westie.
[18:10] Yeah. How's the Emperor and Vienna?
[18:13] This really stood out for me, this scene.
[18:15] Yeah, it's just fantastic, isn't it?
[18:17] It's just exactly what you want to happen.
[18:18] It happened so well. There's so many bits.
[18:21] The just let him in, let him in slowly.
[18:23] Can I have a try of it? Emperor is amazing.
[18:26] Yeah, of course he can't. But then he said he doesn't play
[18:29] like lightly, then strongly. Is it really funny?
[18:32] He's really, really just panicking.
[18:33] It's like, oh God, it's the first time Mozarts going to hear
[18:36] this and it's like so badly done.
[18:38] But it's really, really great because he comes in and when
[18:41] they start actually when this arguing over it, whether it
[18:43] should be in German or whether it should be in Italian and
[18:46] there's just this real pompous nature to them all.
[18:48] And Mozart, it's just like, just make it like this.
[18:50] It's great. It's going to be excellent.
[18:51] I know what I'm doing. This real sense of people trying
[18:55] to just use him for his talent, but they're going to take the
[18:58] all the benefit from it. They're going to take all the
[19:00] all the reward from his actual talent, which I think is a
[19:03] really good touch. Honestly, It just rips the piss.
[19:05] It's superb from that moment. And then he said the rest is
[19:08] just the same, isn't it? If you play somebody's music
[19:11] with him, that's probably the worst thing you could say.
[19:13] Then it's so belittling. It's so in your face.
[19:15] Well, it's just the same over and over again.
[19:17] Imagine I'm playing some always the songs.
[19:20] Yeah, I know. It's fine.
[19:22] And it's absolutely brilliant. And then he just makes it
[19:24] better. Did you try this?
[19:25] What about this? Like, shall we try this?
[19:27] And then just makes it miles, miles better.
[19:29] It's just a great scene because I kind of talk about it
[19:31] chronologically because there's so many things that I love about
[19:35] actors jump backwards and forwards in my head.
[19:37] It's just absolutely brilliantly played out.
[19:39] Yeah, I agree. It's one of the most memorable
[19:41] scenes in the film, I think, and it's really well constructed.
[19:44] Yeah. It starts with Salieri writing
[19:45] his welcome March for Mozart, where he looks at his crucifix
[19:48] and goes, glad C seniority. And it's a little tune.
[19:51] I quite like it. Yeah.
[19:52] There's nothing wrong with it when Mozart plays it, obviously,
[19:55] yeah. And we get the conversation
[19:58] about whether more thoughts opera should be in Germany or
[20:00] Italian, and the way that conflict with the Emperor's
[20:02] court advisor. As a start, great when Mozart
[20:05] says loves a German virtue and Savieri like love.
[20:08] Of course, in Italy we know nothing about love.
[20:11] Yeah, and that guys like, just like Jabba the Hood.
[20:16] He looks like him as well. He does, yeah.
[20:20] So it's a really good scene in terms of character narrative.
[20:23] And then Mozart plays Salieri's welcome March back to him, and
[20:26] he does just start taking the piss.
[20:27] Yeah, he does. That doesn't really work, does
[20:29] it? Yeah.
[20:30] Did you try this or what about this?
[20:32] All while giggling away. And Salieri is totally gutted.
[20:35] Yeah. But it's quite interesting.
[20:37] Historians say that from studying certain documents, it's
[20:40] pretty obvious that the real Mozart had perfect pitch under
[20:43] photographic memory. Right, Because playing tunes
[20:44] back instantly is something he could really do, apparently.
[20:47] So that's where the scene comes from.
[20:49] But I think it's superb, and we end by cutting on Mozart's huge
[20:52] laugh and Salieri back with the crucifix, now furious Grassi
[20:55] seniority. It's really good.
[20:57] Brilliant, yeah. And at the start of the film,
[21:00] Mortard is in service of Prince Archbishop Hieronymous Color
[21:03] Reed or of Salzburg, played by Nicholas Capros.
[21:07] Mortard and Archbishop not getting on is based on reality.
[21:10] Mozart letters from the time describe the Archbishop as
[21:13] authoritative, not caring for more Todd's music and thinking
[21:16] he have no decorum. Right, yeah, apparently, and
[21:19] this isn't in the film, but it could have been, I think.
[21:21] Apparently when Mozart resigned from the archbishop's court to
[21:23] go to Vienna, he had a meeting with the archbishop's chamber
[21:26] clerk, and he was so furious with Mozart that he threw him
[21:29] out by kicking him in the pants. Right.
[21:32] I wonder if that's why we get that moment when the
[21:33] Archbishop's chamber guard closed the door.
[21:35] Then he bends over. As he's bowing, yeah.
[21:37] Yeah, just missed a bit where he just took a run and kicked.
[21:42] Your father, Ted. Yeah, Salieri's Welcome March
[21:47] was actually written for the film, but music that Mozart
[21:50] adapts it, it was written by the real Mozart.
[21:52] It's called Non Pure 3 for Full Amaroso and it's from The
[21:56] Marriage of Figaro. It's funny when the emperor's
[21:59] like, let's have some fun, sits down to play it and he's a
[22:02] rubbish plinky plunking away like Eric Malcolm.
[22:07] And so, yeah, he's like, come on, man, It's great.
[22:11] And the first person cast as Emperor Joseph was Ian
[22:14] Richardson, who was known as the Shakespearean actor, but he had
[22:17] to pull out because of schedule and conflicts.
[22:19] Geoffrey Jones was also known as the stage actor at the time, and
[22:23] Foreman's custom team saw him in an Off Broadway a British 2
[22:26] actor player called Cloud 9 and recommended him to Foreman.
[22:29] Yeah, he's really good. Yeah, Jeffrey Jones.
[22:31] But he was cancelled into oblivion in 2002 when he was
[22:35] arrested for something disgusting.
[22:37] Google it if you're interested. Yeah, but on that note, back to
[22:41] you, Matt. Thanks.
[22:41] We've got no point to talk about.
[22:43] Yeah, the abduction from the Seralio.
[22:45] I do because this is the scene that always comes to mind.
[22:48] First to me about this film is when the emperor gets up on
[22:50] stage. Really.
[22:51] Yeah. Just that attempt to critique
[22:53] Mozart. Do any nopes?
[22:56] Because this is still such a relevant scene because everyone
[22:59] thinks they're an expert these days.
[23:00] Everyone has social media. So everyone has an opinion.
[23:03] And the thing that opinion has to be heard.
[23:05] And it reminds me, you know, when you watch them, like,
[23:07] talent show on TV and you might get a really, really good
[23:09] singer, and then you've got, like, Simon Cowell sat there,
[23:13] who's never sung or written a song in his life.
[23:15] Or Amanda Holden. Or Amanda.
[23:17] Holden even worse, trying to judge them tell them what's good
[23:20] or not in Jeffrey drawn to mention there.
[23:22] Obviously he and his individual books so good in this so shallow
[23:26] and when he's on the spot thinking he's got to have some
[23:29] opinion because everyone is hanging on his every word.
[23:31] But he's struggling because he just can't even conceive of
[23:34] music and he's just how shall one see a director like puts all
[23:38] the pressure on him because to him he's just making small talk,
[23:41] but because the more thoughts pride in his work.
[23:44] This is important and just that line exactly if I will put too
[23:47] many notes, just a pointless criticism.
[23:51] It really is. And the area that we hear from
[23:53] the opera, that is absolutely massive.
[23:57] I think it's one of the best pieces of music we hear in the
[23:59] film. Something I recommend actually
[24:01] in watching this film is to turn the subtitles on during the
[24:03] opera scenes, right? Because they've all been
[24:05] translated into English from German or Italian so you can
[24:08] read the lyrics. Oh nice.
[24:10] And some of them are dog as hell, right?
[24:11] This one's called torture of all kinds and just singing about
[24:14] dying a horrible death. Yeah, so you might like a
[24:16] Wesley. I mean, not the motor arts.
[24:19] Conducting gives that away. He's loving it, that move,
[24:22] swinging his arm side to side. Yeah, if I was a conductor, that
[24:26] would be my only move. Yeah, I think the music might be
[24:29] a bit different if that was your only move, but.
[24:37] As a spectacle, I think it's fantastic.
[24:39] We'll talk a bit more about the operas as we go, but the
[24:41] choreography, the production design, the lighting, it's all
[24:44] like world class still hasn't aged today.
[24:47] Yeah. The soprano who stars in The
[24:49] Abduction from the Seraglio is Katarina Cavallari.
[24:53] She was one of the most famous singers in Vienna at the time
[24:55] the film was set. She really did appear in More
[24:57] Thoughts Opera and did study under Antonio Salieri and may
[25:00] have actually been his lover. Right.
[25:03] The old dog the creature had, my darling girl, Salieri says.
[25:07] She didn't have a relationship on what's on in real life,
[25:09] though. That bit is made-up, apparently.
[25:11] Right. And she's played by Christine
[25:13] Ebersole, and she'd appeared on Broadway being an SNL and had a
[25:17] part in Tootsie informed Teddy cast her because she was so
[25:20] versatile as an actress, which he knew Katarina needed to be.
[25:23] But her singing voice was dubbed for the film by a real Irish
[25:26] soprano called Suzanne Murphy. Well, she's got some serious
[25:30] pipes on a suicide. Murphy blows the roof off.
[25:33] It's absolutely nuts. Yeah, and Christine never saw
[25:36] it. You're wondering who she is.
[25:37] She also plays Leah Belfort, Jordan's mother, in The Wolf of
[25:41] Wall Street. Wolf of what?
[25:42] You're right. Ah.
[25:43] Right, OK. Yeah, well, that's all clicking
[25:46] into. Place, yeah, not quite as much
[25:47] thinking in that one. Not enough?
[25:50] Enough. And the moment after the opera
[25:53] when the emperor goes backstage and tells Mozart there was too
[25:56] many notes is based on reality. A biography of Mozart published
[26:00] in 1798 said that after he saw the opera, the Empress said to
[26:03] Mozart, that is too fine for my ears.
[26:06] There are too many notes. And Mozart replied, there are
[26:09] just as many notes as there should be.
[26:11] Lovely. It's all great.
[26:13] It's the way he says it. He's like, how should one say a
[26:15] director? Too many notes, Your Majesty.
[26:17] Very well put. Too many notes?
[26:20] Yeah, there's kind of few and it'll be perfect.
[26:22] It's like, which ones you want us to cut then?
[26:24] Yeah, it's great. But that story we apparently is
[26:27] a well known one in the like law of Mozart.
[26:29] So nice to see it in there. It really works as well.
[26:32] It does work really well, yeah. And we meet all of the emperor's
[26:35] advisors in the opening scenes too, and they are mostly based
[26:38] on real people. So the director of opera is
[26:41] Count Franz Zieva, Wolfgang von Orsini.
[26:44] Rosenberg, it's easy for you to say much.
[26:46] Well done though, glad you didn't give me that bit.
[26:51] Would have been here a while. Would be West.
[26:56] And he really did. Of course, more Todd wanting to
[26:58] turn operas from Italian into German.
[27:00] And he's paid by Charles Kerr. Right.
[27:03] Yeah, so all the aristocracy have like, posh English accents,
[27:05] and the main characters were all American.
[27:07] That was done intentionally by Foreman.
[27:09] Bit of a classic kind of trick, I think, isn't it?
[27:10] Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
[27:12] And in the original Broadway, a player, Rosenberg had been
[27:15] played by Patrick Hines and he plays couple Meister Bono in the
[27:18] film. Job by the hood, that's what you
[27:20] call. Him job by the hood, yeah.
[27:22] Unfairly, but he is great. Yeah, they're all great.
[27:25] They're all hateable as well. That's why they're so fantastic.
[27:28] Massive caricatures of hateful people.
[27:30] Yeah, he's one of the biggest ones, I think.
[27:32] Yeah, it doesn't know where he's coming or going.
[27:33] Laughs at everyone's jokes. Yeah, doesn't got a clue what's
[27:36] going on. No and Patrick Hines.
[27:38] He passed away not long after the film came out, sadly.
[27:40] Oh, really? Yeah.
[27:41] All right. And then Baron Gottfried van
[27:44] Sweden is the advisor who first mentions Mozart to the emperor
[27:48] and he's played by Jonathan Moore and he played the same
[27:50] character in the stage version. And when Mozart died, he
[27:53] arranged the funeral, which is why he was seeing him at Mozart
[27:55] funeral at the end of the film. Right.
[27:58] He's easily the most likeable of your advisors I think.
[28:00] Yeah, yeah, very much. There's a nice deal like around
[28:02] him as well. Apparently the real Van Sweden
[28:05] played a big role in popularizing Bach and handle in
[28:08] Vienna, which is why he says about Mozart.
[28:10] It's the most promising work I've heard in years.
[28:12] Not ever. Because he said some serious
[28:16] that guy. And then Count von Strack was
[28:19] played by a playwright and actor called Roderick Cook, and he was
[28:22] one of the few characters in the film who wasn't based on a real
[28:25] person. He was invented by Peter
[28:26] Schaffer. Yeah, he gets one of my favorite
[28:29] line deliveries later on when Mozart stays in front of the
[28:32] emperor. That opera characters sound as
[28:33] if they ship marble and Von Strack goes govern your tongue,
[28:37] Mozart, how dare you? It's great.
[28:43] And that is the beginning of Amadeus.
[28:45] We've met basically every character.
[28:47] The bitter Salieri, the giggling Mozart, the charming Stanzi, the
[28:50] nice but slightly dim emperor. We've seen the genius of one
[28:54] European wizard. Should we talk a bit more about
[28:56] the one behind the cameras? Let's do that.
[28:59] Definitely. The director.
[29:06] Amadeus was directed by Milos Foreman.
[29:09] This was his seventh feature film as director, and by this
[29:12] point he'd already won an Oscar for one, flew over the Cookie's
[29:14] Nest, and established himself as a significant name in Hollywood
[29:17] music and drama. With films like Taking Off Hay
[29:21] and Ragtime. Oregon Mental Hospital to 18th
[29:25] Century Vienna must quite the shift.
[29:27] Yep. How does Foreman handle it?
[29:29] I think his greatest achievement here is making something that's
[29:32] fundamentally very, very stagey become completely cinematic and
[29:36] it leaps off the screen. Some of that's do the
[29:39] cinematography, which we'll talk about later.
[29:41] But you have moments like when young Salieri sees his father
[29:44] choked to death in front of him, which he's actually quite happy
[29:46] to see, and then you get that cut to him in the coffin.
[29:49] That's really funny and you couldn't do that on stage that.
[29:52] Wouldn't work. No, I wouldn't.
[29:54] I think his decision to cast Americans is very, very bold,
[29:58] but it really works because it makes Mozart and Stanzi more
[30:01] relatable. Yeah, that's the idea, isn't it?
[30:03] I think, yeah. There's the idea because of
[30:05] contrast to the slightly stuffier performances he get
[30:08] from all the English and European actors.
[30:10] So his eye for how to make this cinematic is pretty incredible.
[30:14] And ultimately the biggest test that this film passes for me is,
[30:17] as I said, the top. Not really a fan of classical
[30:20] music, but Foreman makes this conflict between 218th century
[30:23] composers just completely enthralling.
[30:27] I agree. I mean, following up from Cookie
[30:28] was Nest like what, nine years earlier?
[30:30] And Foreman films in between that and Amadeus are largely
[30:33] praised as well. But I doubt anyone thought he
[30:35] was coming close to the height of Cookie was Nest again.
[30:38] And here to me, he surpasses it to be honest.
[30:40] Right. I think what might surprise
[30:42] people when they say this is how dark it goes at times.
[30:44] It starts to someone trying to kill themselves.
[30:46] Mozart becomes an alcoholic. He has some pretty major mental
[30:50] health issues, largely going back to his insane childhood, it
[30:53] seems to me. And this isn't some scientist
[30:55] costume drama. It's pretty raw and it has some
[30:58] edge to it, but obviously it is the music.
[31:01] It's a film about a legend of music showcasing his music.
[31:05] It explores music. So music, music, music.
[31:08] But Foreman, like you're saying, but somehow turns it into one of
[31:11] the most cinematic films I think I've ever seen.
[31:14] Even smaller things like moving between scenes, some of the
[31:16] transitions. Not me sideways.
[31:19] We talked about Katarina and the Seralio earlier and that moment
[31:22] where we cut from Katarina warming up with Salieri to her
[31:24] performing on the stage and the naughty hits carriages across
[31:27] the scenes. How good's that?
[31:29] Yeah, there's loads of, like, great moments I mentioned as we
[31:31] go. But Foreman's taking music and
[31:33] doing things with it that you can only do in cinema.
[31:36] And when the music's Mozart, it's kind of irresistible.
[31:39] Yeah. But I mean, it doesn't end
[31:40] there. Foreman creates a harmony Mozart
[31:42] himself would have been proud of, between like, performances
[31:45] and costume design, production design, the screenplay, the
[31:48] makeup, there's so much in there.
[31:49] It's all exceptional and formed at the centre of all of it like
[31:53] a master conductor. Yeah, get a pink wig on.
[31:56] Yeah. I've said before that I think
[31:58] 2001 A Space Odyssey might be Hollywood's greatest work of
[32:00] art. I'm not going back on that.
[32:02] But honestly, Amadeus is right in there in the running for
[32:05] number 2 for me for it's cinematic presentation of
[32:09] stunning music. Yeah, and Foreman did it's
[32:11] sensational job directing it in my eyes.
[32:14] I mean, you're allowed to change your mind, John, if you want.
[32:16] I know you're so close. You're not like you're convinced
[32:18] yourself. Yeah, I'm not going back on
[32:20] that. Regret saying that now.
[32:24] Mulash Foreman is like you've said, you've took the words on
[32:27] your mouth. He's the conductor of this film.
[32:28] He makes the film like it is an opera itself.
[32:31] It he cuts like you will cut music.
[32:33] He cuts from scenes as if you were cut to a different
[32:35] instrument. You could go to Mulash Foreman
[32:37] and say to him, there's too many shots in this and he's like,
[32:39] tell us what take out and you would have that exact reaction.
[32:44] There's nothing you can take out of this.
[32:46] It's got exactly the right amount of shots in exactly the
[32:48] right places. It's almost like Mozart's music.
[32:51] And again, from the stage play, it's what he leaves out, not
[32:54] what he puts in that makes it again, accessible in cinematic,
[32:58] but not like stuffy cinematic. Like I'm going to appreciate
[33:01] cinema and show you what I can do.
[33:02] It seems like it's all naturally relevant for the rhythm that
[33:05] he's creating and it's just such a great use of framing.
[33:09] There's a great use of pace and there's a great use of
[33:12] authenticity, even though you can see through the cracks.
[33:15] But we're not tearing this apart like with Tear Braveheart Apart
[33:18] or Tear, you know, and anything else.
[33:19] It was meant to be based on something real, but there's a
[33:22] lot of loopholes in this way. You go, well, that didn't really
[33:24] happen, But what he does, he makes it so that you don't care
[33:27] or you can't really tell and he just kind of masks over it a
[33:31] little bit. He's using kind of up to date
[33:33] masking tape on something that's quite old school, so you cannot
[33:36] notice the cracks. What he's doing with ease.
[33:39] It takes Baz Lehman five years of shouting about to make
[33:44] something like a stage play as cinematic as this, as
[33:46] appreciative as this, and as a little about Milos Foreman as
[33:50] possible and as most about the characters and the crew.
[33:53] It's kind of even put everybody 1st.
[33:55] And it's not like a Milos Foreman film.
[33:57] It's Amadeus. Yeah.
[33:58] And that really hits home for me.
[34:00] I agree you can't see him in there though, can't you as well?
[34:02] Oh, 100% you can. But I don't think he cares about
[34:05] that. No, and that comes across in the
[34:07] film. He's telling a story, and the
[34:09] story is first and foremost. It's really showing off, but not
[34:13] telling anyone who's done. It's a Batman.
[34:15] Yeah, it's both. You're right, it's selfless and
[34:17] showing off at the same time. Selflessly showing off.
[34:21] I don't think anyone else has done that before.
[34:24] Well, Amadeus was based on a famous stage play, as I
[34:26] mentioned, so as usual, we're going to quickly tell the story
[34:29] of how it made the trip from stage to screen.
[34:31] And as usual, Matt insisted to be the one to tell that story.
[34:34] Yes, I did. So, Matt thought, take it away.
[34:38] Matt thought yes. Very nice.
[34:41] Peter Schaefer was an English playwright known for Echoes, the
[34:44] psychological drama that had been adapted for the screen in
[34:47] 1977 by Sidney Lumet. He was a fan of classical music
[34:51] and had always been fascinated by the difference between the
[34:53] beauty of Mozart's music and the vulgarity in his letters.
[34:56] So his play Amadeus debuted in the London National Theatre in
[34:59] 1979 and then went to Broadway in 1980.
[35:03] Have you heard who the cast was in that original Broadway run?
[35:06] No. So Tim Curry was Mozart?
[35:09] Oh fantastic. Salieri, Ian McKellar and
[35:14] Constanza G and Seymour. Wow, sounds pretty good.
[35:17] Yeah, wow. And then Milos Forman saw the
[35:20] play at the London premiere and poor to Beta Sheffield in the
[35:23] intermission and told me he's going to make a film of it.
[35:26] Doesn't hang about, does Forman, apparently, he said.
[35:28] It's a wonderful drama and would even be wonderful if Mozart and
[35:32] Salieri were not in it. I mean, would it?
[35:34] What would it be about? Right?
[35:37] Totally different, Julie. He's lost his mind.
[35:40] He doesn't care so. Foreman then spoke to Salt
[35:43] Sands, who would produce 1 proof of the cookie's nest, and told
[35:46] them they should get the right. Sands agreed and shopped their
[35:49] idea around Hollywood, but no studios were interested and in
[35:52] the end, the Salt Sands company produced the film entirely.
[35:55] The production budget ended up being $18 million and it was
[35:58] distributed by Orion Pictures, as we've mentioned on our
[36:01] Terminator episode. We did mention that, and James
[36:05] Cameron was furious, obviously. Yeah, but you know where he got
[36:09] his money from to fund his movie career?
[36:10] Soul Zanz. No.
[36:12] So we owned Fantasy Records, who Creedence Clearwater Revival
[36:16] signed to in the 60s, and they made him a boatload of money
[36:20] cashing in on Bad Moon Rising and fell out.
[36:23] I think Zanz made a lot more out of credence than they did out of
[36:25] him, and then he plowed it all straight into how it is.
[36:28] Right. The advantage of Sans putting up
[36:31] all the money was that it meant he and Foreman had complete
[36:34] control over the production, and Foreman told him that only three
[36:37] cities still had the architecture they needed to
[36:39] create the authentic 18th century Vienna.
[36:41] Budapest, Vienna. A Prague.
[36:44] Foreman said that his home city of Prague was pretty much
[36:47] untouched due to communist inefficiency, so they decided to
[36:50] film there. Communist inefficiency.
[36:52] There's a selling point for your tourist board.
[36:55] Yeah, get. On your T-shirts.
[36:58] Well, I think this is pretty cool.
[36:59] In the whole film, all the locations we'll see, and there's
[37:02] a lot. We only ever see four sets, so
[37:04] almost all of it is real, right? So the scenes in the Archbishop
[37:07] and the Emperor's palace, as we talked about, both filmed at the
[37:10] Grace Beck Palace in Prague. And there's some even more
[37:13] amazing places that got into as well that we'll talk about as we
[37:15] go, right? But I mean, that's one of the
[37:17] reasons it looks so authentic. It kind of was.
[37:19] Because it is, yeah. The locations are mostly real,
[37:22] yeah. The filming in communist
[37:24] Czechoslovakia brought problems or the production crew was often
[37:28] followed around by the SDB, the Czech secret police, partly
[37:31] because Forman was considered a traitor for becoming an American
[37:34] citizen. And on the 4th of July 1983 they
[37:38] were filming one of the opera scenes.
[37:40] And to celebrate Independence Day, the crew had a huge
[37:43] American flag unfold on stage and to play at the national
[37:45] anthem. And Forman said there were 600
[37:48] extras and about 30 of them didn't stand up for the anthem
[37:50] because they were members of the secret police.
[37:53] Gives you game away, doesn't. It sounds a bit tense.
[37:57] Not very secret anymore. No, Yeah, well, Foreman said
[38:00] that he thought was all going to kick off, but it didn't,
[38:02] thankfully. Right.
[38:04] The production designer was Patrizia von Brandenstein.
[38:07] She'd worked with Foreman on Ragtime and her reputation for
[38:10] authentic historical set design. The four sets we talked about
[38:14] that were created were Salieri Hospital Room, which said that
[38:17] at the start, Mozart's apartment, the Stairway outside
[38:20] Mozart's apartment, and the Volts Theatre, where Magic Flute
[38:23] plays for Amadeus von Brandenstein became the first
[38:27] woman to win an Oscar for Best Art Direction.
[38:29] And fucking deservedly so. Because if you ask me which are
[38:32] the four sets, I couldn't tell you.
[38:34] Absolutely not. Yeah, fully deserved.
[38:36] And you know what else she designed which you have on
[38:38] Brandenstein. It could be anything, as long as
[38:41] it's fantastic. Well, it is.
[38:43] I think it is anyway. Yeah, well, obviously our
[38:45] talents, no, no bounds, but she's doing this definitely.
[38:48] You could see anything. And I go, Yep, I believe.
[38:50] It well, she also designed John Travolta's white three piece
[38:53] suit for Saturday Night Fever. There we are, amazingly iconic.
[38:58] If Sally wants to outdo Mozart, just get our thing on.
[39:01] Exactly. And the production use real
[39:04] antiques provided by the Czech government and Ministry of
[39:06] Culture. These included museum pieces, PV
[39:09] furniture and French tapestries dating from the 1750s.
[39:14] I mean, the production design is ridiculous.
[39:16] It is any shots. When we see people walking
[39:18] through a courtyard or through streets or anywhere, it feels so
[39:21] authentic. I'm pretty sure they might have
[39:23] actually shot this in the 1780s. And Theodore Pistek was a Czech
[39:30] artist with reputation for being an expert in historical costume
[39:33] design. The foreman hide him his costume
[39:35] designer and he created about 700 costumes by basing them on
[39:39] the work of 218th century French painters Jean Honore Fragonard
[39:44] and Jean Antoine Wattor and his team created about 1500 weeks
[39:49] that cost $500,000. What was that?
[39:53] I like how Mozart's current state of mind is usually shown
[39:55] in his choice of wig. When he's happy.
[39:58] Pink wig. Yeah, Yeah.
[39:59] Things start going badly, like unkempt white wig.
[40:01] And then when he's completely off the rails, dirty brown wig.
[40:05] Yeah. We talk about visual
[40:06] storytelling quite a lot on this.
[40:07] I think this is the first time I've seen wiggle storytelling.
[40:13] And probably the last I would have thought.
[40:15] I know. I'd love them to bring that
[40:16] back. The old wig for your mood.
[40:19] It's just a bowl cup for me everyday.
[40:23] Well, before we sign off on Milos Foreman, we're going to
[40:25] ask and answer our first Patreon question.
[40:28] OK, So as well as all those great benefits we mentioned at
[40:30] the start, if you sign up to be coming into your own Patreon,
[40:33] we'll answer your questions on the show as well.
[40:36] We have the first now. It is on the director and it
[40:38] comes from Michael Smith. Hello, Michael.
[40:41] Hello, Michael. So Michael says, if Amadeus
[40:44] still feels strikingly modern, how much of that is down to
[40:47] Milos Foreman's direction, and how does it compare to how other
[40:49] directors have approached historical subjects?
[40:52] Does Foreman bring something distinct in tone to structure
[40:54] that film makers like Paul Thomas Anderson or David Fincher
[40:57] also tap into? Great question from Michael.
[41:01] It is a great question, yeah. What do you think, Westie?
[41:03] How does Foreman do when delivering the 18th century to
[41:06] us, always to it? Yeah, I think we've touched on
[41:09] it a little bit there, talking about the production design.
[41:11] I think we'll get into it further, but I think there's
[41:13] this real lack of weight to what you're seeing on the screen.
[41:16] It seems like it's effortless and it's not stuffy.
[41:19] It makes it accessible. Like I said at the start, I
[41:21] think it's the dialogue, the way that's delivered.
[41:24] I think it's the use of the accents.
[41:25] The lighting doesn't seem stuffy.
[41:28] And of the period, yes, the locations are, but I think
[41:30] they've been lit separately to make that a little bit more
[41:33] accessible, not look like a set, but it's something that you're
[41:35] familiar with as a modern audience.
[41:37] And Paul Thomas Anderson did that, especially in Boogie
[41:39] Nights. Even if you look at the costumes
[41:40] of Boogie Nights, you don't go, all of these were made.
[41:43] You just think this is the 70s and there's camera movements in
[41:46] this, the zooms that are in this that you're familiar with.
[41:48] We're talking about Salieri at the start when that zoom comes
[41:50] in, you're familiar with that by now.
[41:52] You know what's happening there. There's a lot of centre framing
[41:55] in this that I'll get into later on that makes it very accessible
[41:58] for the audience. It seems modern despite the
[42:01] content, and I think that's the point.
[42:03] I think the filmmaking techniques really complement
[42:05] what you're seeing on the screen and work with it instead of
[42:08] against it. And if you look at something
[42:10] that's hard to get into that I'll stand by something like
[42:12] Barry Lyndon, the weight of that, you couldn't even quote
[42:16] it, but you remember what it looks like.
[42:18] What he does is he combines all of these elements to give what
[42:20] I'm going to coin. Maybe it's it's probably out
[42:23] there somewhere. But a modern timelessness, yeah,
[42:26] that's what this brings, right? There's a modernity to it.
[42:29] But again, it's like it could be at any time.
[42:31] But like you said, John, it's like they've gone back in The
[42:33] Time Machine, filmed it, and then just came straight back.
[42:35] Yeah. Yeah.
[42:37] Well, I think Michael's pushed on something quite important.
[42:39] I'm a day is a set between about 1760s to 1820s or something, and
[42:44] it feels authentic to that. But it does also feel modern.
[42:47] And I think a huge part of that is Foreman's approach.
[42:50] I think what he does is that he treats the period with respect,
[42:52] not by saying, look how beautiful it is, but by saying
[42:56] look how relatable it is. Yeah.
[42:57] Mortaz making vulgar jokes. Salieri is, like, jealous and
[43:02] petty. Compare that to your classic
[43:03] period film at the time, something like maybe a man from
[43:05] all seasons a few years earlier. Very steadily, very theatrical,
[43:09] kind of keeps the audience at arm's length a bit.
[43:11] Yeah. But Foreman doesn't do that.
[43:13] He's making a film about humans first and foremost, just as much
[43:16] as he does in Cookie was Nest. Yeah.
[43:18] And I agree that, yeah, you definitely can see this
[43:20] approach. Film makers like PTA and
[43:22] Fincher, They Will Be Blood has that modern timelessness that
[43:25] you're talking about. Westie.
[43:26] Yeah, yeah. The narrative structure of The
[43:28] Social Network, an unreliable narrator telling the story in
[43:31] flashbacks almost identical to Amadeus.
[43:34] I think Forman showed that you can make a three hour costume
[43:36] drama that feels alive and as alive as like a modern thriller
[43:40] a lot of the time. Yeah.
[43:42] Yeah, I agree. Thinking of lot of it is done
[43:43] the form and like I said, his decision to cast Americans, it
[43:47] stops us feeling dated and awfully stuffy.
[43:49] The editing, the piercing of this is down to him.
[43:52] I think the biggest compounds for me is exactly the one the
[43:54] Wesley pointed out. It's Barry Lyndon and what Cubic
[43:57] did on that because that is so deliberately pierced in that
[44:01] whole film. It feels like it's shot behind a
[44:03] pane of glass and you can't touch it.
[44:05] I feel like I can touch this film.
[44:06] You know, Cubic was going for complete and total realism.
[44:10] I don't think Foreman is. I think he's much more relaxed
[44:12] about this. And because of that, this
[44:14] doesn't feel distant or overly reverent at all.
[44:17] I really understand how these characters are feeling, which I
[44:20] don't really have with Barry, Linden, Nikes here.
[44:22] That's the biggest comparison for me.
[44:24] Yeah, if Barry Linden is a world that's hard to get into, Yeah,
[44:27] Amadeus is a world that's hard to get out of.
[44:30] Tell me about it. Well, for his work on Amadeus,
[44:36] Milos Foreman was nominated for Best director at the Oscars and
[44:38] won his second after one Flew over the cookie was Nest.
[44:42] The film was also nominated for Best Picture and won that too,
[44:45] beating out The Killing Fields, A Passage to India, Places in
[44:48] the Heart and A Soldier Story, Right?
[44:51] Two Oscars in 10 Years of form and then and for us, some great
[44:54] direction. And Amadeus.
[44:56] Brilliant work. Some brilliant direction.
[44:57] Yeah, the cast. Milos Foreman's casting choices
[45:06] for Amadeus were unexpected. I think it's fair to say, yeah,
[45:10] yeah, I still have our big names and stars, relative unknowns,
[45:13] and that's what we're getting into now.
[45:15] We're going to be talking about Elizabeth Burridge as Mozart's
[45:17] long-suffering wife Constanza. But we should probably start
[45:20] with the two men at the heart of the rivalry.
[45:23] Definitely, yeah. So, starting with the title
[45:25] character, Tom Halls plays Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the
[45:29] vulgar genius at the center of our story.
[45:31] We follow Mozart from his arrival at the Viennese court
[45:34] through his triumphs, his marriage, his decline, and
[45:37] ultimately his death at just 35 years old.
[45:41] A boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy, Matt.
[45:45] And so was Mozart. So how is Tom Halls?
[45:48] And you heard of us going? And Volfi.
[45:53] I think Holtz is the most brilliantly inappropriate
[45:57] casting I think I've ever seen. Because to cast him, who
[45:59] throughout this doesn't look like a composer, Yeah, in the
[46:02] way that Abraham does with that hair, he looks like he should be
[46:06] like the front man in some new Romantic group from the 80s.
[46:09] Yes, Adamant. Yeah, yeah.
[46:12] Yeah, totally. Or John, John, whoever.
[46:14] The fact that he's so out of place in this world and amongst
[46:17] everyone else and it's the obvious shock of the film.
[46:19] How can such glorious and beautiful music come from this
[46:22] idiot because he is such an over endorsed child.
[46:25] Like when he's being LED in to see the emperor and he's hopping
[46:28] about and he's trying to walk faster than the guards, he's
[46:30] trying to peek over the shoulders.
[46:32] It's like he's like, have 200 smarties and it's all just
[46:34] kicking off in his head and all about the ears and nightmare to
[46:38] spend time with. So maybe Hulse's biggest triumph
[46:40] is I end up liking him. Well, then I probably should.
[46:43] And I think that is downhills. And I think if you can give a
[46:46] performance that has one aspect to it that people still talk
[46:49] about too this day, then you've done a great job.
[46:52] And if nothing else, Holtz is laughing.
[46:53] This is iconic. Once you've heard it, you'll
[46:56] never forget it. Yeah.
[46:59] Tom Hulse, Thomas Edward Hulse. I've got some questions.
[47:03] First of all, who is he? Secondly, why is he here and how
[47:09] is he so good? Because he's outrageously good
[47:13] as Mozart. I mean, yeah, he's playing a
[47:14] great character, huge historical figure and the writing is
[47:17] superb, but he's not a passenger tumbles.
[47:19] You bring stuff to this for me, Yeah.
[47:22] There's times he's playing a giggling child and I believe it.
[47:24] He's playing a torture genius and I believe it.
[47:26] We get humour, drama, sadness, tragedy, romance.
[47:31] He nails all of it to the door like Martin Luther and then went
[47:35] right. That's enough of that.
[47:36] You're not seeing me again. It's nuts.
[47:39] Yeah, yeah. And there's brilliance in the
[47:40] writing. Mozart's written as kind of the
[47:42] antagonist in his own biopic. We experienced the story through
[47:45] Salieri's eyes, and Mozart is essentially the villain who
[47:48] destroys Salieri's life just by, like, existing.
[47:52] And great choice by Peter Schaeff and the writing because
[47:54] that means you can explore genius, like, from the outside
[47:56] looking in, which is how we experience it in real life.
[47:59] Yeah. So we don't get Mozart internal
[48:01] monologues. We've seen through the eyes of
[48:03] someone who understand he's a genius and literally explains to
[48:06] us, the audience, why. And basically he's a genius
[48:09] because he doesn't just write great music, he can write it all
[48:11] in his head and more depth of Mozart.
[48:14] He's a contradiction. When he criticizes Saudi Aries
[48:17] March, he says funny little tune, but he yielded some good
[48:19] things. It's brutal.
[48:21] But I don't think he's being malicious.
[48:23] He just doesn't understand that that would hurt someone's
[48:25] feelings. Yeah.
[48:26] I think Mozart was musically pitch perfect, like we said, but
[48:29] the writing makes him, like, emotionally torn deaf, which is
[48:32] great. Yeah.
[48:33] So there's loads going on. And in capturing the essence of
[48:35] the character, I think Hulse might get the best line when
[48:38] mortal seats of the emperor. Forgive me Majesty, I'm a vulgar
[48:41] man, but my music is not brilliant.
[48:43] Line and Hulse brilliant for some reason in the role.
[48:48] Yeah, yeah. I think he's brilliant in the
[48:51] fact that he's not playing the lead and doesn't try to, and
[48:55] there's no pretension in that whatsoever.
[48:57] He's wonderful in every scene with Marie Abraham.
[49:00] He's absolutely. But they're both electric
[49:02] together, and it's there. It's the way they work off each
[49:04] other I think really helps the characters because there's an
[49:07] irony to this performance. And he is so childlike.
[49:10] It's pretty unlikeable in places, but at the same time,
[49:13] really fucking captivating. Yeah.
[49:16] And for Holtz, it's the one that really stands out.
[49:19] You don't doubt he's a genius that's really hard to pull off.
[49:22] Yeah, it's really hard to pull off.
[49:24] And the fact that his performance is not only
[49:26] musically but emotionally are just seem absolutely not
[49:30] perfect. It's iconic.
[49:32] But there's a huge irony, like I've said, because Salieri could
[49:35] have really helped him. That could have really helped
[49:37] each other because Salieri could have taught him about an emotion
[49:40] and the way to be around people. And he could have taught Salieri
[49:42] more about music that they're always battling off each other.
[49:45] And Holtz, as Mozart doesn't realize there's a battle going
[49:48] on. He's.
[49:49] So. Unengaged with it.
[49:51] He's got no clue what's going on.
[49:55] About anything really, apart from like there's too many
[49:58] notes. That's all he's thinking about
[49:59] is the notes, yeah, nothing else.
[50:01] And it really, really works. He's really charismatic.
[50:04] He's really brilliant on the screen and electric with anyone
[50:07] he's in and doesn't steal a single scene.
[50:08] I don't think he's just part of it all.
[50:11] Well, the casting directors on the film were Mary Goldberg and
[50:14] Maggie Cartier, and they said that Foreman told him that he
[50:16] wasn't interested in stars. Mozart and Salieri were the
[50:19] stars, and he wanted to find the perfect actors.
[50:21] So they held about 1400 auditions, apparently.
[50:25] And right, Lord of names. Well, for the part of Mozart, do
[50:28] you know any of those names? Was Curry back?
[50:31] Do you know Matt? I do know Foreman said that when
[50:34] Sol Sance was shocking the film around Hollywood, once studio
[50:37] said the word from the film on the condition, but Foreman cast
[50:40] Walter Matthau is Mozart and former said no Yeah.
[50:45] John Lemon and Salieri Linguini on the walls.
[50:50] Surely Michael had 40 more. Mozart died when he was 35.
[50:54] I would have already been 60 odd at that point, yeah.
[50:58] He could have done Salieri though I guess, but you would
[51:00] have put younger makeup on him as opposed to older mega.
[51:04] And at the time Foreman was casting the part, the stage play
[51:07] was running on Broadway, and Mozart was being played by Mark
[51:10] Hamill. And he did meet with Foreman,
[51:11] but said he was all very early on.
[51:13] Right. Foreman had no intention of
[51:14] casting him. Yeah, Howell said that Foreman
[51:17] told him people will not believe Luke Spacewalker as Mozart,
[51:21] right? Savage.
[51:25] You can see a bit of that performance in his Joker though
[51:27] for the animated Batman series I think.
[51:28] Yeah, yeah. There was a histrionic laugh in
[51:31] that as well, isn't there? So maybe something from that,
[51:33] yeah. Yeah, and other big names
[51:35] auditioned, including Tim Curry, like I mentioned, and Mel
[51:38] Gibson. Kenneth Branner was in the
[51:40] running and later said he thought he had the part in the
[51:42] bag until Foreman decided the part had to be played by an
[51:44] American. Right.
[51:46] Yeah. So Tim Curry, Yeah, he played it
[51:48] more on Broadway, like we said. And Branner I could see, I
[51:51] think. At that time, yeah.
[51:53] Gibson, not so much. Yeah, he was mullet.
[51:58] Wouldn't need the wig anywhere at least.
[52:01] Mad Motor. And the child Mozart.
[52:04] We see him playing piano and violin at the start of the film.
[52:07] He was played by Miroslav Sakera, a nine year old
[52:10] professional Czech pianist. Right.
[52:12] Yeah, singing that little boy playing piano, and it's clear as
[52:14] day that he's actually playing. Yeah, I think it adds so much
[52:17] credibility. It looks great.
[52:19] It does. Yeah, massively.
[52:21] And Holtz threw himself into the part.
[52:23] As we've discussed, he knew how to play the guitar before
[52:25] shooting, but spent six hours a day for six months learning how
[52:28] to play a piano as well. The music we hear was recorded
[52:31] by session musicians, but Holtz learned how to play every piece
[52:34] of music in the film so we could recreate it on screen.
[52:37] And you can really tell. Oh.
[52:38] You really can. Apparently music professors have
[52:40] studied the film and they've confirmed that every time we see
[52:43] one of the cast playing a piece of music, what they're playing
[52:45] on the screen is exactly what we're hearing in the film.
[52:48] Right? And how that includes the bit of
[52:50] the party where Mozart players like Bach were lying on his back
[52:54] backwards. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[52:56] Backwards. Exactly.
[52:59] Horses playing all the right notes.
[53:01] And as mentioned, one of the most memorable things about
[53:03] Mozart in the film is his laugh, but it's debated how accurate it
[53:07] actually is. Some sources have said that
[53:09] letters written between two women who knew Mozart described
[53:12] his laugh as being infectious, giddy, and like metal square
[53:15] being glass. The musicologist, called Robert
[53:18] Marshall, carried out research in the Mozart, though, and said
[53:21] he could find no evidence to describe how he did actually
[53:23] laugh. Yeah, Robert Marshall said the
[53:26] laugh was created as a dramatic device for the film.
[53:28] They represented God's laughter, which is what Salieri says.
[53:31] Yeah, yeah. That wasn't more to our loving
[53:33] Father. That was God loving.
[53:35] Yeah, I think it's from Salieri's point of view as well,
[53:38] when we see the laugh. Yeah, the first time.
[53:40] And I think it continues through the film that it's it's his
[53:42] interpretation of that. Yeah, it pisses him off it.
[53:45] Gets worse as it goes on, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
[53:47] Yeah. And Tom Holtz said that Formant
[53:49] asked him to create something extreme for more Todd's laugh,
[53:53] and he said he based it on a director he knew or he's never
[53:56] said who that director was. And he also said he practiced
[53:59] the laugh in public by bursting into it in the middle of
[54:01] department stores to see how people would react.
[54:04] Right. I mean, it's basically like a
[54:06] sound effect for Foreman to use. It's a great characterization
[54:09] for Mozart. There's times that it's funny,
[54:11] there's times that it's obnoxious.
[54:12] There's times that it's sad performing.
[54:14] Like he uses a transition between scenes.
[54:16] He even ends the film on it. Yeah, it's a great cutting
[54:18] device. Yeah.
[54:20] And Holtz also said he based the character on John McEnroe,
[54:23] particularly Mcenroe's mood swings and outbursts.
[54:26] He studied footage of Mcenroe's encore tantrums and used that to
[54:29] create some of Mozart's childish behaviour.
[54:33] You cannot be serious, Matt. Yeah.
[54:35] Too many notes. You cannot be serious.
[54:38] Mozart in a redhead band. Just that white wig, redhead
[54:41] band, little shorts on wooden racket.
[54:43] Furious. His performance as Mozart.
[54:47] Tom Holt was nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars.
[54:50] We let you know he won in a few minutes.
[54:52] But for us, in making Mozart both divine and very human, some
[54:56] pretty good stuff from Tom Holtz.
[54:58] Yeah, wonderful. It's almost like he's not a real
[55:01] person. From 1/2 of our music rivalry to
[55:06] the other and F Marie Abraham who plays Antonio Salieri, court
[55:10] composer, devout Catholic, and the man who may or may not have
[55:13] made that Mozart. We follow Salieri from his lofty
[55:16] position at the height of Viennese society through his
[55:18] dissent in the jealousy, plotting and ultimately old age.
[55:23] So Wesley F Marie Abraham is Salieri.
[55:26] Yeah. Is he the patron St. of
[55:27] Mediocrities? I mean, not his performance, no,
[55:31] it's anything but It's absolutely incredible.
[55:33] And if you, if you want too many notes, that's my sheet of paper
[55:35] right now, just on F Maria. But honestly, I just kept going
[55:40] and kept going. I said that Tom Holst doesn't
[55:42] really steal a scene. He's just part of it.
[55:44] And that really works. F Maria Abraham steals every
[55:48] single scene he's in. He absolutely nails it to the
[55:51] wall, even when he's got no dialogue.
[55:53] His look of rejection, his look of loss and pain.
[55:57] He's been betrayed by God himself.
[56:00] And you fucking feel it. You kind of go.
[56:02] He really has. Yeah, I get that.
[56:05] But it's just so many times he's just heartbroken and he's just
[56:09] so confused and there's such a regret in this performance.
[56:11] And there's a consistency to the character being in the older
[56:15] version, the younger version. He's got the same take
[56:18] throughout no matter which version of Salieri you're
[56:20] watching. And this misplaced faith at the
[56:22] end of the film in that he just had faith in something.
[56:25] And if he just had faith in music and himself, I think his
[56:30] life would have been so, so different.
[56:32] Yeah. And you can tell that from the
[56:33] end. And there's nothing wrong with
[56:34] being mediocre. You've just got to appreciate
[56:37] that and work on it. He didn't want to work on it.
[56:39] He wanted a gift from God. Yeah.
[56:40] And you can tell that in the performance.
[56:42] He's really longing for the easy way out.
[56:44] He wants to just be given something, and that's why he
[56:47] takes a lot of desserts. He doesn't want the main course,
[56:49] he doesn't want the start. He doesn't want to work through
[56:51] anything. He wants the thing at the end.
[56:53] He wants the glitz and the glamour and every single note on
[56:56] that character that I've just said F Marie Abraham delivers
[56:59] every single time, in every single scene.
[57:03] It's an incredible performance because I was waiting for at
[57:06] some point to go right. Well, the mask going to slip
[57:09] here. He's going to have to run out of
[57:10] steam at some point and he never, ever knows.
[57:13] In a three hour runtime. It's fantastic and I honestly
[57:15] wanted to see more of them. I mean, F Marie Abraham, I've
[57:21] got some questions. Here we go.
[57:24] Why is he here? What's going on?
[57:27] Who are these guys? I mean, where to start with
[57:30] Salieri? Firstly, he loves his scheme,
[57:34] doesn't he? Always scheming, cooking
[57:36] something up? Yeah, but as a character, he is
[57:38] kind of the lead. It's a Mozart biopic, tool
[57:41] through his eyes, which works brilliantly.
[57:43] He's kind of the villain and the hero at the same time.
[57:45] It is. And so there we used to explore
[57:47] some of the main themes of the film, like jealousy and
[57:49] religion, faith. What's tragic is that he's got
[57:53] just about everything that he wants.
[57:55] He's wealthy, he's successful, he's respected, but he doesn't
[57:58] have more thought. Genius and it drives him
[58:01] literally mad. He is a narcissist.
[58:03] He sees everything is being about him.
[58:05] His dad dies, God's accepted his deal.
[58:08] Mozart shows up, God's mocking him.
[58:10] He could have taken it as God put him in Vienna to facilitate
[58:13] Mozart's genius to help bring this beautiful music into the
[58:16] world. But no, it's all about Salieri,
[58:19] which makes him a great tragic character and the acting, it's
[58:23] ridiculous. Abraham's great all the way
[58:26] through, but it's a scenes as all Salieri where he's
[58:30] breathtaking, to be honest. Yeah, he's clearly having a
[58:32] whale of a time is the old fella, and rightly because the
[58:35] dialogue he's been given is magnificent.
[58:37] But the delivery's there as well.
[58:39] Yeah, he's got loads of great moments.
[58:41] My favorite might be where he reveals his plan to the priests
[58:44] to have Mozart write a requiem for his own funeral.
[58:46] Yeah, he's like Mozart's little coffin.
[58:49] And in the silence, music and the death must start to play.
[58:53] It's massive. He goes through like reverence,
[58:56] joy into anger, and then he's all calm and calculated all in
[58:59] about 30 seconds. And it's like, well, that's some
[59:02] of the best acting I've ever seen then.
[59:04] And I have no idea at all why that's not put up there in the
[59:07] great movie monologues, because I find it totally mesmerizing.
[59:10] And honestly, with the level of the writing and the acting being
[59:14] as high as it is when you're talking greatest Hollywood
[59:16] characters, Salieri's in that conversation for me.
[59:19] I think he's incredible. I think, I think that
[59:22] monologue's not in there because it's a stand out moment of the
[59:24] film, whereas I think he's so consistent.
[59:26] Every moment's a stand out. So his monologue would have to
[59:29] be every single line he says. Yeah, I know.
[59:31] Yeah, you're probably right. As you said, that's some of the
[59:32] best act I've ever seen. I'm like, I don't even know if
[59:35] he's acting. I have no idea.
[59:37] There's such an elegance in precision to this performance.
[59:41] Abraham is somebody who's very theatrical and he'd be amazed as
[59:45] he on stage, but he knows how to take all this dialogue and sell
[59:48] it on screen. And I think he's the most
[59:50] British American actor I've ever seen.
[59:52] There's something very like Laurence Olivier or John Giel.
[59:55] Good about him. Yeah, very classic, isn't he?
[59:57] Yeah, really classic and just an absolute gift of a part.
[1:00:01] There's so much to sink your teeth into with Salieri as an
[1:00:04] actor. And I think maybe the most
[1:00:06] striking thing for me is so much of this performance is Salieri
[1:00:10] being really Hacked Off with more thought.
[1:00:12] The amount of times Foreman cuts to Abraham and he's got a face
[1:00:15] like a bull. Permanently scowling, constantly
[1:00:20] furious, constantly biting back this eruption of Heydrid.
[1:00:23] He's got boiling way inside. But Abraham's performance always
[1:00:27] finds a different way to show this.
[1:00:28] It never gets boring. I never feel like I've seen this
[1:00:31] bit. Come on, do something else.
[1:00:33] Like this performance could really be overshadowed by the
[1:00:36] mania you get from water, but it never is in Abraham.
[1:00:39] Always make sure you feel slightly sorry for him.
[1:00:43] No matter how nefarious he gets in his pants, is always had a
[1:00:46] little bit of empathy you have for I think that's all down
[1:00:49] Abraham. I mean it's the same character
[1:00:52] traits and the same furious nature is Basil.
[1:00:56] Faulty. But the way that he delivers it,
[1:00:59] he's just constantly frustrated and pissed off.
[1:01:02] But it's a completely different take.
[1:01:03] It's unbelievable. Well, according to Foreman,
[1:01:06] every major star wanted to be Salieri at the time he was
[1:01:08] casting, and there were a few big names auditioned for the
[1:01:11] part, if you'd care to hear some.
[1:01:13] Yeah, so Burt Reynolds was nearly candidate.
[1:01:17] Right. Wow, massive Tash for Salieri.
[1:01:20] Lovely that. Really hairy chest.
[1:01:22] Yeah, Mozart be jealous of Salieri's Tash of.
[1:01:24] Course he will. Salieri and the Bandit.
[1:01:28] Donald Sutherland read for the part, as did Sam Waterston.
[1:01:31] OK, Al Pacino apparently wanted the part and lobbied for it.
[1:01:34] Right? What would you think of Pacino
[1:01:36] Salieri kicking off? Yeah, that would have been good.
[1:01:41] Well, another worldwide star lobby for the part as well.
[1:01:43] So would you like to have seen Salieri played by Mick Jagger?
[1:01:50] Surely. Not.
[1:01:51] No, I wouldn't. Jagger and boy, you're prancing
[1:01:54] about. I would like to see that like a
[1:01:57] short film, maybe in a music video.
[1:01:59] That would have been good. Yeah, yeah.
[1:02:01] And Abraham originally auditioned for the part of Count
[1:02:04] Rosenberg, who we mentioned earlier.
[1:02:06] During one audition session, Foreman asked him to stay back
[1:02:09] and read with other actors are Salieri.
[1:02:11] And Foreman was so blown away that he told Abraham he was his
[1:02:14] number one choice to play him instead.
[1:02:16] Yeah, Abraham apparently said to him, number one choice.
[1:02:19] I mean, great, but what does that mean?
[1:02:21] Have I got the part or not? Yeah, but he hadn't prepared
[1:02:24] anything as old Salieri, so apparently he just had to make
[1:02:26] it up on the spot. So it must have been good.
[1:02:29] Yeah. And then Foreman told Abraham he
[1:02:32] wanted to get him back in for more auditions.
[1:02:34] Abraham said no, I'm paid in my kitchen.
[1:02:37] And probably, Foreman said to Saul's ants.
[1:02:39] This guy thinks he's a great actor, eases up, breaks against
[1:02:42] him and not Salieri, and that's why he was cast.
[1:02:45] Yeah, yeah, Forman must have seen some potential in him
[1:02:48] playing Salieri, I think, which is why, yes, understanding in
[1:02:50] the auditions, just to see what he was like.
[1:02:54] Ridiculously good, as it turns out.
[1:02:56] Yep. Abraham said that he and Tom
[1:02:58] Halls respected each other but weren't friends.
[1:03:00] During filming, Holtz was in another hotel with the rest of
[1:03:03] the cast and they would throw parties and stopped inviting
[1:03:06] Abraham as he never showed up. And Abraham said he was jealous
[1:03:09] of Holtz because he got on so well with the rest of the cast
[1:03:12] and crew. Which that's pretty perfect,
[1:03:14] isn't it? Let's be honest.
[1:03:14] Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I bet Forman was loving
[1:03:17] it, the turning into the character as kind of yeah.
[1:03:19] Yeah, like leaving Matt Damon out when they're doing the boot
[1:03:21] camp on Saving Proud Ryan. Yeah, yeah, so there was.
[1:03:24] Said the opposite of that, isn't it?
[1:03:26] Yeah. Before filming started, Abraham
[1:03:29] learnt to read and conduct music for the role and he went through
[1:03:31] a lot to become old Salieri. The makeup on the film was Dick
[1:03:35] Smith and it took 4 1/2 hours every day for him to turn
[1:03:38] Abraham into a 75 year old man. Smith's ageing makeup for
[1:03:42] Salieri was 8 separate formal latex pieces that covered his
[1:03:46] whole face except for his nose. He also had contact lenses that
[1:03:49] gave the eyes a faded appearance.
[1:03:51] Liver spots were added to his skin and he wore ball cup with
[1:03:54] thin and white hair. As we said, it took 4 1/2 hours
[1:03:56] to apply it every day in revolutionized ageing makeup in
[1:03:59] Hollywood, where One Piece masks tended to be used before that.
[1:04:03] Right. Yeah, Dick Smith makeup legend
[1:04:06] turned Marlon Brando into the Godfather, didn't he?
[1:04:08] Yes, that's right. Yeah.
[1:04:10] Apparently he created the Salieri prosthetics working all
[1:04:12] alone in his basement, and then flew into Prague with all the
[1:04:14] makeup himself. And the Abraham said getting
[1:04:17] into character was pretty easy because all you had to do was
[1:04:19] kind of look in the mirror. I mean, it does look fantastic
[1:04:22] as Old Salvieri. Yeah, it's unreal.
[1:04:24] Yeah, for his performance, Al Salvieri F Marie Abraham won the
[1:04:28] Academy Award for Best actor, beating out Tom Holtz.
[1:04:31] Yeah. Have you seen his acceptance
[1:04:32] speech though? Yeah, it's fantastic.
[1:04:34] It's really good. He praises Foreman in the
[1:04:37] writing and everything, and then he says the only thing missing
[1:04:40] is I should have Tom Hall standing by my side.
[1:04:42] Yeah, classy. Yeah, yeah.
[1:04:45] Wonderful. It would have been great if
[1:04:46] given that they're both of them. That would have been.
[1:04:49] Perfect, Yeah. And for us, an Oscar worthy turn
[1:04:52] from F Marie Abraham and Salieri A. 100%.
[1:04:56] And then some. The last, but by no means least
[1:05:01] cast member we're going to talk about is Elizabeth Berridge, who
[1:05:03] plays Constanza Mozart NI Weber, the landlady's daughter who
[1:05:08] captures Wolfie's heart. Stansey marries him, then stands
[1:05:11] by him through poverty, alcoholism and death.
[1:05:15] A charming young lady, according Ambra Joseph Matt.
[1:05:19] How was Constanza and Elizabeth Berridge in the role?
[1:05:22] I think her performance really works because Holtzer's
[1:05:25] performance really works. They are repairing this.
[1:05:28] If the cast runner like we mentioned, she wouldn't work at
[1:05:31] all. No.
[1:05:34] Please, your choice be probably cast Emma Thompson or maybe
[1:05:37] Helen Mirren back then. Yeah, I was going to say it
[1:05:39] would need to be Helen Mirren on Meryl Streep.
[1:05:42] But because it's halts with this undisguised American accent,
[1:05:45] almost planted like a jock, at some point you can have beverage
[1:05:48] with her accent almost being like a cheerleader.
[1:05:51] I think she's very like, well, I think she does fit in.
[1:05:53] Yeah. If someone wants to see it.
[1:05:54] She's the weak link in the film. I probably agree.
[1:05:57] Not be too harsh. The whole wealthy thing just get
[1:06:00] a bit annoying. Yeah, but like I say, she comes
[1:06:02] as a pay withholds and that's why she works so well.
[1:06:06] Yeah, as far as the cast goes, I think Stanley's kind of the
[1:06:08] secret weapon in the film, dominated by these two huge
[1:06:11] characters. She kind of grounds it.
[1:06:13] Yeah. It's nice to see a character
[1:06:14] who's actually like a normal human being because he that too,
[1:06:18] are away with the fairies where Mozart's bang on about magic
[1:06:21] flutes stand. He's like, we don't have any
[1:06:24] money. You're lunatic.
[1:06:25] She's all into the world in a lot of ways.
[1:06:28] And food stands, he would see different sides to Mozart.
[1:06:30] We'll see him as a husband, as a father, as a son.
[1:06:33] Now we have limitations in all those areas, like most people
[1:06:36] do. It makes him human.
[1:06:38] And I buy that stands he falls from because she's not just the
[1:06:40] put upon wife. We do see moments where they're
[1:06:42] getting along, like the intro that we talked about or when she
[1:06:45] says about chicken aid as money. I want to hear in my hand and
[1:06:48] motor goes, I'll put it in your hand.
[1:06:50] She loves a dirty joke, Stanzi. So she's got the right guy.
[1:06:54] Yeah. And Elizabeth Beverage, I think
[1:06:56] she's really good. She was only 21 when the film
[1:06:59] this. And I mean, look at what she's
[1:07:01] dealing with. Milos Forman at the peak of his
[1:07:03] powers, 2 actors who were juking it out at the Oscars, the music
[1:07:07] of Mozart. And I think she holds her own.
[1:07:09] She has a few great scenes, but I like her.
[1:07:11] At the end, she comes back to the apartment and the place is
[1:07:14] trashed. Mozart needs her, so by the time
[1:07:16] she returns, he's a wreck. Salieri's there for some reason.
[1:07:19] Yeah. And she just sort everyone out.
[1:07:22] Locks the Requiem away in the case and tells Salieri to sling
[1:07:24] his UK. That's it, yeah.
[1:07:26] An essential character in the writing and also in what
[1:07:29] Elizabeth Barrett brings anchors the whole film for me.
[1:07:31] Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what it is.
[1:07:33] It's just this anchored performance.
[1:07:35] I think you can tell that she loves Mozart and his talent is
[1:07:38] almost secondary. Oh yeah, kind of additional to
[1:07:40] who he is. She has an innocence and a
[1:07:42] strength at the same time she does.
[1:07:45] She's very innocent and that she wants to know what's going on,
[1:07:47] but she keeps him grounded. He would just be away with it.
[1:07:49] Like he would absolutely fly away.
[1:07:52] You'd have no chance. She is perfect between the two
[1:07:54] of them and I think you can see that throughout the whole film.
[1:07:57] I think she's wonderful. She really plays it well.
[1:08:00] She really knows that place. She doesn't go too over the top
[1:08:03] on the scenes, but she absolutely weighs everything
[1:08:05] down and she's the humanity of the film and plays that really
[1:08:08] well. She does for sure.
[1:08:10] And the first person Foreman thought about casting as
[1:08:13] Constanza was Amy Irving, who had played it in the Broadway
[1:08:16] version of the player. But she wasn't keen on flying to
[1:08:18] a communist controlled Prague for six months.
[1:08:20] It would sort of client. Foreman then went through a
[1:08:23] casting process. Rebecca Damoni and Elizabeth
[1:08:26] McGovern both auditioned. Right.
[1:08:29] Elizabeth McGovern. She'd been in Ragtime Foreman
[1:08:31] film before this but obviously must have felt she wasn't right
[1:08:35] here for whatever reason. OK, yeah.
[1:08:37] And then after auditioning, Foreman then cast Meg Tilly
[1:08:40] because he liked her performance in Psycho 2.
[1:08:43] She did table reads and dress rehearsals, but the day before
[1:08:46] filming was due to start, she was playing football with some
[1:08:48] locals in the street and Prague and Torah ligament in an A
[1:08:51] meaning tried to be replaced. Nightmare.
[1:08:55] Yeah, same injury that Ronaldo got in the 90s apparently, so
[1:08:58] she must have been good. I'll stick the movies.
[1:09:00] Psycho 2 is meant she's great and two.
[1:09:03] But yeah, that's devastating. This image didn't make till you
[1:09:05] are standing with Tom Holes as well, and she looks the part,
[1:09:08] right? Yeah.
[1:09:08] And Hill said she was absolute dynamite in the rehearsals as
[1:09:11] well. Yeah, I'd love to have seen her.
[1:09:13] Did it say was the day before? Yeah.
[1:09:14] Day before ohh. Nightmare.
[1:09:16] Say don't do sports, guys. There you go, there's your
[1:09:20] proof. There's your proof.
[1:09:22] So an emergency custom session had to be held and form an
[1:09:25] audition. 60 actresses at short notice and chose 2 possible
[1:09:29] replacements, Diane Franklin and Elizabeth Berridge, who is
[1:09:32] recommended to the casting directors by our acting teacher
[1:09:35] Warren. Robertson yeah, apparently
[1:09:38] neither Franklin nor Beverage had auditioned the first time
[1:09:40] round, so seems a choice by Foreman.
[1:09:43] But I mean it worked so. And then both actresses spent a
[1:09:48] week in Prague with Foreman, and he made his decision by saying
[1:09:50] to them, you both have the part, but one of you is just too
[1:09:54] pretty to play Constanza. So I'm going after cast
[1:09:56] Elizabeth. Yeah, Elizabeth Berridge said
[1:10:00] she felt like she won the booby prize.
[1:10:04] But also Diane Franklin was to be like, hang on, I look no
[1:10:07] different now to how I did before You brought me all the
[1:10:10] way to Prague for a whole week. So.
[1:10:12] The real Constanza came from the musical family herself.
[1:10:15] She was a trained soprano and would rehearse with Mozart, and
[1:10:18] her sisters Josepha and Aloisa were Sopranos who performed in
[1:10:21] Mozart's operas. Yeah, we don't see any of that
[1:10:23] in the film, Stanley's musical background.
[1:10:26] Not sure if it would work quite as well if we did.
[1:10:28] It's good that she's not musical, I think.
[1:10:30] Yeah, it would have complicated things.
[1:10:32] You know what's his recognition for Elizabeth Beverage for
[1:10:34] playing Constanza, but a good supporting turn for us.
[1:10:38] Great. Yeah.
[1:10:39] And that is the main Amadeus cast.
[1:10:41] Tom Halls bringing Mozart to giggling life, F Marie Abraham
[1:10:44] creating one of cinema's great tragic villain slash heroes, and
[1:10:48] Elizabeth Beverage grounding it all with some warmth and
[1:10:50] humanity. Definitely three very different
[1:10:52] performances that mesh together very well for us.
[1:10:55] Yep. Indeed.
[1:10:56] Yeah, absolutely the middle. Heading into the middle of
[1:11:05] Amadeus and the rivalry between Mozart and Salieri intensifies.
[1:11:09] We're going to be looking at the scenes around The Marriage of
[1:11:11] Figaro, one of Mozart's most famous works.
[1:11:14] But first we've got a couple of big character sequences to get
[1:11:17] into. We'll do so.
[1:11:19] With Mozart established at court, Constanza visits Salieri,
[1:11:22] hoping to secure a royal appointment for her husband.
[1:11:25] Then Mozart's father Leopold, played by Roy Dutras, turns up.
[1:11:29] Mozart takes into a masquerade party, plays piano and Mox
[1:11:32] Salieri, not realizing the Italian maestro is also there.
[1:11:36] Yeah, yeah. Matt ready for some nibbles of
[1:11:39] Venus? Always because when Stanzi shows
[1:11:43] up with more taught originals to argue his case, I think it's one
[1:11:48] of the best scenes in showing all of Salieri's character
[1:11:51] because from his perspective, there's no way this little girl
[1:11:55] in his eyes is going to tell him what to do or make demands of
[1:11:58] him. Which no, you have to read this
[1:12:00] now. You have to read this now.
[1:12:02] And the fact that he's just trying to win it over with those
[1:12:04] sweets that just tells you what he thinks of first.
[1:12:07] It's just a child in his eyes. And it's this full on charm
[1:12:10] offensive. You know, dog called me
[1:12:11] Excellency. I was born in a small town, you
[1:12:14] know, so desperate to get these Mozart original to try and
[1:12:17] sabotage from somehow. But the thing that's fascinating
[1:12:21] to me about Salieri is his love of music and how he appreciates
[1:12:25] it. It always wins out over the
[1:12:28] jealousy he has from what sort. So when he starts reading that
[1:12:31] music, he can see how sickened he is because it's so good.
[1:12:35] As he says, not one, not out of place.
[1:12:37] Remove one phrase and the whole thing would collapse.
[1:12:40] And he is just off in this reverie of what it sounds like
[1:12:43] in his head. And I think one of the best
[1:12:44] things his film does is making us, as an audience who may not
[1:12:48] have an appreciation of what truly is brilliant about this
[1:12:50] music, understand it all the same.
[1:12:53] Because of Salieri's reaction to it and my chord at the top, it
[1:12:57] is miraculous. He just can't deny it, and that
[1:13:01] makes it even worse for him. Yeah, yeah, it absolutely does.
[1:13:05] I think almost everything that makes Amadeus brilliant is right
[1:13:09] here in this scene. The music, acting, performances
[1:13:13] and form and kind of weaving all together into a story.
[1:13:16] How charming is Stanzi? Her reaction when Salieri tells
[1:13:19] her the cakes are called Nipples of Venus and she's like shocked.
[1:13:22] And then she eats one and she's like, she's great.
[1:13:27] But the stand out is obviously the music.
[1:13:29] When Salieri reads more thoughts manuscript and we hear the music
[1:13:32] in his head again, we're cutting from one piece of music to the
[1:13:34] next to Salieri like tears through the sheets.
[1:13:37] Brilliant. But also it's like, feel like a
[1:13:39] lady Salieri. She told you the originals.
[1:13:41] God six. Yeah, Yeah.
[1:13:42] And then at the same time, we're cutting back and forth to old
[1:13:45] man Salieri explaining why it's also brilliant.
[1:13:47] It's it's all well put together and the dialogue, as Salieri
[1:13:51] describes Mozart's work, music finished as no music is ever
[1:13:55] finished, displaced one note and there would be diminishment.
[1:13:58] It's outrageous dialogue and it works so well.
[1:14:02] I just can't get enough of it. To me, the filmmaking here
[1:14:05] matches the brilliance it's describing Mozart as having, and
[1:14:08] not for the last time either. It's fantastic.
[1:14:11] Yeah, the nipples of Venus that were mentioned that Salieri
[1:14:14] gives to Consanza weren't made-up.
[1:14:16] They were real Italian chocolates at the time.
[1:14:19] But when they filmed it then we were made from Marza pancakes
[1:14:22] and Elizabeth Barrage didn't know that she could spit them
[1:14:24] out between takes so kept swallowing them.
[1:14:26] She later said they were disgusting and made us sick.
[1:14:30] Huge dump some miles upon would make you sick, yeah.
[1:14:32] Definitely would, yeah. But Sal, yeah, he's munching on
[1:14:34] cake and shot that all the way through the film, isn't he?
[1:14:37] Yeah. So he's taking off our celibacy
[1:14:39] in exchange of God giving him musical talent.
[1:14:41] So that desire comes out in his sweet tooth is the idea, surely.
[1:14:45] Yeah, yeah. Lovely touching the character
[1:14:47] writing that. Yeah, it's great.
[1:14:49] And this the director's good of the film.
[1:14:50] And that came out in 2002. It's 20 minutes longer than the
[1:14:54] theatrical version and has a few extra scenes.
[1:14:57] And the biggest difference probably comes in this scene
[1:15:00] because when after Sallieri has looked over Mozart's music, he
[1:15:03] tells Constanza to come back up that night, and if she sleeps
[1:15:06] with him, he'll give Mozart the job.
[1:15:08] Constanza does come back, but Sallieri hasn't thrown out
[1:15:11] instead. Right.
[1:15:12] Yeah, I prefer it without that scene.
[1:15:14] Salieri goes way too far. You totally humiliate Stanzi,
[1:15:17] and then after that it's like, hang on, you still didn't get
[1:15:20] Mozart the job. What a bastard.
[1:15:22] Yeah, so Mozart's taking Leopold to a party.
[1:15:26] That's what I'm going to talk about because this is a great
[1:15:28] party, this. It looks this is fantastic.
[1:15:30] It's nuts. It's great.
[1:15:32] It's straight out of eyes, wide, short.
[1:15:34] Yeah, it is a bit. Just a little bit easier to
[1:15:35] watch. There's musical chairs in there.
[1:15:38] I love that. He's then says to him, I want
[1:15:41] you to come back to Salzburg with me.
[1:15:43] No, you've got to do something that's in the room.
[1:15:45] And he's just completely missed the point of how serious that
[1:15:48] is. It's like, I want you to leave
[1:15:50] all this about me. He's like, no man, it's going to
[1:15:52] be now. It's going to be in the room.
[1:15:54] The way he just starts turning stuff down.
[1:15:57] Oh, no, no, that's too easy. What's next?
[1:15:59] What's next? What's next inside to play
[1:16:00] Salieri? And he's like, that is a
[1:16:02] challenge. That is a challenge.
[1:16:04] And he's just rising to it. He just loves the theatricality
[1:16:06] of everything that's going on and loves being in the center of
[1:16:09] attention and loves having the spotlight on him.
[1:16:11] But you can tell as well from Salieri, just from his eyes,
[1:16:14] just the way the darting around the room from behind that mask,
[1:16:17] he's raging again. It's a great, great scene.
[1:16:20] Really, really beautifully shot as well.
[1:16:22] Like the production design on this is wonderful.
[1:16:24] The use of colors and this is incredible.
[1:16:26] You really buy into it. Great, great scene, great party.
[1:16:29] Yeah, more thoughts that arrives.
[1:16:31] Leopold. Absolute misery.
[1:16:33] Guts of a man. He really is the most dramatic
[1:16:36] arrival of a father. Going to see his son ever.
[1:16:38] Huge black coat at the top of the stairs.
[1:16:41] Yeah, he's like Batman, but fatherhood like another theme
[1:16:44] with the film when that comes out here, Leopold, this
[1:16:47] overbearing stage dad who pushed Mozart into music and has been
[1:16:50] living through him since he was a kid.
[1:16:52] And Mozart kind of rebels against it by being outrageous,
[1:16:55] which is dad hates. Yeah, I'm on.
[1:16:57] Salieri is the opposite. His father stopped him playing
[1:17:00] music and then died. And Salieri spent his whole life
[1:17:03] trying to prove his father wrong.
[1:17:04] And God then becomes a kind of proxy for his father.
[1:17:07] So when Mozart rebels against too much of his dad's attention,
[1:17:10] Salieri is kind of desperate for some.
[1:17:12] Yeah. And at the masquerade party,
[1:17:14] there is some great visual storytelling.
[1:17:17] Leopold's wearing the comedy tragedy mask.
[1:17:19] Mozart sees the back of Leopold's head, the tragedy
[1:17:21] side, and thinks, Oh no, he's not happy.
[1:17:24] Then Leopold turns round, smiling the comedy side, and
[1:17:26] Mozart laughs. But when he takes the mask off,
[1:17:28] he's actually frowning. It's quite a funny moment, but
[1:17:31] also a great way to show us the Mozart can't read his father at
[1:17:35] all. He wants his father's approval,
[1:17:37] but has no idea how to get it. And it's all shown in those
[1:17:40] images and then Mozart impression of Salieri total
[1:17:43] humiliation and obviously said something Salieri very the same
[1:17:47] mass Leopold ways laid out a freak Mozart out, which works a
[1:17:51] treat as we say yeah. Yeah, Leopold Mortard is paid by
[1:17:55] Roy Doctors, and he was mostly known as the stage and TV actor
[1:17:59] at the time. And the film's portrayal of
[1:18:01] Leopold as Domini when is largely accurate.
[1:18:03] Apparently he really did try to control his son's career and
[1:18:06] finances and didn't approve of his marriage to Constanza.
[1:18:09] And the real painting of Leopold that Mozart has in his apartment
[1:18:13] is based on a real painting of Leopold Mozart, but being
[1:18:16] recreated to look like Roy Dutress.
[1:18:18] Yeah, the most judgmental painting I've ever seen.
[1:18:21] Now all but looking down on Mozart.
[1:18:25] Roy Dobry is as good as Leopold, though.
[1:18:27] Like disapproving father. Yeah.
[1:18:28] I think this film is largely Standy telling loads of
[1:18:30] different guys to, like, secure their shit.
[1:18:33] Great from beverage When you get Leopold told and she's like, I'm
[1:18:36] sick to death of it. It's great.
[1:18:38] Yeah. Some big moments in the film
[1:18:40] there then. So yeah, we discovering more
[1:18:42] Mozart genius and Mozart trying and failing to impress his
[1:18:45] father. The rivalries heating up nicely.
[1:18:49] Yep, even more humiliation. When is this going to stop?
[1:18:52] Yeah, from privacy humiliations to public triumphs.
[1:18:58] Sort of. We head into the marriage of
[1:19:00] Figueroa, one of Mozart's great operas.
[1:19:03] First we see Count Rosenberg literally removing the ballet
[1:19:05] from the peace before the emperor puts it back in, then
[1:19:08] struggles to stay awake during the performance.
[1:19:11] Matt ready for some imperial meddling?
[1:19:13] Always. Oblige me.
[1:19:15] These scenes where it's the removal of the ballet to
[1:19:18] sabotage Mozart, it's so good because it's worth remembering
[1:19:21] Salieri is not acting on his own here.
[1:19:23] They're all dislike him, but all want to bring him down, and they
[1:19:27] all want to humiliate him. And it looks like, oh, this is
[1:19:29] how they're going to do it. This is how they're going to
[1:19:30] win. And it's really funny when after
[1:19:32] it's been taken out, a Mozart goes off in a stroke, even turns
[1:19:35] up at Salieri's place and tells him he's so angry he nearly
[1:19:38] burned the pages, but his wife saved them.
[1:19:41] And Salieri just goes really sarcastically, thank God.
[1:19:48] And then you have the follow up with the emperor.
[1:19:49] And I think this proves in terms of what the characters believe.
[1:19:52] But God must be on more outside because why is the emperor
[1:19:56] turned up for the rehearsal? Yeah, And it obviously looks so
[1:19:59] ridiculous without the ballet. And it's another really funny
[1:20:02] lie from Jeffrey Jones when he just goes, well, look at them
[1:20:05] like you. Can't.
[1:20:06] Believe how stupid this looks and it's very funny.
[1:20:09] So the ballet is back in and Mozart just given that little,
[1:20:12] like, wing to Salieri because he thinks he helped the decision.
[1:20:15] Yeah, Yeah. And Salieri just gives that wave
[1:20:17] or to defeat, like, whatever, just get on with it.
[1:20:20] I'm giving up trying to sabotage you.
[1:20:24] God is on your side. Mozart is protected from on high
[1:20:28] and they can't do anything to. Yeah, Yeah.
[1:20:30] You know, you're watching a story being told.
[1:20:32] Well, when a guy ripping pages out of a book feels like the
[1:20:35] most devastating thing you've ever seen.
[1:20:37] Yeah. And Rosenberg being impeccably
[1:20:39] polite while doing. It's great.
[1:20:41] Like, yeah, I'm taking you out what you should never have put
[1:20:43] in. And like, our Foreman shows as
[1:20:45] what it looks like on the stage as well.
[1:20:47] The dancers prancing about in silence.
[1:20:49] Again, a story about music but always being told visually.
[1:20:52] Yeah. And in reality, the ballet was
[1:20:54] never removed from the March of Figaro.
[1:20:56] But the idea for the scene is rooted in reality, the real.
[1:21:00] But Joseph did give out instructions that forbid ballet
[1:21:02] and operas unless they were in tackle to the action.
[1:21:06] Yes, though apparently this wasn't anything to do with Marie
[1:21:08] Antoinette, who the film references.
[1:21:11] Slightly crowbar in reference that.
[1:21:14] Just a bit. Yeah, it was because the real
[1:21:15] Joseph was trying to promote German theatre, so frowned upon
[1:21:18] ballet which originated in Italy.
[1:21:20] Right, so I've got the actual performance of Figaro, which the
[1:21:24] music here for a start is absolutely beautiful, it really
[1:21:28] is wonderful. But some of the dialogue here is
[1:21:31] absolutely fantastic. Making my defeat more bitter
[1:21:34] with every passing bar is so heartbreakingly brutal, but at
[1:21:39] the same time so defeatist in his attitude.
[1:21:42] And just that, you know that maybe this is the point now
[1:21:45] where Salieri is just going to stop until the embryo ONS and
[1:21:50] he's back. He's back.
[1:21:51] He's back in the game year ago because he knows the rules of
[1:21:54] this. Then he says, with that yawn, I
[1:21:56] saw my defeat turn into a victory.
[1:21:59] Absolutely brilliant. And then it gets to that point
[1:22:02] where the composer could still get 9 and it just cuts back.
[1:22:06] It's just another great moment where I just said, how long is
[1:22:08] this humiliation is going to last?
[1:22:10] It's Salieri singing more so humiliated.
[1:22:12] I don't know. He's going to be, and he's
[1:22:14] looking forward to it. But the actual performance of
[1:22:16] Figure, I think it's just beautifully staged.
[1:22:18] Music is unbelievable. And there's just this real
[1:22:21] element of heartbreak and then this element of actually, I feel
[1:22:24] quite good for Salieri. No, I don't.
[1:22:26] I'm so conflicted. And that's the point of the film
[1:22:28] where you start wondering who to fight for a little bit and where
[1:22:31] it's going. So it's a great middle of the
[1:22:33] film where it twists itself around.
[1:22:35] Yeah, the marriage of figure role like Mozart is best one of
[1:22:38] the most famous operas ever. Salieri can't believe the
[1:22:40] brilliance of what you're saying.
[1:22:42] Yeah, in the emperor just wants to go to bed.
[1:22:44] Too many demands on the royal. Yeah.
[1:22:46] Yeah. But what we'll get straight
[1:22:47] after this, which I think we do need, is we'll finally see
[1:22:50] Salieri in action with his opera.
[1:22:52] Yeah, actually, A King of Ormus, it's called.
[1:22:55] And not that I know anything about opera, but I think it's
[1:22:57] pretty good. And the emperor bloody loves it.
[1:23:00] Can't get enough. The greatest opera yet written,
[1:23:02] my friends. Yeah.
[1:23:04] And there's a Singing in the Rain reference here, if you've
[1:23:06] noticed. Is there?
[1:23:08] So the Emperor tells Salieri he's the brightest star in our
[1:23:11] musical firmament, right? Right.
[1:23:12] In Singing in the Rain, Lena Lamont calls herself a
[1:23:15] shimmering, glowing star in the cinema firmament, right?
[1:23:18] OK, that's too close. It can't be a coincidence,
[1:23:21] surely? For the use of the word
[1:23:22] firmament, I think gives it away there.
[1:23:25] But what starts feedback? Not just a genius comboza, he's
[1:23:28] a master of the backhanded compliment as well.
[1:23:30] I never knew music like that was possible.
[1:23:32] What can you say but Salieri, you might as well have just
[1:23:36] went. It was shit made to be honest.
[1:23:40] And it's around this time when Salieri sends the maid LOL to
[1:23:43] work at Mortot's apartment so she can report back to Salieri.
[1:23:47] And she wasn't in the original play.
[1:23:48] She was added for the film and played by Cynthia Nixon, who
[1:23:51] would later become famous for Claim, Miranda Hobson, Sex and
[1:23:54] the City. That's right, she's only 17 at
[1:23:56] the time and still at school, so her parents had a written into a
[1:23:59] contract that if she didn't shoot for two days in a row,
[1:24:02] should be sent home and form and agreed to those terms.
[1:24:05] Right. Yeah, my tradition as a
[1:24:07] character though, I think, isn't she?
[1:24:09] I think she's fantastic as well. Great, I.
[1:24:11] Think so. She doesn't have loads to do,
[1:24:13] but I think she's really good. She's got the acting talent,
[1:24:15] clearly. So no surprise she went on to be
[1:24:17] successful. Yeah.
[1:24:18] Yeah. Must have been some School
[1:24:19] Report as well. I've been in Prague shooting
[1:24:21] that film that won the Oscars. Yeah.
[1:24:23] Work experience, yeah. And that's the middle of
[1:24:27] Amadeus. We've seen Salieri discover
[1:24:29] further depths in Mozart's genius and his all hatred of
[1:24:32] him, and the pieces are in place for a tragic final act.
[1:24:36] Before that, though, should we talk about some of the other
[1:24:38] talents behind the production? No, absolutely.
[1:24:41] Spirit. The crew.
[1:24:48] Milos phone wrote for the talent of crew and Amadeus, and it's
[1:24:51] time to discuss some of those people now.
[1:24:52] OK, we're going to be talking about the music by Mozart
[1:24:55] himself and Miroslav Andre, Czech Workers director of
[1:24:59] photography. But first let's discuss the
[1:25:01] screenwriter. So Amadeus was written by Peter
[1:25:05] Schaeffer, adapting his own Tony award-winning player.
[1:25:08] This wasn't Schaeffer's first rodeo in film.
[1:25:11] He previously adapted another of his own plays, Equus, in 1977,
[1:25:15] but Amadeus would become his most successful screenwork.
[1:25:19] Peter Schaeffer's writing. Yeah, Matt, how is it?
[1:25:23] I think the right on this goes way beyond what you'd expect
[1:25:26] from a biopic and there's so much depth to it.
[1:25:29] It does sound superficial to see it, but the main theme is
[1:25:32] jealousy. But I've never seen jealousy
[1:25:34] examined in so much detail, no in the such a twist to it.
[1:25:38] Because Salieri's jealousy exists on different levels.
[1:25:41] It would be one thing to be jealous of the music, but for
[1:25:44] the music to come from this man, it's 1000 times worse.
[1:25:47] And I think that's what really eats Salieri up inside is that
[1:25:51] this rivalry is entirely 1 sided like we've been seeing until his
[1:25:55] death. Waltad has no idea of Salieri
[1:25:58] true feelings about him, and I honestly think it's easier to
[1:26:02] deal with being jealous of someone if there's a mutual
[1:26:04] dislike. Because there's kind of a
[1:26:06] release to that even. Like I know that guy hates me
[1:26:09] and I'm I'm kind of glad he hates me because I hate him.
[1:26:12] But he there's no release for Salieri, not even when Mozart
[1:26:15] dies, because it's still eating away them that even in death,
[1:26:19] Mortar has more fear and more adoration than he ever will.
[1:26:24] And then this all calls into question Salieri's faith and
[1:26:26] relationship with God and how that twists and sours and all
[1:26:31] because he just can't accept this one man is better than him.
[1:26:34] And that's just one of the themes exporting the writing.
[1:26:37] Like I haven't even touched on the idea of art and is it a good
[1:26:40] idea or not to venerate artists? Because he could see this whole
[1:26:44] film is like 1 long examination of This is why you shouldn't
[1:26:47] meet your heroes. There's just so much he can pick
[1:26:49] out of this in terms of the writing.
[1:26:51] There is. I mean, going into this film for
[1:26:53] the first time, I think anyone's going to be expecting the music
[1:26:56] to be great, and they wouldn't be making the film if it wasn't.
[1:26:59] You'd probably be expecting the direction to be of a certain
[1:27:01] level. Milos Forum was already an Oscar
[1:27:03] winner, but I'm not sure anybody could have been reasonably
[1:27:06] expecting the writing to be as good as it is.
[1:27:08] No, we've talked about quite a lot of it already.
[1:27:10] Telling the story through the eyes of Salieri, not Mozart.
[1:27:13] To let us see what genius looks like to everybody else is
[1:27:16] inspired. The amount of themes it explores
[1:27:19] to a level deep enough to be interesting is ridiculous.
[1:27:22] The notion of genius and how much of its nurture versus
[1:27:26] nature, the idea of religion and God being unjust, envy,
[1:27:30] obsession. Even more modern themes like
[1:27:32] whether we should separate the art from the artist, that's here
[1:27:35] as well. Yeah.
[1:27:36] So it's pretty impressive. But what I want to touch on a
[1:27:38] bit more is the narrative structure because I think the
[1:27:41] decisions Schaif has made and how it tell the story are really
[1:27:44] interesting. I mean, coming at this huge
[1:27:46] biopic, even if you have a passion for Mozart, like Peter
[1:27:49] Schaeff, I did, where do you start?
[1:27:52] What do you leave out? And he leaves out a lot.
[1:27:54] Obviously you have to. But his way of structure in the
[1:27:56] narrative is incredible to me. I feel like he's gone, right.
[1:28:00] What major events have to be in a Mozart film?
[1:28:03] Marriage of Figueroa, obviously, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute
[1:28:07] obviously is death. His life is the childhood
[1:28:10] prodigy. There's more and all these kind
[1:28:12] of many stories form the spine of the narrative.
[1:28:15] And then Schaefer weaves all the important relationships of
[1:28:18] mortars, life in and out of those events.
[1:28:20] So the rival with Salieri, the love story with Stanzi, his
[1:28:24] father, it turns it into this incredible narrative like
[1:28:28] tapestry. And then when they ramp it up
[1:28:30] further by using these relationships to explore themes
[1:28:32] like the ones I just mentioned, I think it's a stunning piece of
[1:28:35] screen writing. Perform and take Schaefer script
[1:28:38] and make it cinematic as hell, like we've been talking about.
[1:28:40] But what Schaefer gave him to work with, I think is the kind
[1:28:43] of script that talent the directors dream of getting their
[1:28:45] hands on. Yeah.
[1:28:46] Yeah. About some great adaptive
[1:28:47] screenplays over the decades. We've taught some of them,
[1:28:49] either Godfather or Casablanca, Chinatown Spring to mind.
[1:28:53] Yeah. And Amadeus is in that bracket
[1:28:55] to me. I think the writing is that
[1:28:56] good. Wow.
[1:28:58] Yeah. Well.
[1:29:01] Yeah, I think this is just a very thorough piece of work, and
[1:29:04] I think it arrived fully formed and we lost.
[1:29:06] Foreman just looked at it and thought, right, I can see where
[1:29:09] this is going to cut. I see what I can use
[1:29:11] narratively. I can see what I can use
[1:29:12] visually. But I think all of the emotions
[1:29:15] here, the writing of Mozart could have been overplayed.
[1:29:19] It could have been on the nose. There could have been a lot of
[1:29:21] themes that were just pushed a little bit too far.
[1:29:23] But I think everything kind of lands where it needs to land to
[1:29:26] make it an accessible piece of work like the whole film is.
[1:29:29] And I think that definitely would have been on the page.
[1:29:32] Maybe a different director could have looked at this and made it
[1:29:34] a little bit more brush and made it a little bit more hard
[1:29:37] hitting or made it a little bit more depressing in places
[1:29:39] because it does go there, like you said at the top, John.
[1:29:41] It's it's really dark in themes. Yeah, and especially everything
[1:29:45] that Mozart goes through. But I think in the right, and it
[1:29:47] does keep it quite light, but at the same time quite accessible.
[1:29:51] It's only when you think about it later, it's like one of them
[1:29:52] great novels you read and you realize how flawed the character
[1:29:55] is, but you don't realize it until you think about it
[1:29:57] yourself and put yourself in their position, which I think is
[1:30:00] what he does with every character makes this film
[1:30:02] really, really watchable. But I think there's so much
[1:30:05] weight with these words and so much weight with this dialogue,
[1:30:08] and it all works together. It's just something I think
[1:30:10] Peter Schaeffer knows inside out yet he's put down on the page,
[1:30:14] but not something that I think he's been authoritarian about.
[1:30:18] I think it's an incredible blueprint, but one that you
[1:30:20] don't really have to change much of at all for it to be perfect.
[1:30:24] And Schaefer is credited as sole writer, but has probably said
[1:30:27] himself that Foreman's contribution to the script was
[1:30:30] substantial. Once Foreman came on board as
[1:30:32] director, Schaefer moved into Foreman's farmhouse performance,
[1:30:36] and he adapted the play into a script that would work for film.
[1:30:39] Would you fancy living with Milos Foreman for four months?
[1:30:41] Crazy. Absolutely not.
[1:30:43] Six months for me. Easy.
[1:30:45] No minimum. Yeah, Foreman said that the play
[1:30:48] was very much written for the stage, so they had no choice but
[1:30:51] to kind of tear it apart structurally, right?
[1:30:53] But that's a blessing, really, I think because it meant just
[1:30:55] putting it straight into production was never an option.
[1:30:57] They had to make it more cinematic.
[1:30:58] Yeah. So Foreman thought, if we're
[1:31:00] going to do that, we might as well go all in.
[1:31:02] You can see that, yeah. Yeah, and Schaefer said they
[1:31:05] agreed immediately by reimagining the player, but that
[1:31:07] they argued about just about everything else.
[1:31:10] He said Foreman House became like a torture chamber in the
[1:31:13] would resolve their differences by listening to Mozart.
[1:31:15] Just that corridor outside the salaries room, Everybody's
[1:31:18] changed the walls. You're not?
[1:31:22] Well, Yeah, she if I said they would sometimes argue all
[1:31:24] afternoon about changing a scene from the play, they'd agree on
[1:31:27] what to change and then spend the rest of the evening arguing
[1:31:29] about who we should cook dinner. Right.
[1:31:31] Amazing. I mean, these guys were The Odd
[1:31:32] Couple by the sounds of it. Arguing over all the right
[1:31:35] things. But some things that did change
[1:31:39] in the player there were two characters called the Ventus
[1:31:42] Shelley who represent the Viennese people and they give
[1:31:44] lots of the back story, the place sauce with the Ventus
[1:31:47] Shelley whispering Speri, Salieri and Farmer said the
[1:31:51] films just sold with Salieri shouting what's odd, which it
[1:31:53] obviously does right. And in the player, Salieri's
[1:31:56] confession is delivered to the audience for the film, the added
[1:31:59] the character Father Volcker. Right.
[1:32:01] A great addition, The priest. I think those scenes between
[1:32:04] Salieri and the priest are way better than they have any right
[1:32:06] to be, I think. Yeah.
[1:32:08] Definitely. And the event of Shelley, that
[1:32:10] sounds like a very theatrical kind of writing device.
[1:32:12] I think the ditch that for the film entirely understandably.
[1:32:15] Yeah, yeah. The origins of Amadeus start on
[1:32:18] the stage like we've been talking about, but not with
[1:32:21] Peter Schaeffer. In 1830, a Russian playwright
[1:32:24] called Alexander Pushkin wrote a one act player called Mozart and
[1:32:27] Salieri. It was inspired by a rumour that
[1:32:31] had come about after Mozart's death.
[1:32:33] He'd been poisoned by Antonio Salieri, who was jealous of him.
[1:32:36] Peter Schaeffer just took that and just started running with it
[1:32:39] and he did something similar to Pushkin and wrote it and he's
[1:32:41] won't play and explore that whole story, which I think
[1:32:44] really works. It does.
[1:32:45] I think Peter Schaeff actually said that he was unaware of the
[1:32:47] Pushkin play when he was writing Amadeus.
[1:32:50] Oh, really? Yeah, right.
[1:32:51] It does explore similar themes, but it's totally different as
[1:32:53] well narratively. So I'm not sure how much of that
[1:32:55] was taken from it. Right, OK.
[1:32:58] Then Schaeff has also said he's never seen either the player or
[1:33:01] the film is a biopic and called to the Fantasia on the theme of
[1:33:04] mortar than Salieri. So we've mentioned some moments
[1:33:07] that were based on or changed from reality already, but some
[1:33:10] of this are. The film opens with Salieri
[1:33:13] attempting suicide. Salary did attempt suicide in
[1:33:16] 1823 in Mays claims about Poison and Mozart, but he was suffering
[1:33:20] with dementia at the time. Right.
[1:33:22] Yeah, You refracted those claims later on.
[1:33:24] And historians say there's no evidence at all that Mozart was
[1:33:27] poisoned. It's actually not knowing how he
[1:33:29] died, but it was probably rheumatic fever or strep throat,
[1:33:32] apparently. OK, but average life expectancy
[1:33:35] in Europe in the late 18th century was only about 35,
[1:33:38] really. So it was pretty normal to die
[1:33:40] at that age. We'd all be gone as.
[1:33:43] All in the same grave though, hopefully.
[1:33:47] The all the right movies great. And the main foot point of the
[1:33:52] movie is obviously Salieri's jealousy of Mozart and sabotage
[1:33:56] in his career, but in reality there's no evidence of anything
[1:33:59] other than the two of them having a friendly rivalry.
[1:34:02] And actually, after Mozart died, Salieri even tuted Mozart's son.
[1:34:05] Right. Salieri apparently trained
[1:34:08] Beethoven too, right? Wow.
[1:34:10] I mean, there's your sequel. Jealousy.
[1:34:12] Him as well. I thought you said Beethoven
[1:34:15] too. There's your signal.
[1:34:18] The dog. Just training.
[1:34:19] The dog can't play the piano. So Pushkin did basically ruin
[1:34:23] Salieri reputation. I'm not sure where it came from
[1:34:26] but there's a singer came across a few times in research.
[1:34:28] Salieri didn't meet our Mozart, but Pushkin for sure murdered
[1:34:31] Salieri. Right.
[1:34:33] OK, that's great. Cool.
[1:34:34] Yeah. Nice, right?
[1:34:35] And in the movie, Salieri is betrayed.
[1:34:37] A celibate is aware to thank God for his gifts, but in real life
[1:34:40] Salieri was married to Teres Heifer Stauffer for that eight
[1:34:44] children and apparently had a well known affair with Katarina
[1:34:47] Cavallari. Right.
[1:34:48] Why was that? He had at least one mistress
[1:34:50] too, apparently, so far from a celibate doing like rabbits.
[1:34:53] Exactly, Yeah. And also in real life, Salieri
[1:34:56] did not Commission Mozart to write his Requiem Mass and D
[1:34:59] minor as he does in the film. It was commissioned by an
[1:35:02] Austrian called Count Franz von Waltzag, though he did
[1:35:06] commissioned the work anonymously and try to pass it
[1:35:07] off as his own work when Waltzag died, as Salieri was planning to
[1:35:11] do. Outrageous.
[1:35:13] Yeah, terrible waltzag. And Salieri didn't pretend to be
[1:35:16] Mozart's dead father either, thankfully.
[1:35:19] Normal behavior, isn't it? Not at all, no.
[1:35:22] And even the name of the film was largely fabricated.
[1:35:25] Mortard's real name was Johannes Christamus Wolfgangus Theopolis
[1:35:28] Mozart. He would often sign off letters.
[1:35:31] He is an Amadir, the French version of Theophilus, and after
[1:35:35] his death Amadius became the standard and popular culture.
[1:35:38] Right. Yeah.
[1:35:38] So Amadeus does mean loved by God, which given the themes of
[1:35:41] the film, it's a pretty perfect title, I think.
[1:35:43] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
[1:35:45] Before we finish off on the screenplay, we have our second
[1:35:47] ATRM Patreon question. This time it's from Stuart
[1:35:50] Mcdean. Hello Stuart.
[1:35:52] So Stuart is keeping it simple. I'm glad somebody is.
[1:35:56] Yeah, it's about time something. Simple about.
[1:35:58] This he wants to know what are your favorite play to movie
[1:36:01] adaptations? What do you think about any
[1:36:03] stage to screen faves for you? Yeah, I mean, you can never go
[1:36:07] wrong with the good Shakespeare adaptation.
[1:36:09] Highbrow. Highbrow for me, always
[1:36:12] highbrow. If I was to pick just one more,
[1:36:14] I'd go run. Which is the Kurosawa film where
[1:36:16] you adopt kingly. Yeah, which is just incredible,
[1:36:19] really incredible. Think a lot of people maybe
[1:36:22] don't realize that The Odd Couple was the stage player.
[1:36:24] All right, because they're just thing of Lemon and Matt our.
[1:36:26] Neil Simon, wasn't it? Yeah, Neil Simon.
[1:36:29] Yeah, but it works so well. Obviously, classic comedy.
[1:36:31] And then last one I'm going to mention is Moonlight, the Barry
[1:36:33] Jenkins film. Again, I think a lot of people
[1:36:35] don't realized that sorted off as the stage play as well, and
[1:36:38] that's just a beautiful film. Yeah, it's a beautiful film,
[1:36:40] Yeah. Yeah, I think 12 Angry Men is
[1:36:42] maybe the gold standard for many.
[1:36:44] Yeah, Sidney Lumet took the Reginald Rose player that's
[1:36:46] essentially 12 guys sitting around the table and somehow
[1:36:49] made it riveting cinema. Yeah, great film.
[1:36:51] And it's Griffin. Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?
[1:36:53] You know that great one. My Nichols directs that 1 based
[1:36:56] on Edward Albie's play and it's cinematic but does still feel
[1:36:59] quite theatrical. But Liz Taylor's brilliant in
[1:37:02] that. She's unbelievable in that,
[1:37:04] yeah. Tearing chunks out of Richard
[1:37:05] Byrd. Oh yeah, yeah, art imitates
[1:37:07] life. Exactly.
[1:37:08] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a more modern one.
[1:37:11] I like fences, if you saw that. Oh yeah, Denzel.
[1:37:13] Great. Directed by Denzel Washington,
[1:37:16] starring him in Viola Davis. Viola Davis is unbelievable in
[1:37:19] that, yeah, she overshadows him, I think, in that film.
[1:37:22] I think she probably does. It's unbelievable.
[1:37:24] I think the key with any great play adaptation is the never
[1:37:27] just filmed the play, the reimagine it for the different
[1:37:29] medium. And Amadeus does that as well,
[1:37:31] Yeah. I'm going to go Shakespeare
[1:37:33] again, but one I've mentioned recently and Tragedy of Macbeth
[1:37:36] I think was absolutely wonderful, really well adapted.
[1:37:39] Yeah, West Side Story for me. Of course, Romeo and Juliet
[1:37:43] isn't it it? Is, yeah, but it's just the way
[1:37:44] that that's played out. It's just so, so good and a
[1:37:47] little film that people don't really talk about.
[1:37:49] And I think it's Philip Seymour Hoffman's, well, one of his best
[1:37:52] performances, but I mean, that's not hard.
[1:37:54] He's amazed and everything. But if I'm called doubt.
[1:37:56] Which I thought. Was absolutely fantastic, which
[1:37:59] is based on a stage player, but yeah, them three for me,
[1:38:01] absolutely great. Lovely.
[1:38:03] Well, for his work adapting Amedes for the screen, Peter
[1:38:05] Schaefer was nominated for and won Best Adapted Screenplay at
[1:38:08] the Oscars. Thoroughly deserved, I'd say.
[1:38:11] Obviously. Definitely, you would say, but I
[1:38:14] do agree, yes. From the writing to the music,
[1:38:19] And I think this might be the first time we've covered a
[1:38:21] composer who's been dead for 2 1/2 centuries.
[1:38:24] It definitely is. Yes.
[1:38:26] So the music in Amadeus is, of course, written by Wolfgang
[1:38:29] Amadeus Mozart himself, not by Fargo, some may think.
[1:38:34] Nope. Sadly.
[1:38:35] So I remember you saying you were intimidated by Blade in
[1:38:38] about 2049. Yep.
[1:38:39] So God knows how you're going to feel about this question, but
[1:38:42] what do you think of the work of Mozart?
[1:38:46] But there you go, just say it out loud.
[1:38:48] How good is Mozart's music if I say I can't pretend I'm finding
[1:38:52] the sense that I stick some more Todd on of an evening and sit
[1:38:55] and listen to it? I don't, but I'm also not stupid
[1:38:58] enough to dismiss the brilliance of it and I can recognise that.
[1:39:01] So it's not a case to see it all.
[1:39:03] This track is brilliant and this one has been because of the all
[1:39:06] are. It's how it's used.
[1:39:08] The music is seen either in performance, in the opera scenes
[1:39:12] or in the characters heads. Is that he would come together
[1:39:14] or it's over the top of the action and it just knits
[1:39:17] everything together. And you need this amount of
[1:39:20] music because it's about the obsession that Mozart and Alieri
[1:39:24] have themselves over music. If the music was only ever heard
[1:39:27] in the performances in the opera scenes, it wouldn't have
[1:39:30] anywhere near the impact that it does.
[1:39:32] It has to be a character in its own right.
[1:39:33] Yeah, and it absolutely isn't this.
[1:39:35] I agree. Yeah.
[1:39:36] I mean, the music's enormous. Salieri's right.
[1:39:38] It is like a gift from God. It's lived for centuries after
[1:39:41] the guy who wrote it died. They'll probably live forever.
[1:39:43] So it's kind of as extraordinary as he expected to be.
[1:39:46] Yeah. So Foreman didn't have to do
[1:39:48] anything. He could have just got some nice
[1:39:50] period cinematography, slapped some mortar on top, and it would
[1:39:54] have done the work for him. Yeah, but he doesn't do that.
[1:39:56] It's how the music's used that impresses me most in the whole
[1:39:59] film, probably, Yeah. The music is like, you're saying
[1:40:02] that it's a character in the film.
[1:40:03] I think the melodies are woven into the narrative so perfectly
[1:40:07] that they tell the story as much as the characters do.
[1:40:09] And what's impressive is it's a story this music wasn't written
[1:40:12] to tell. So it's like just an adapted
[1:40:15] screenplay. It's kind of an adapted score as
[1:40:17] well. We talked about Salieri
[1:40:19] describing the serenade for the wins, the like a rusty squeeze
[1:40:22] box and the way we hear it, he talks and it's brilliant, but
[1:40:26] that's not it. The way they use the Requiem all
[1:40:28] the way through the films, fantastic.
[1:40:30] We don't know the narrative importance to be at the start,
[1:40:33] but it's like this kind of dark cloud hanging over the whole
[1:40:36] film, getting more intense and then comes into the film towards
[1:40:39] the end as part of the narrative, like a character
[1:40:41] mate. It's like Darth Vader, an
[1:40:43] empire. It is yeah of.
[1:40:45] Expecting land order to turn up. That reminds me of like the
[1:40:47] entrance to Leopold when he first season.
[1:40:49] Yeah, yeah. It's got that vibe.
[1:40:52] It's all I was like that Darth Vader.
[1:40:54] Yeah, exactly. Top of the stairs.
[1:40:55] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the music sits above
[1:40:57] everything else in the film. You've got great production
[1:41:00] design, costume design, 2 huge lead performances, a great
[1:41:04] director at the top of his game, and still the music sits above
[1:41:07] it, high above it, like the cherry on top of a Belgian bun.
[1:41:11] Very nice. Or, Salieri puts it, it's
[1:41:14] miraculous. Yeah, Although he would also
[1:41:15] love a Belgian bun Salieri. Or a nipple cake or whatever.
[1:41:20] Yeah, I mean, as a biopic of Mozart, you could tell the story
[1:41:23] more accurately for sure. But as a showcase of Mozart's
[1:41:26] music, won't even bother. Yeah, these guys have done it.
[1:41:30] Yeah, and you're not topic? It's not going to happen, is it?
[1:41:32] Yeah. I mean, I'm the same as you
[1:41:33] guys. I'm not just going to be like,
[1:41:35] let's go home and stick some Mozart on when I'm cooking the
[1:41:37] tea. But at the same time, I do
[1:41:38] realize the relevance of it, the importance of it and how
[1:41:41] incredible it is. I mean, the majority of it was
[1:41:44] written by a teenager then into his 20s.
[1:41:47] Yeah. You know, And listening to that
[1:41:48] back, you just think that's absolutely outrageous.
[1:41:51] But it's mainly what John was saying.
[1:41:52] It's how it's used. Yeah.
[1:41:53] And the film makes the music more accessible and it makes it
[1:41:56] easier to decipher and understand it.
[1:41:59] Yeah. Yeah, it does.
[1:41:59] Yeah. Because there is a lot going on.
[1:42:02] And I think when the audience do hear that music for the first
[1:42:04] time, they kind of agree with what the emperor says.
[1:42:07] There's too many notes because it is too hard to get.
[1:42:10] Then you just then spent the rest of the film understanding
[1:42:13] how it's not and understanding how maybe your view on it is a
[1:42:16] little bit dumbed down and how if you just relax and listen to
[1:42:19] it, it's there. And there's all of these
[1:42:20] emotions and everything involved in it.
[1:42:23] And it really, really works when you put it in a visual form,
[1:42:26] which I think is what Milos Foreman does.
[1:42:28] He makes the music visual. Yeah.
[1:42:30] Even one Mozart track, I call it a track.
[1:42:33] I don't even know if that's what you're supposed to call it.
[1:42:35] But one Mozart, you know, piece of music, right?
[1:42:38] You've got to put that into a film and make it into a
[1:42:39] character. And it's got to address all of
[1:42:41] the emotions on the screen at the same time.
[1:42:42] And you're just saying, how on earth am I going to do that?
[1:42:44] How does that work? But it is kind of softened in
[1:42:47] the film and it is brought to that level of almost like a
[1:42:51] brilliant soundtrack. Mozart's music, how do you even
[1:42:54] start? What's his, like, difficult
[1:42:56] third album like, where do you come in with it?
[1:42:59] Again, a consistency to everything in this film.
[1:43:02] And the music set the tone for everything.
[1:43:05] And it had to be as good as the music is.
[1:43:06] And I think it might just be. Informing you he wanted Mozart's
[1:43:10] music to play a bigger role than it did in the stage player.
[1:43:13] So Saul Sans asked all of his contacts to recommend a music
[1:43:16] supervisor based on what they were doing, and there was one
[1:43:19] name appeared on every list. Sir Neville Mariner, who was
[1:43:22] known for being one of the world's greatest conductors
[1:43:25] performing in Sans, met him in an airport and he said he would
[1:43:28] do it on one condition. But not one nod of Mozart's
[1:43:31] music was changed for the film. Brilliant.
[1:43:34] Well, that's it kind of right there.
[1:43:35] I think the film might get criticized about historical
[1:43:38] accuracy around the characters, but I don't think that's what
[1:43:40] Foreman and Shaffer are massively concerned with.
[1:43:42] No. They made the decision that it's
[1:43:44] about Mozart's music and that they are extremely honest and
[1:43:47] accurate with Yes. Yeah, and Mariner recorded all
[1:43:51] of the music for the film before production started.
[1:43:54] It was recorded by the Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields,
[1:43:57] an orchestra founded by Mariner in the recorded at the Abbey
[1:44:00] Road Studios. Wow.
[1:44:02] Should have got Ringo in on percussion.
[1:44:04] He'll be hanging around, probably.
[1:44:06] Couldn't hear him to any high hats.
[1:44:10] And the decision to record the music in full first is inspired.
[1:44:13] That's how Foreman can weave it in so well.
[1:44:15] He knew exactly what he was working with.
[1:44:18] Yeah. There's a few times we will hear
[1:44:19] a piece diagenically as an in the world and then immediately
[1:44:22] afterwards hear it non diegetically on the score or
[1:44:25] vice versa. Yeah.
[1:44:26] It's so intentional, so planned, so like, creative, the way
[1:44:29] they've used the music all the way through.
[1:44:30] I love it. Yeah.
[1:44:32] When Foreman Woman adapted the musical Hair, his choreographer
[1:44:35] had been Twyla Tharp, and he asked her to choreograph all of
[1:44:38] the opera performances in Amadeus.
[1:44:40] She moved to Prague for a year and was responsible for the
[1:44:42] choreography of Abduction from the Serali, or The Marriage of
[1:44:45] Figaro, Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute.
[1:44:48] That's yeah. Yeah, I know that she did lots
[1:44:50] of research into 18th century opera performances and then
[1:44:53] adapted them to make them more accessible for modern audiences.
[1:44:56] That's quite an undertaking that in a year though.
[1:44:59] Just a bit, yeah, Yeah. Good grief.
[1:45:01] I'm not sure they'll compromise too much.
[1:45:02] It still feels really authentic. Yeah, massively.
[1:45:04] I mean, not. I know too much about 18th
[1:45:06] century opera, obviously. I'd still be doing it now.
[1:45:08] I think I might just have the Marriage of Figaro down the
[1:45:12] first maybe 3 bars, yeah. And even more authentic was the
[1:45:17] filming locations for the opera sequences.
[1:45:20] The Abduction from the Serrano, The Marriage of Figaro and Don
[1:45:23] Giovanni performances were all filmed at the Till Theatre in
[1:45:26] Prague. And this is a historically
[1:45:28] preserved building and where Mortar really performed Don
[1:45:31] Giovanni for the first time in 1787.
[1:45:34] Twyla Forbes said the theatre have been pretty much untouched
[1:45:37] since it was built in 1783. So basically looks how we would
[1:45:41] have when Mortar played there. Wow.
[1:45:43] Yeah, Foreman said that when the first got to the Till Theater,
[1:45:46] Peter Schaeffer went missing and they found him sitting in a
[1:45:48] corridor sobbing. He was like overwhelmed by being
[1:45:51] in the same place Mozarted Premier Don Giovanni.
[1:45:54] Wow, Understandable. Really.
[1:45:55] Me when I went to the Cavern Club for the first time, sobbing
[1:45:59] in the corner. And when the films, the Don
[1:46:01] Giovanni performance, the hat performance on stage carrying
[1:46:04] real fire, and Patricia von Brandenstein said before the
[1:46:08] film, did she have nightmares about burning the place down.
[1:46:11] So they therefore have 40 firemen on standby in case
[1:46:14] anything went wrong. And she said, I thought, God
[1:46:16] will truly punish me if this place catches on fire.
[1:46:19] Right. Sounds like Salieri, God
[1:46:21] fearing. Yeah, exactly.
[1:46:23] Yeah, well. When they were filming Don
[1:46:25] Giovanni, the actor playing Don Giovanni, he's wearing like, a
[1:46:27] plumed hat, if you remember. Yeah.
[1:46:29] And he accidentally set the light on a candle, and
[1:46:32] apparently the fireman just stood there waving rather than
[1:46:35] rushing on the stage because they were so scared of annoying
[1:46:37] Foreman. Yeah.
[1:46:38] I'm not surprised. Make the Michael Jackson Pepsi
[1:46:41] commercial. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[1:46:43] His hats on fire, Miloshe. He is on fire bro.
[1:46:45] No Oscar from Mozart for his music on the film.
[1:46:48] He was 200 years too early for that.
[1:46:50] Yeah. But the winner of best original
[1:46:52] score that year was Marie Shah for A Passage to India.
[1:46:55] And during his acceptance speech, he said, luckily for me,
[1:46:58] Mozart was not eligible. Yeah, fantastic.
[1:47:01] Nice. And the musical work.
[1:47:03] Yeah. Not just Mozart, but Neville
[1:47:05] Mariner, Twyla Thorpe and how Foreman used it.
[1:47:07] It's pretty impressive. It's really impressive, yeah.
[1:47:11] Perfect. A collaborator who was with
[1:47:15] Foreman for the long haul was Amadeus, director of photography
[1:47:18] Miroslav Andrichek, starting with Foreman's Czech films in
[1:47:21] the 1960s. This was their 6th
[1:47:23] collaboration, following on from Hay and Ragtime.
[1:47:27] Check him out, Westie. Yeah, onrichek it out.
[1:47:30] How was Miroslav Andrichek's work here as DP?
[1:47:33] Yeah, I mean, it's fantastic work in that it's just so nicely
[1:47:38] framed that it's not confusing. You can watch this film on Fast
[1:47:42] forward and it's incredible how many of the characters are just
[1:47:45] in the centre of the frame. It's very rare uses the rule of
[1:47:48] thirds to confuse anybody. This is well before like we have
[1:47:51] to shoot now and everything has to be sent to frame because it
[1:47:53] needs to be an upright for social media.
[1:47:56] All right, Yeah. So you have to crop into the
[1:47:58] middle of the frame, so you have stuff left and right that you
[1:48:00] don't really do as much. Yeah, where Barry Lyndon's very
[1:48:03] much rule of thirds, right, this is right in the middle, which is
[1:48:06] hard to do without it being boring and see me, but it really
[1:48:09] works. That's a suit.
[1:48:11] On the earlier scenes where Mozart comes in and he plays the
[1:48:14] March, Mozart's in the middle of the frame as he's playing, it
[1:48:17] cuts the Siri, he's in the middle of the frame, cuts back.
[1:48:19] You don't get anyone else's reaction.
[1:48:20] It's just about them two characters, which it always
[1:48:22] works. He's conducting an orchestra and
[1:48:26] you know that frame that everybody loves?
[1:48:27] There's that wide angle, but he's right in the middle.
[1:48:30] Great shot. Oh yeah.
[1:48:30] There's no convergent verticals at all, so that wide angle is
[1:48:34] using on that. It's perfect because it doesn't
[1:48:35] make the theatre come in on top of Mozart.
[1:48:37] It makes it seem as haze just fits perfectly within the frame
[1:48:40] of it. Yeah, everything's so considered
[1:48:42] and very well thought through, and I think that's makes it
[1:48:45] really accessible and it makes it really, really fun.
[1:48:48] It's a fun film to watch because it moves from scene to scene,
[1:48:51] and it's a film that definitely moves from left to right because
[1:48:54] every character is in the middle of that frame.
[1:48:56] If you want to see anything else in the frame, how about it?
[1:48:59] You can see it. There's a lot more going on, but
[1:49:01] I think these lens choices, camera movements aren't over the
[1:49:04] top. I don't think the lightens over
[1:49:06] the top for the period. The whole film could have been
[1:49:08] way darker, but I think the tone is consistent with the color
[1:49:11] palette, with the lighting, with the dialogue, with the music.
[1:49:14] Everything seems to be of a standard and he really ticks the
[1:49:17] boxes for me. Yeah, I agree, Wesley.
[1:49:19] I think they can see an influence from Barry Linden.
[1:49:22] There's always a warm glow of candlelight, the way that shadow
[1:49:25] plays on people's faces. It's actually as of the costumes
[1:49:28] and the locations. It's quite painterly like Barry
[1:49:31] Linden and feels of the time, but still feels relevant as.
[1:49:34] Well, as a distinct lack of shadow in this I think is really
[1:49:36] important. Yeah, yeah.
[1:49:37] With Shaffer, I mean, Mozart, the cast trail, I thought
[1:49:40] everything else, Foreman directing Lords of storytellers
[1:49:42] at once. And the camera tells the story
[1:49:44] as well. Yeah.
[1:49:45] There's a shot really early that I love after Mozart realized the
[1:49:49] star of the concert without him, when he's like my music.
[1:49:51] Yeah. He runs towards the concert
[1:49:52] hall. The camera is already there and
[1:49:54] doesn't move, so we just seem come sprinting down the corridor
[1:49:57] towards us. Love that shot.
[1:49:59] Yeah, it's brilliant. The opera sequences are great,
[1:50:01] not just the music and the choreography, they're really
[1:50:03] well shot as well. The source?
[1:50:05] Cinematic performances from over 200 years ago.
[1:50:07] But it doesn't really feel it. It feels quite timeless to look
[1:50:10] at. Yeah.
[1:50:11] I mean, I think it wasn't as clear as day.
[1:50:12] When you watch the end result, it's how In Sync everyone is.
[1:50:15] Yeah. No one's working in silos.
[1:50:17] No, you know that. Andre, check work closely with
[1:50:19] Twyla Thorpe. You know, he's worked with
[1:50:21] prefetchy von Brandenstein on production design.
[1:50:23] He can tell he's worked with Theodore Pistek on costume
[1:50:26] design. They must have, because it's
[1:50:28] also perfectly cohesive. It's kind of mind boggling.
[1:50:31] Yeah. I think this is one of the great
[1:50:33] examples of just great filmmaking for me.
[1:50:35] And the cinematography is a big part of it.
[1:50:37] Yeah, Massively just reminded me of that shot you talked about
[1:50:40] there, John, when he's running into the frame, yeah, it's kind
[1:50:42] of like the first thing he says. They've started without me, so
[1:50:45] he has to run into the frame, so they're not moving the camera to
[1:50:48] be with him. So even the cinematography is
[1:50:50] telling the same story. It's not intentionally humorous,
[1:50:52] but that's really funny and nerdy.
[1:50:54] I love that. No, yeah, you're right.
[1:50:55] It's brilliant. But he runs into the film,
[1:50:57] doesn't he? He does exactly, Yeah.
[1:50:58] Part of the reason it feels so cinematic because I think 1
[1:51:01] aspect that's very easy to overlook is how much of this
[1:51:04] film is said indoors. Like after you have that opening
[1:51:07] of Salieri being wheeled a hospital, I'm always slightly
[1:51:11] taken aback when we get another scene that occurs outside.
[1:51:14] And I think the risk of that is that the film could end up
[1:51:17] looking very seamy, very dry, particularly when there's not
[1:51:20] even that much variation of the interior locations.
[1:51:24] It's the opera houses or the palace or Mozart space or sorry,
[1:51:27] Ari space. Every location has this grandeur
[1:51:30] to it, but it never feels repetitive and never feel like,
[1:51:33] oh, just looking at the same shot again.
[1:51:35] I never feel, oh, it's this setting again.
[1:51:38] Can we not go somewhere different?
[1:51:39] I'm never bored by how this looks visually and like, say, a
[1:51:43] film, maybe 90% of it indoors in places very similar.
[1:51:46] It's very subtle work as well, in that you think of Amadeus.
[1:51:50] I don't think the first thing that comes to mind is, wow.
[1:51:52] It's a visual feast for the eyes.
[1:51:54] But you get into the like the granular details of us.
[1:51:57] You really think about what you've seen and how they've done
[1:51:59] it. You think, yeah, actually, then
[1:52:00] it's just all the more impressive for what to do here.
[1:52:03] Yeah, there's just so much to look at, isn't there?
[1:52:05] Whether it's a cinematography or the costumes or the production
[1:52:08] design, you know, the locations. It is kind of a feast for the
[1:52:10] eyes. And nothing overshadows anything
[1:52:12] else. It's amazing.
[1:52:14] It all just works together. Cogs in the machine.
[1:52:16] Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[1:52:18] And most of the film used conventional light in setups,
[1:52:21] but for their upper performances the crew used candlelight almost
[1:52:24] exclusively for authenticity, and over 27,000 candles were
[1:52:28] burned during production. No, we're never worried about
[1:52:30] burning the players down then. That's a lot.
[1:52:34] And you know more than me, Wesley, But that seems like
[1:52:36] insanity in terms of the challenge you're setting
[1:52:38] yourself. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's
[1:52:40] outrageous. Just the fact that that light
[1:52:42] moves as well. It's got a natural movement to
[1:52:44] it, so you can't judge it exactly where it's going to be
[1:52:47] or where it's going to land or what it's going to hit.
[1:52:48] So you just have to light and then light and then light again.
[1:52:51] And I think it was after this film came out that actually made
[1:52:53] cinema candles, which had about four or five Wicks that were
[1:52:57] just put together to make it burn brighter.
[1:52:59] Oh, really? So that it would be easier for
[1:53:01] the film to pick up, so easier to expose.
[1:53:03] But yeah, that explains why there's so many in this.
[1:53:06] Yeah, there's a hell of a lot. Yeah.
[1:53:08] Or for his work on Amadeus, Miroslavandra Check was
[1:53:10] nominated for Best Cinematographer the Oscars, but
[1:53:13] he lost out to Chris Mangas for The Killing Fields.
[1:53:16] Right. Yeah.
[1:53:17] Right, OK. For us though, some great
[1:53:19] cinematography that brings 18th century Vienna to life.
[1:53:22] Yeah, there's a whole film in life.
[1:53:24] Yeah, really works. So that's our key crew members.
[1:53:27] Peter Schaeffer crafting a brilliant adaptation of his own
[1:53:30] play, Mozart himself providing the divine music, and Miroslav
[1:53:33] Andrecher capturing it all with candlelight and cameras.
[1:53:36] And in Neville, Mariner, Twyla, Thorpe and all the other
[1:53:40] craftspeople we've mentioned a crew operating at the peak of
[1:53:43] their powers here. Definitely the end.
[1:53:51] The second act of Amadeus was bald, breathtaking.
[1:53:55] The third is astounding. They're going to talk about the
[1:53:58] climactic scenes where Mozart and Salieri write the Requiem
[1:54:01] together, and Mozart's death. But first, we've got A Magic
[1:54:05] Flute to talk about. We do so with Mozart.
[1:54:09] Fortunes and mental state declining, he finds work with
[1:54:12] Emmanuel, Chicken Aidas, Vaudeville Theatre, writing The
[1:54:15] Magic Flute for the common people.
[1:54:17] Meanwhile, Salieri carried out his latest scheme, commissioning
[1:54:20] a requiem from Volfi while disguised as a must figure.
[1:54:24] Yeah, totally normal behavior. Yeah, Westie, ready for some
[1:54:27] lowbrow entertainment? Absolutely.
[1:54:29] You know me. Love this.
[1:54:32] I much prefer it actually if I'm honest.
[1:54:34] The vaudeville, don't you right? Yeah, I mean, I'm never get
[1:54:36] tired of sausages coming out of a horse's ass, let's be honest.
[1:54:39] And then later a dove and then some champagne.
[1:54:41] It's fine. But I just think it's it's
[1:54:43] really good. And what is shown here is the
[1:54:45] contrast between how little Mozart cares about how
[1:54:49] pretentious something is. Yeah, because all the
[1:54:51] pretentiousness is removed. It just wants people to enjoy
[1:54:55] what he's written, and Stanza kind of knows it's a piss take.
[1:54:58] Oh. Stanza hater, yeah.
[1:55:01] Just shows that he is just a big kid really, and he just loves it
[1:55:04] just as much as when he's conducting.
[1:55:06] He just loves to see it come to life, no matter how that's done.
[1:55:09] So it just shows he's part of the audience as well as he's
[1:55:12] part of the creation, which I think if you can really
[1:55:15] appreciate your own art, you're really on to something.
[1:55:17] But it's when someone takes it and spins it their own way and
[1:55:19] makes it fun and enjoyable. And if your kids love it, you're
[1:55:22] going to love it. I think it's a great scene.
[1:55:23] I love this. It's crazy coming out the
[1:55:25] ceiling. It's all great.
[1:55:27] Yeah, when it first cuts to the Vaudeville theatre it does feel
[1:55:30] quite jarring, in a good way because we're used to these high
[1:55:33] end imperial productions till now.
[1:55:35] And then this is all sing alongs and laughs like jazz and Dave.
[1:55:39] Strange comparison. I see the other side of Viennese
[1:55:42] society as well, builds the world up and tells us that
[1:55:44] Mozart, unlike Salieri, is more a man of the people, I think.
[1:55:48] Yeah, but from the film's perspective, production values
[1:55:51] don't drop an inch. It still looks brilliant.
[1:55:53] Does the costume design, the theatre itself, they've got
[1:55:56] hundreds of extras, keeps the authenticity totally intact.
[1:56:00] And narratively, it's all developing really well.
[1:56:02] More thoughts deterioration is shown in his appearance.
[1:56:04] He's now wearing that dirty brown wig.
[1:56:07] And they must have done some makeup work on Tom Halls as well
[1:56:09] because he suddenly got really hollow eyes.
[1:56:12] Looks like death warmed up. So all really good.
[1:56:15] And did you notice the Star Wars link?
[1:56:17] Yeah. Yes.
[1:56:18] So the combinatorial character, the little person who comes on
[1:56:21] the stage on the horse singing Don Giovanni, that is.
[1:56:24] Go for it. Kenny Baker.
[1:56:26] There is. R2D2.
[1:56:28] Loved seeing Kenny Baker in there.
[1:56:30] It's fantastic. So Anthony Daniels would have
[1:56:32] been furious. I should be in the Mozart film.
[1:56:35] Yeah, you should have been conducting just like Saints Row
[1:56:38] 2. And Emmanuel Chikuneder is
[1:56:43] played by Simon Callow, who was the first person to play Motor
[1:56:46] on stage at the National Theatre in 1979.
[1:56:49] And that's how he came to form its attention for the part.
[1:56:52] The real Chicaneda was the German actor, singer and theatre
[1:56:55] manager. He wrote the libretto for The
[1:56:57] Magic Flute and played Papa Gino at the premiere like he does in
[1:57:00] the film. And according to historians, the
[1:57:03] real Chicaneda was as larger than life and flamboyant as
[1:57:06] we're seeing here. But there's no records of a
[1:57:08] really putting on a parody of Don Giovanni.
[1:57:12] Yeah, he did start as Mozart, Simon Callow and Carl said the
[1:57:15] foreman told him. His portrayal of Mozart was
[1:57:18] truly brilliant, fantastic and asshole and a genius, funny,
[1:57:22] tragic, crazy, a baby and a God. Well, still not casting, you
[1:57:26] know, chicken Aida for you. I think he's good though.
[1:57:31] Simon Callow. Really memorable character
[1:57:33] because he just played a part in the narrative.
[1:57:35] He is, and I believe Callow in the role.
[1:57:37] I mean, he's a bit boisterous. Yeah, I totally get that though.
[1:57:39] He needs to be, but he doesn't over shadow anything.
[1:57:41] He's not like massively memorable, but he is when you
[1:57:43] see him again. Oh, that guy, of course.
[1:57:46] And then you get the same way, confront small sauce about the
[1:57:49] magic food. And I just really feel for the
[1:57:50] mortality, like his dad's died. He thinks he's now being
[1:57:54] commanded by his dad's course to write a requiem mass for him.
[1:57:57] Running out of money, clearly unwell, and I've been hassled by
[1:58:00] this guy. Tried to vaudeville for a magic
[1:58:02] fruit. Just give him a break for God's
[1:58:04] sake. Yeah, I love the star of that
[1:58:07] scene, Shaken, that's banging on the door.
[1:58:09] And Stanley comes out and is like, Wolfie open the door, for
[1:58:12] God's sakes. But he can't hear it because his
[1:58:14] head's like, filled with music. And then the music cuts and was
[1:58:17] suddenly like, back in the room, which is another great use of
[1:58:19] sound. But that gives us a little
[1:58:21] insight to what it might be like being in Mozart's head.
[1:58:24] And it's pretty awful. And then sneaks out to another
[1:58:28] party when stand. He's asleep.
[1:58:29] What you doing? Yeah, no one does.
[1:58:31] You leave. Waiting for that moment is near
[1:58:33] to awful when he sneaks out, Yeah.
[1:58:35] And then you get the actual performance of the magic food.
[1:58:38] Yeah, which is more thoughts kind of downfall health wise.
[1:58:42] But to start the scene, you've got that great transition of
[1:58:45] Mozart having his E bent by his mother-in-law to the opera
[1:58:49] singer giving it full gusto, which is really, really funny.
[1:58:52] It's. Brilliant.
[1:58:53] Again, it just was the brilliance of him to listen to
[1:58:55] his mother-in-law doing that going hang on, I can use this
[1:58:58] automatically. You just translates to the
[1:59:00] music. It's brilliant.
[1:59:01] And I guess this performance, I guess it does come down to
[1:59:03] personal taste, but I think there's just this irony with
[1:59:06] Mozart collapse and given this performance, because I find this
[1:59:09] music just quite trivial and silly.
[1:59:11] It's a bit annoying. But this is the one Mortat has
[1:59:14] driven himself to the point of death performing not one of his
[1:59:17] absolute masterpieces. But I think Abraham is so
[1:59:20] brilliant in the same because Mozart collapses, Salieri make
[1:59:24] sure he's been taken back to bed.
[1:59:25] And just when you think this might be his turning point, is
[1:59:28] he having second thoughts about this plan now that Mortat is
[1:59:31] nearly dead? He then uses chicken ear and
[1:59:34] every knocking at the door to push Mozart even further and
[1:59:37] returned it. It's the figure, yeah, the Corsi
[1:59:39] figure that wants that Requiem mass written.
[1:59:42] It's the moment he could have redeemed himself, but he chooses
[1:59:44] not to. And Abraham just dances along
[1:59:47] that line brilliantly. He does, Yeah.
[1:59:49] I also love the transition into the magic flutes where you go
[1:59:52] from Stanley's mother yelling at Mozart into the Queen of the
[1:59:55] night. It's also funny when Stanley's
[1:59:56] mother says I told her marry him, you won't have a pot to
[1:59:59] piss in. And the editing of the
[2:00:03] performance is superb, cutting between more thoughts, like
[2:00:05] manic conducting. Because he's not well.
[2:00:07] Salieri, watching from the shadows.
[2:00:09] Always watching on the sly. Salieri, isn't he?
[2:00:12] Find a curtain or something. Yeah.
[2:00:14] Yeah, but if there was a motor opera I'd like to see in full,
[2:00:16] I'd probably go for The Magic Flute.
[2:00:18] Oh really? Don Giovanni looks way too
[2:00:19] intense. Oh, Giovanni for me every time.
[2:00:23] Radiohead doing the soundtrack. Yeah, go say that to be fair.
[2:00:28] Yeah, of course you would. OK, Don Giovanni.
[2:00:31] So while Don Giovanni and the Marriage of Figaro were filmed
[2:00:34] at the Till Theatre, the Don Giovanni parody and The Magic
[2:00:37] Flute were filmed on the custom set.
[2:00:39] Prezi von Brandenstein and her team built a replica of an 18th
[2:00:42] century Volks Theatre on Czechoslovakia's biggest
[2:00:45] soundstage at Barandov Studios. The replica was 330 feet long,
[2:00:50] had 700 seats and took six weeks to build.
[2:00:54] Yeah, massive. And those candles chandeliers
[2:00:57] are insane. If you know it's those on the
[2:00:59] ceiling, there's like 11 of them.
[2:01:00] Yeah. I'm surprised it didn't burn the
[2:01:02] place down. It's crazy.
[2:01:03] It's amazing they didn't call them chandeliers.
[2:01:05] The Mr. Trick there. And the actress who see
[2:01:09] performing the queen of the night is Whitney Houston.
[2:01:12] Of course, The Bodyguard. Amazing.
[2:01:14] I love that you've got The Bodyguard into a Moto
[2:01:16] autobiographic. I love it.
[2:01:20] No, it was a Czech soprano called Meloda Cheklova.
[2:01:24] And the voice we hear, though, is June Anderson.
[2:01:26] And she was one of the most famous American Sopranos in the
[2:01:29] world at the time. Again, enormous pipes.
[2:01:32] Yeah, the Queen of the Night might be my favorite stage
[2:01:35] performance in the film. I think it's stunning.
[2:01:37] Yeah, the Papa Gino bit, though. Chicken Aid are prancing about
[2:01:40] dresses. A budgie.
[2:01:44] It's outrageous. It reminded me of what's the
[2:01:48] song in Inside Llewyn Davis? Please, Mr. Kevin, say please,
[2:01:53] Mr. Kennedy, is this that bit with the plosives?
[2:01:56] I was. That's the same.
[2:01:57] The Coen brothers have obviously seen this.
[2:01:58] Ripped it off. So that's The Magic Flute,
[2:02:02] Mozart's final opera, written for the people, performed as
[2:02:05] he's dying. Yeah.
[2:02:06] Should we have a look at the fallout?
[2:02:08] Let's do it. The climax of Amadeus brings
[2:02:12] everything together in devastating fashion.
[2:02:15] After Mozart collapse, Salieri takes him home and they work on
[2:02:18] the Requiem, Salieri taking dictation as Mozart composes
[2:02:22] from his deathbed. Yeah.
[2:02:24] So what is the greatest scene of all time, Matt, and why is it
[2:02:28] this I? Knew it was going to be this.
[2:02:30] I was going to call it at the start, but I thought it's just,
[2:02:32] yeah, it's too obvious. It's amazing.
[2:02:33] Yeah, you're probably not wrong, John.
[2:02:35] I mean, this scene, the back and forth between them, the way they
[2:02:39] modulate their performances against each other, Mozart just
[2:02:42] firing out instruction after instruction after instruction.
[2:02:46] And it's the reaction from Salieri.
[2:02:48] Like what? None of this makes sense.
[2:02:50] How will that even work on the page?
[2:02:53] And then when you just see it click behind his eyes, Like, my
[2:02:57] God, of course it's genius. And it seems obvious, but it's
[2:03:01] only obvious if you're more taught in the other level of
[2:03:04] brilliance. And it's the most humbling
[2:03:07] moment for Salieri because he can't get there until he sees
[2:03:11] what's up doing it and telling him how he does it.
[2:03:14] And it's the one way forgets his plan.
[2:03:16] And he's so swept up in this outpouring and the sheer
[2:03:20] privilege of being part of it, which makes it all more tragic.
[2:03:23] But it's more thoughts, last moments.
[2:03:25] And Salieri only has this brief, brief glimpse of what that
[2:03:29] friendship could have been if he'd stopped being a little less
[2:03:32] proud about himself and just kind of reined his own ego in.
[2:03:36] They could have had the most amazing friendship.
[2:03:38] And what this scene reminds me most of all is, you know, in the
[2:03:43] Peter Jackson beetroot documentary, when you've got
[2:03:45] that footage of McCartney jamming and he just plucks get
[2:03:48] back out of the air and you're like, my God, that's genius.
[2:03:52] You see in the birth of Genius, that's what they're saying is.
[2:03:55] What a climax, what we've been built into Mozart and Salieri
[2:04:02] together at last, but also kind of the film in my cosm.
[2:04:05] I think most of the things that make Amity is great or here, the
[2:04:09] culmination of the rivalry is here with C Mozart's genius in
[2:04:12] action and his music kind of showcased in this really
[2:04:15] inventive and cinematic way. The whole idea of breaking the
[2:04:19] Requiem down into its main components.
[2:04:21] C Mozart write them one by one, Salieri writing them down and
[2:04:25] then giving us the final composition in the score.
[2:04:28] Yeah, total genius take about Milosh.
[2:04:31] I mean all of it. It's just such a brilliant
[2:04:34] representation of not just music, but I think the creative
[2:04:37] process. We've been told all the way
[2:04:38] through the Mozart is this genius.
[2:04:40] Talent and natural ability counts for a lot, but there's a
[2:04:43] science to it as well. Nature versus nature.
[2:04:46] And we'll say that here because Salieri knows his stuff.
[2:04:49] Just to take down Mozart's dictation, you've got to have an
[2:04:52] advanced understanding of music because he's 1,000,000 miles an
[2:04:54] hour. If Salieri is mediocre, I think
[2:04:57] we're all screwed. To be honest, it's a very long
[2:04:59] scene. But it does show Mozart's
[2:05:02] talent. You can create these complex
[2:05:04] arrangements in his head, and Salieri can't keep up.
[2:05:06] I like it when Salieri goes. It's wonderful.
[2:05:09] That's it. And Mozart's like, no.
[2:05:11] Now for the real fire. It's brilliant, and again, it's
[2:05:17] not a 100% accurate portrait of the events, but it isn't honest
[2:05:20] reflection of the music. Mozart obviously didn't really
[2:05:23] dictate the Requiem, the Salieri on his deathbed, no really
[2:05:26] dramatic way to go. But in breaking it down it shows
[2:05:29] us how complex and incredible the music is.
[2:05:32] That isn't a lie. Mozart really wrote that.
[2:05:35] And that, I think, is the history that Formed and Shaffer
[2:05:37] want to get across. Yeah, I mean, J Sharp, of
[2:05:40] course. Yeah.
[2:05:42] I mean, it's my favorite scene of the whole film.
[2:05:44] When it came to this point, I thought we need this connection
[2:05:47] and we need it to slam home. And it's almost like split the
[2:05:49] atom, really. It's been building to this and
[2:05:51] it does not disappoint. It's when he's just show me and
[2:05:55] then it's using the cuts to time travel almost.
[2:05:57] And you hear the finished piece and it's just there.
[2:06:00] Yeah. It's the simplicity of how
[2:06:02] cinematic this is. There's no zooms, there's no
[2:06:06] going round the bed. There's like 2 cameras, maybe
[2:06:10] two shots. Probably on 2 cameras, but this
[2:06:12] could have been done with one easily.
[2:06:13] But if you know what the dialogue is and how it's
[2:06:15] delivered. So it's literally just two shots
[2:06:17] center framed. And there may be a slight push
[2:06:19] in on Mozart as he's coming up with things, but not much.
[2:06:22] Yeah, it's literally the content of this scene that makes it
[2:06:25] train. You could have shot this on a
[2:06:26] potato and it still would have been incredible.
[2:06:29] And there's so many bits in this that click.
[2:06:31] It's when he starts naming all the different instruments.
[2:06:33] Take the bassoon to the trombones, and then it's the
[2:06:35] tennis. But it's when Salieri is not
[2:06:37] keeping up and Mozart's just like, come on.
[2:06:40] And he stops a little bit and he goes, look, it goes with the
[2:06:43] harmony. Boom, boom.
[2:06:46] That's when they're in harmony. That's when they catch up with
[2:06:48] each other. And it was that point where I'm
[2:06:50] like, I need to see this run out front of that 7 or 8 minutes,
[2:06:54] this scene, I need to see where this goes.
[2:06:56] And it doesn't disappoint, to be honest.
[2:06:57] It's not on that long. That's how long I wanted it to
[2:06:59] be on for. And you know, it's a
[2:07:01] masterpiece. You know what he's doing.
[2:07:03] And this scene finished and I watch it for the second time.
[2:07:05] And as I was watching for the second time, I thought, fuck me,
[2:07:07] what Mozart could have done with an air track.
[2:07:09] I know he just could just put it down and just record it where he
[2:07:13] is, even if it was just bumper that and did the that.
[2:07:15] Far off and think what would these guys do with around 200
[2:07:18] years later? Yeah, if they were around now
[2:07:20] and they're just access to everything we've got access to,
[2:07:22] there's no excuse for us really. We're just lazy.
[2:07:26] There's no talent left anywhere in the world.
[2:07:28] Use make excuses like me. Laptops not fast enough, now
[2:07:30] you're just not more so enough. That's the problem.
[2:07:33] And I think that's the genius of this, is how simple it seems,
[2:07:36] but at the same time how powerful it is in the content of
[2:07:38] the scene. And it really works.
[2:07:40] It does. It's a fantastic scene, yeah.
[2:07:43] But before the film The Scene, Tom Hall said that Neville
[2:07:45] Mariner and one of his musicians acted out the scene just to show
[2:07:49] Hulse and Abraham how 2 musicians would actually dictate
[2:07:52] music like this to each other. Yeah, Hall said it was rubbish
[2:07:56] and then showed them how to do it.
[2:07:58] Rubbish that. Yeah.
[2:07:59] I mean, I imagine it might be a bit dull watching that for real,
[2:08:02] unless they do get Ringo in, obviously.
[2:08:04] That would be great, obviously. And then when the film the
[2:08:06] scene, Holst and Abraham were both wearing a pieces that the
[2:08:10] pieces of music were played through.
[2:08:12] So that's why Mozart and Salieri are perfectly in time and in
[2:08:15] pitch with the music as the singers I.
[2:08:17] Love that when I read that I was like that's genius.
[2:08:20] It is brilliant and you would never.
[2:08:21] Have thought about it because this film is so authentic.
[2:08:24] The last thing you think of is any kind of technology.
[2:08:27] It's going to help them. You don't put that in the next
[2:08:29] day at all. Because he's singing along with
[2:08:31] the music as we hear it, and he's in the same key as it as
[2:08:34] well. You just think, oh, that's
[2:08:35] amazing. Not like they could have an
[2:08:36] earpiece. Of course they could have an
[2:08:37] earpiece. That's only way to do it, isn't
[2:08:39] it? You don't really think about it.
[2:08:41] Yeah, and the music coordinator on the film was John Strauss,
[2:08:44] and at one point he miskewed the music going into Hulse's ear,
[2:08:47] and we see that take in the film.
[2:08:49] Yes, it's a bit right at the start where Mozart goes A minor.
[2:08:54] A minor Hulse was waiting for the music to play.
[2:08:56] Right. Nice.
[2:08:58] Right. Yeah, it's even better when he's
[2:09:00] trying to just bring it to the foreground of maybe I think
[2:09:02] there's something else. That's how it feels, yeah.
[2:09:04] Yeah. And then on top of that, Abraham
[2:09:07] said that Holtz would deliberately change the lines
[2:09:09] from the script or skip certain bits.
[2:09:11] Abraham thought that he was forgetting his lines, but Holtz
[2:09:14] was actually trying to confuse him.
[2:09:16] And we see this in the film in the mornings where Salieri is
[2:09:18] struggling to keep up with Mozart.
[2:09:21] Yeah, obviously the music is what you think of in the scene
[2:09:23] and it's fantastic, but those back and forths inject loads of
[2:09:26] drama into it, where Mozart's like, do you have it?
[2:09:29] Do you have it? One moment, one moment, please.
[2:09:32] That stuff's so good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[2:09:34] It's that please are so genuine as well.
[2:09:36] Really polite still, please. Let us get this.
[2:09:39] We're not doing just yet, though.
[2:09:41] After Stanley turns up and gives Salieri a final piece of her
[2:09:44] mind, we say Mozart's funeral and then one final scene with
[2:09:47] old Salieri in the hospital. A good way to finish, do we
[2:09:51] think? Probably the only way to finish
[2:09:53] at this point isn't. It.
[2:09:55] It is. I mean, it's brutal.
[2:09:58] Yeah. Like a pop is mass grave.
[2:10:00] That's all he gets. The priest barely putting any
[2:10:02] effort into it. Yeah.
[2:10:04] Where's the justice for this one?
[2:10:06] And the genius he gave to the world?
[2:10:08] And the absolute kicker is that Salieri doesn't even get to
[2:10:11] claim that requiem mask for his own.
[2:10:13] He's put all this effort in, expanded so much of his own
[2:10:17] creative energy on hatred and jealousy, and he's achieved
[2:10:21] absolutely nothing. And when we go back to the
[2:10:25] confession, it's just the final underlying point.
[2:10:28] Mortard has triumphed all from even a death, and God has
[2:10:31] rejected Salieri one final time, and all he has, as he says, is
[2:10:36] the knowledge that he is the patron state of mediocrities.
[2:10:38] Yeah, what an ending. Yeah, it brings us full circle
[2:10:42] back to old Salieri in the asylum.
[2:10:44] It works so well. The way to be cut from the
[2:10:46] funeral on the big are men of the death Mass.
[2:10:49] Back to the priest and he's like head down sweating.
[2:10:52] Yeah. Totally done in by everything
[2:10:53] he's heard. Brilliant.
[2:10:54] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Surely he wasn't expecting to be
[2:10:57] there all night. He thought he'd be in and out in
[2:10:58] 5 minutes. Yeah.
[2:11:00] So yeah, he wouldn't shut up the.
[2:11:01] Transition when he first comes into that part.
[2:11:03] Like if you put them scenes together that would be
[2:11:05] incredible. Just a smash cut to.
[2:11:07] Just yeah, it's great. Yeah, I mean, it's it's so
[2:11:11] harrowing, but it's so humbling at the same time.
[2:11:13] It points home that not everybody thought as highly of
[2:11:16] Mozart, Salieri did. He thought it was going to be
[2:11:19] angels on top of castles just playing this Requiem to the
[2:11:23] whole world. And it isn't.
[2:11:24] He didn't have them in such high regard.
[2:11:26] And that's a tragedy because he's the only one who saw him
[2:11:30] God like. And I think it's just incredible
[2:11:32] when it goes back, the older version of him, he's that is his
[2:11:34] confession. That is what he he did and he
[2:11:36] did kill him. And it's in a way because he
[2:11:39] kind of killed him through his own obsession.
[2:11:41] Well, yeah, that's what he kind of means, I think by the end
[2:11:42] doesn't. It and exactly.
[2:11:43] And he's in 32 years of torture. That's what he's left with.
[2:11:46] His delivery of that bears so good as well.
[2:11:49] Amazing. My music grows fainder.
[2:11:51] It's just an absolute lesson to walk away from this film and
[2:11:54] just think. Appreciate what you have got and
[2:11:57] don't wish for what you haven't got.
[2:11:59] It's a life wasted. Amen.
[2:12:01] Yeah, there's your real death mess from West here.
[2:12:03] You go. As always, the film fades the
[2:12:07] black with us here and one last version of Mozart's laugh.
[2:12:11] This wasn't scripted and Foreman realized you wanted it during
[2:12:14] editing, so they brought fuels back.
[2:12:17] And it was nine months later after filming the wrapped and he
[2:12:20] wasn't able to do the laugh anymore.
[2:12:22] Wow. Until Foreman gave him some
[2:12:24] whiskey straight back in. Yeah, the music that plays over
[2:12:29] the final sequence into the end credits.
[2:12:31] Piano Concerto #20 it's called, right?
[2:12:33] Stunning that. Yeah, it's unreal.
[2:12:35] In the final shot, we're looking at Salieri and listening to
[2:12:38] Mozart. Yeah, pretty perfect.
[2:12:40] Weird when I think brilliant. And that is the end of Amadeus,
[2:12:43] from the magic fluid through the deathbed Requiem to that final
[2:12:46] absolution. Mozart is gone, though his music
[2:12:49] isn't. And a final act worthy of that
[2:12:52] music. Oh, unbelievable.
[2:12:53] Yeah. Certainly.
[2:12:57] Reception and awards. So that is the story of Amadeus
[2:13:02] and it opened in cinemas on September the 19th, 1984.
[2:13:06] How to do when it's release? Well, our own statistical
[2:13:09] maestro is here to tell us Wolfgang Amadeus Matt's art.
[2:13:13] And I. Saw from the top, please, Matt.
[2:13:17] OK. So production butchered was $18
[2:13:19] million and Amadeus Gross $90,000,000 worldwide.
[2:13:23] And that's even more impressive considering it only opened in 25
[2:13:26] theaters and didn't have a wide release until months later.
[2:13:30] And it did amaze me. Well, at the Oscars that yeah,
[2:13:32] nominated for 11 and winning 8. Solzhenz won for best picture,
[2:13:37] Milos Foreman won for best director, F Murray Abraham won
[2:13:40] best actor, Peter Shaffer won for best adopted screenplay,
[2:13:43] Patrizia von Brandenstein and Carl Cerny won for best art
[2:13:47] direction, Theodore Pistek one for best costume design, Mark
[2:13:51] Berger, Thomas Scott, Todd Bokelhider and Christopher
[2:13:54] Newman won best sound, and Paul LeBlanc and Dick Smith won best
[2:13:59] makeup. Oh, that's a lot of wins.
[2:14:01] That's a lot of wins. Last picture I was presented by
[2:14:04] Laurence Olivier. It was about 77 at the time and
[2:14:07] he forgot to mention all the nominees.
[2:14:09] He basically got up and went Amadeus.
[2:14:11] So souls, Anthon, listen to all of you the nominees during his
[2:14:14] acceptance speech, which nice to oh, nice.
[2:14:16] Right. Nice.
[2:14:18] I didn't mention Creedence. Though won't forget about the
[2:14:21] Creedence. Yeah.
[2:14:22] Orion Pictures promote the film by putting together a music
[2:14:25] video for Mozart Symphony #25 in G minor.
[2:14:29] It featured David Lee Roth as a conductor.
[2:14:31] It was put together using clips from the movie and footage of
[2:14:34] big pop stars at the time like Madonna, Springsteen, Bowie,
[2:14:37] Michael Jackson, as if they were kind of dancing along the track
[2:14:40] itself, which is great. I've never seen that.
[2:14:42] I'd love to see that. Yeah, it's quite fun.
[2:14:43] Yeah. It's the music that opens the
[2:14:45] film. Yeah, it's that piece of music.
[2:14:47] I thought it must be, yeah. Yeah, it seemed to work.
[2:14:48] The soundtrack album for Amadeus sold over six and a half million
[2:14:51] copies. That'll do.
[2:14:52] And it was the first classical recording to chart alongside pop
[2:14:55] albums in the US, Right. And of course, Rodney Amadeus by
[2:14:58] Fargo went the number one in 1985.
[2:15:00] Did. Yeah, The only German language
[2:15:02] song to ever get the number one in America.
[2:15:05] Wow. Mainly because it's a total
[2:15:07] banger. Well, of course, yeah, it is.
[2:15:10] Yeah. No Hasselhoff in there.
[2:15:13] Under the critics, and we'll start, as we usually do with
[2:15:15] Roger a bit. What did Big Rog make of Amadeus
[2:15:18] do we think? I reckon he loved it big full
[2:15:21] marks. Easily, of course.
[2:15:22] It was four stars out of Fall from Roger.
[2:15:24] Yeah, obviously, yeah, he said. Amadeus is one of the riskiest
[2:15:28] gambles the filmmaker has taken in a long time.
[2:15:30] There's nothing cheap or unworthy about the approach in
[2:15:33] magnificent film, full and tender and funny and charming.
[2:15:38] It was risky for former non souls hands to pay for it all.
[2:15:40] Yeah, yeah. Zach readings, obviously.
[2:15:43] Obviously. Pauline Kael of The New Yorker
[2:15:45] was less impressed and said Milos Foreman trudges through
[2:15:49] the movie as if every step were a major contribution to art.
[2:15:52] And he keeps the audience hooked by showing you Mozart as a
[2:15:55] rubber faced buffoon with a Randy mind, as if that were all
[2:15:59] there was to him. There's nothing but confusion at
[2:16:02] the heart of the movie. Oh really?
[2:16:04] Wow, that's a very confused and strange.
[2:16:07] Take rubber faced grinning buffoon.
[2:16:09] Jim Carrey. Exactly, I mean yes, but I think
[2:16:13] mortal would love. That, yeah, you would have,
[2:16:15] yeah. Yeah, and full marks from Empire
[2:16:17] magazine. In the retrospective of you, Ian
[2:16:19] Nathan gave the film five stars over the five and said a
[2:16:23] towering achievement. The film, so magnificent and
[2:16:26] ornate, is posing very human conflict on a grand scale.
[2:16:29] Self aware mediocrity versus blind talent, liberated
[2:16:33] creativity versus the establishment.
[2:16:35] Forman's period piece is worth every second of demands of you.
[2:16:38] The music's pretty good, too. Yep, agreed.
[2:16:41] The music is pretty good. Yes it is and today on Rotten
[2:16:44] Tomorrow's Amadeus has a critics approval rating of 90% and 95%
[2:16:50] from audiences. And then on IMDb it currently
[2:16:53] sits with a rating of 8.4 out of 10, putting at 73rd on the IMDb
[2:16:58] top 250 list. And that is one place below Coco
[2:17:02] and one above Avengers End Game. What it for you all that is?
[2:17:06] Yeah, yeah, it's Saturday night in, isn't it?
[2:17:11] Actually, another Marvel tidbit with Amadeus.
[2:17:14] Have you seen the first Iron Man film?
[2:17:16] Yeah. So Jeff Bridges plays Orbit.
[2:17:18] I asked in who was like a poor man's Tony Stark.
[2:17:21] There's a scene where he plays the piano and he's playing a
[2:17:23] piece by Antonio Salieri, right, Which is a nice reference, Yeah.
[2:17:27] Yeah, great. So Amadeus was released a
[2:17:30] critical acclaim and boxer for success. 8 Oscars, including the
[2:17:33] big ones, tripling its budget and introducing Mozart to the
[2:17:36] MTV generation. Yeah, not bad for a three hour
[2:17:39] period costume drama about classical music.
[2:17:42] Is it not bad at all? Certainly not.
[2:17:47] Sequels and influence. There are no sequels to Amadeus
[2:17:52] Milos Foreman never tried to follow this one up.
[2:17:54] No. I think this might be,
[2:17:55] thankfully, a film where you literally couldn't make a sequel
[2:17:58] even if you wanted to. No.
[2:18:00] No. Unless you do get Beethoven in
[2:18:01] there. Maybe.
[2:18:02] Beethoven. It's Bill and Ted called
[2:18:04] Beethoven. Yeah.
[2:18:06] But what about Amadeus impact? What kind of influence and
[2:18:09] legacy has it had since 1984, do we think?
[2:18:12] I think it's influences that assured that period films don't
[2:18:15] have to be, you know, painfully slow and very restrained in
[2:18:19] emotion and performed. He can view people in the 18th
[2:18:22] century the same way you view people today.
[2:18:24] And I think something like when Armando Iannucci adapted David
[2:18:28] Copperfield, that owes a lot to this because it's very loose and
[2:18:31] it's funny and it's warm. I think it's legacy is that it's
[2:18:34] a master class and how to take something on stage and make it
[2:18:37] cinematic to the point where you almost think, well, how would
[2:18:40] this work on stage because it works so well as a film.
[2:18:42] Yeah, exactly. Individual bits, I think.
[2:18:44] Remember the scene in Philadelphia where Tom Hanks,
[2:18:46] this character, was talking about the classical music?
[2:18:48] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's totally taken from this,
[2:18:51] I think, how they describe the classic music here.
[2:18:54] And the last thing I'd say is that Mozart and Salieri
[2:18:56] themselves have become shorthand for that kind of jealous
[2:18:59] relationship where one person is overshadowed by another.
[2:19:02] No, countless times I've seen character relationship described
[2:19:06] us or they've got a whole Mozart and Salieri thing going on.
[2:19:09] Yeah, and that's from this. It absolutely is, Yeah.
[2:19:11] I mean, poor Salieri. Massively successful, man, in
[2:19:14] this time, and now we're second best for eternity.
[2:19:18] Yeah. But yeah, the influence of
[2:19:19] Amadeus, it was pretty immediate, I think, massive
[2:19:21] success. It was an overnight classic,
[2:19:23] basically. And like we said, six and a half
[2:19:25] million soundtrack album sold. And Falco, obviously, I think
[2:19:29] this made classical music more accessible.
[2:19:31] Before Amadeus Mozart, was this like, dusty portrait than a box
[2:19:35] of chocolates? Since Amadeus, he's been like a
[2:19:37] kind of Rockstar genius from 200 odd years ago.
[2:19:40] Yeah. I think it proves the studios
[2:19:42] that period costume dramas can be both artistically credible
[2:19:46] and commercially successful without being pretentious.
[2:19:49] Whenever we see a film like Immortal, Beloved or Maestro,
[2:19:53] it's like, oh, going for Amadeus then.
[2:19:54] Yeah. Are we?
[2:19:56] Oh, my sort, definitely, yeah. So I think the DNA of Amadeus
[2:19:58] has been all over cinema since 1984.
[2:20:00] Every time a period film decides to be irreverent, or when a
[2:20:04] historical icon gets the Rockstar treatment.
[2:20:07] That's Amadeus I think. Yeah, I think it's for me when
[2:20:10] it's spiraled out and it's not necessarily about musicians or
[2:20:15] from an art point of view. I think if you look at the
[2:20:16] favorite by Yogas Lanthimos from 2018.
[2:20:20] Oh yeah. I think he's really trying to
[2:20:22] have that kind of spin on it where it's accessible but funny,
[2:20:25] and it's not necessarily supposed to be funny, but it's
[2:20:27] playful, I think. Marie Antoinette by Sofia
[2:20:29] Coppola in 2006 was very much the same, just that light tone.
[2:20:34] I get a lot of that from it. And when it is taught about
[2:20:37] composers, I think that can go for the heavy element.
[2:20:39] But at the same time they make it lighter and accessible, but
[2:20:43] they make the music really speak, which the doing TA I
[2:20:46] think from 2022, directed by Todd Field.
[2:20:49] And I think the music kind of really has something to resonate
[2:20:51] in that. So there's a lot of filmmaking
[2:20:54] elements and I think there's a lot of biographies that came
[2:20:57] after this. I mean, there's Walk the Line,
[2:20:58] Rear Elvis, Save Mr. Blank. It's kind of count this really.
[2:21:01] They've just kind of made, Oh yes, they make money.
[2:21:03] I think that's what Amadeus said.
[2:21:05] You know, make something, make it well, make an interest and
[2:21:08] doesn't really matter who it's about, it's going to make money.
[2:21:10] So no sequel to Amadeus, but in terms of influence, from making
[2:21:14] classical music almost cool to showing how to make period
[2:21:17] dramas that feel new, the film's impact has been felt decades
[2:21:20] later. Definitely, yeah, all the right
[2:21:26] movies ranking. And we've arrived at the final
[2:21:30] movement. Now it's time for our summaries,
[2:21:33] where we each rate the film out of 10.
[2:21:35] So, Westie, would you care to lead us in your summary and
[2:21:38] score for Amadeus please? Not a problem.
[2:21:41] This one, like I say, I came very, very late to in a matter
[2:21:44] of a month. Yeah.
[2:21:47] So it really had an impact and it really did work.
[2:21:51] First viewing I couldn't get past the laugh.
[2:21:54] Second view and I realised how important it was.
[2:21:56] Third view and you don't really notice it.
[2:21:59] And the more you watch this film, the more you learn from
[2:22:01] each character and seeing it from a different perspective.
[2:22:03] It's fresh every time you watch it again.
[2:22:05] I think there's so much that we've already spoken about that
[2:22:08] helps the film shine. From every aspect of the film
[2:22:12] making to every single performance in the cast.
[2:22:14] Nobody lets this film down. But at the same time, there's
[2:22:17] no, it's nowhere near pretentious enough to be this
[2:22:20] good. It is a really, really great
[2:22:25] film. And it's 1 you can kind of sit
[2:22:26] with with anybody, I think, and anybody would get something out
[2:22:29] of it. You don't just have to be a fan
[2:22:30] of classical music. It'll make your fan of classical
[2:22:32] music. You don't have to be a fan of
[2:22:33] period pieces. It'll make your fan of period
[2:22:35] pieces. It's one of them films that will
[2:22:37] change your mind. And they're quite, you know, few
[2:22:39] and far between. But when you come across them,
[2:22:41] it puts you in a mindset and it makes you feel a certain way and
[2:22:43] you leave feeling a certain way. And I don't think I can give it
[2:22:46] any more high praise than that. What I will say because I came
[2:22:49] late, wait, I can't give a full marks because there's always
[2:22:51] something else I'll get from it. There's always something else
[2:22:53] I'll learn. And when I've seen it as many
[2:22:55] times as John has, I'll probably give it a 10.
[2:22:57] I can't imagine that ever happened.
[2:22:58] Exactly. I'd have to watch it twice a day
[2:23:00] for the rest of my life and you'd have to stop watching it
[2:23:04] for the balance out and that's never going to happen.
[2:23:06] So I know that much. But it is very strong.
[2:23:08] It's a very good film. I would recommend it to anyone,
[2:23:10] but it's a solid name from me. Lovely.
[2:23:13] So we've covered the music, the visuals and everything kind of
[2:23:16] in between. And for me, to the surprise of
[2:23:18] nobody, I guess this is one of the great filmmaking
[2:23:21] achievements in Hollywood. We've seen these films before
[2:23:23] many times. It's fairly dull period biopics,
[2:23:26] and this couldn't be further from it.
[2:23:28] I find it innovative. I think it's vibrant and alive,
[2:23:32] like a human exploration of genius.
[2:23:34] I find it breathtaking, to be honest.
[2:23:36] The lead performances are crazy good.
[2:23:39] F Marie Abraham, one of cinema's great tragic figures in Salieri,
[2:23:43] and Tom Halls's Mozart giggling man, child slash genius Rockstar
[2:23:47] maybe shouldn't work, but does. Peter Schaeffer's writing uses
[2:23:51] structure and relationships to explore very human themes, in
[2:23:55] this case, jealousy and genius to a level I've rarely seen
[2:23:58] anywhere else. And technically, it's like a
[2:24:00] master class across the board. Yeah.
[2:24:02] Cinematography, costume design, production design, filming in
[2:24:05] actual locations where Mozart performed 200 years earlier
[2:24:09] still boggles my mind. Yeah, and the music.
[2:24:11] I mean, it's Mozart, so enough said to integrate that into the
[2:24:16] narrative. I'm still going on about it.
[2:24:18] I'm going to be on my deathbed dictating about how Amadeus
[2:24:20] weave music into the story. I found that spellbinding since
[2:24:25] I first saw it. Still do, always will.
[2:24:27] It's a theatre roof raising 10 out of 10 for me.
[2:24:31] Easy and mad. Your submarine score for Amadeus
[2:24:34] I. Mean taking the stage play about
[2:24:36] two 18th century composers, one of whom hates the other because
[2:24:39] of Chelsea, and tries to bring about its downfall.
[2:24:43] Put it all through the music. It doesn't sound like cinematic
[2:24:45] dynamite, but this, and it's all kind of slightly understated
[2:24:49] way, it really does explode off screen.
[2:24:51] The emotional conflict, the passion for the music of both,
[2:24:54] so visceral. Within 10 minutes, you're not
[2:24:56] thinking about the time of the topic.
[2:24:57] You're just involved in this story.
[2:24:59] You want to see where this rivalry is going to go.
[2:25:02] And that's because everyone is pulling together Foreman and
[2:25:04] Shaffer Holton Abraham, two incredible performances from
[2:25:08] them, and it gives the film this incredible richness.
[2:25:11] It's surprisingly funny. The devotion to the time period
[2:25:14] is done with just the right amount of reference, but not too
[2:25:17] much. Are there any flaws?
[2:25:19] Maybe the scenes of domestic strife with Stanzi later on are
[2:25:22] a little bit kind of wrote. I've seen this before and all
[2:25:25] would be where this one falls is just what we've all said about
[2:25:28] Ferry's films. It's excellent, but it's just
[2:25:30] not quite a personal favorite. So it's close, but it's a nine
[2:25:34] for me. Or had the patrons send in
[2:25:37] mediocrities. Now it's time for the opposite,
[2:25:39] the ATRM patrons. Should we see what they think of
[2:25:42] Amadeus? Yeah, absolutely.
[2:25:43] It's to be interesting. So Benito said.
[2:25:46] I remember saying this in high school and loving it, bought the
[2:25:49] soundtrack and listened to it non-stop.
[2:25:51] We watched it a few months ago and I had forgotten how great F
[2:25:54] Marie Abraham's performance really was.
[2:25:56] Yeah. Someone coming this for the
[2:25:58] first time after a long time must watch Abraham and Holsen be
[2:26:01] like, what the Hell's going on? Yeah, Yeah.
[2:26:04] Are these guys? Wait to see the films that were
[2:26:06] in after this. Yes you can.
[2:26:10] Kirsten Wolf said epic storytelling and masterful use
[2:26:14] of music, as well as the wonderful location filming.
[2:26:16] It's 10 out of 10 for me. First saw as a teenager and was
[2:26:20] devastated at the ending despite knowing it was coming.
[2:26:22] Stuck with me for life. Nice.
[2:26:25] Kirsten's reading my mind there, pretty much.
[2:26:27] Yeah, pretty much. And Scott B said a period piece
[2:26:31] that is definitely not a period piece from the viewpoint of
[2:26:34] Salieri as genius. Plus the music of Mozart, the
[2:26:37] plot, the characters, the dialogue, everything is
[2:26:39] wonderful about this movie. Can watch it over and over.
[2:26:42] And not just because I majored in classical music at
[2:26:44] university, right? So Scott knows what he's talking
[2:26:47] about. Yeah, he does, yeah.
[2:26:49] I wonder if he's infuriated by Mozart's genius as well.
[2:26:52] Yeah. So overwhelmingly positive from
[2:26:54] our patrons and all together they rate the film as What do
[2:26:58] you think? Tough one.
[2:27:01] It's overwhelmingly positive, isn't it?
[2:27:02] Let's say 9.5. Yeah, I'll call 9.5, Yeah.
[2:27:06] It was 9.5 out of 10. All right.
[2:27:09] Cool, there we go. So in total like it was Amadeus
[2:27:11] 37.5 out of 40. Pretty divine numbers there.
[2:27:16] Yeah, pretty big. That's just done, Amadeus.
[2:27:19] Hopefully you don't think it was too many notes.
[2:27:22] No. Too many words, sure.
[2:27:24] Yeah, of course, but still wasn't enough.
[2:27:26] Next time out, Luke, Westie and Matt are taking a very different
[2:27:30] journey as they travel with Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Sam
[2:27:33] Mendes down the road to perdition 18th century Vienna to
[2:27:38] Depression era Chicago. Quite the change of pace, but
[2:27:40] she'll be good. Yep, as always.
[2:27:43] Wonderful film. Yep.
[2:27:44] Well, in the meantime, to find out more about becoming a
[2:27:46] Patreon, supporting what we do, and accessing our archive and
[2:27:49] bonus episode, please visit patreon.com/all the Right
[2:27:53] Movies. Or you can subscribe on Spotify
[2:27:55] or Apple Podcasts too. Also, please leave a five star
[2:27:59] review on Apple Podcasts or any podcast platform as that really,
[2:28:03] really helps us out. It really, really does, guys.
[2:28:05] Yeah. Thank you so much.
[2:28:07] Socially, you can keep up with all the right Movies on X where
[2:28:09] we are at AT Right Movies, we post threads on there to tell
[2:28:13] the stories behind classic films and everything we post has been
[2:28:16] said by somebody involved in the production or come from three
[2:28:19] separate sources, which is the same as on our podcast, so you
[2:28:22] should check that out. Definitely.
[2:28:24] You can find us on YouTube, Instagram Threads, Blue Sky,
[2:28:27] TikTok, and we have a movie group on Facebook where you can
[2:28:30] share your own tales of genius or mediocrity if you'd like.
[2:28:36] And our website full of great features is all the right
[2:28:39] movies.com. And that's also where you can
[2:28:41] sign up for our newsletter as well.
[2:28:43] Definitely yes. Please do so.
[2:28:46] We're all off now to eat some nipples of Venus while pondering
[2:28:48] our own mediocrity. Come back for road to position,
[2:28:51] which definitely won't be mediocre and by now Ganassi
[2:28:55] seniority. Thanks for listening.
[2:28:57] Yes, Thanks guys. I'm not going to try that.
[2:29:01] Guys.

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