Description: Mozart (1756 - 1791) was one of the greatest composers of all time. Antonio Salieri, a popular and accomplished musician whose talent could not approach that of Mozart, was in competition with Mozart for employment and recognition. Salieri's music was popular during his life and he was the court musician in Vienna for some 60 years. In the movie, recognizing his inferiority to Mozart and driven out of his mind by jealously, Salieri is confined to an insane asylum. The film relates Salieri's crazed fantasy of how he killed Mozart.

Benefits: Amadeus provides a thoughtful exploration of a moral dilemma: if you are talented, if you spend years in training, if you work hard and if you are acclaimed by your peers for your achievements, how do you react when faced with true genius that easily outshines anything you can hope to accomplish, especially when that genius is in the form of a vulgar little imp.

This film also explores the concept of music as the voice of God, a recurrent theme in Western civilization. In the meantime we are treated to Mozart's splendid music and to a glimpse of aristocratic life in Vienna in the late 18th century.

Possible Problems: Amadeus is not history. While Salieri and Mozart were rivals in some respects, Salieri did not pay Mozart for a requiem that he could pass off as his own. Someone else did that. Nor was Salieri implicated in Mozart's death, which was from natural causes. Amadeus is a creative work about the jealousy, rage and cosmic betrayal felt by those of us who face Salieri's dilemma.


Helpful Background:

• Before his death Mozart was obsessed with the idea that he was being poisoned by rivals who, with cruel irony, had commissioned the Requiem. With some premonition of his own death, Mozart worried that he was writing the Requiem for himself. Mozart's fear that he was being poisoned is discounted by historians who attribute his suspicions to depression and melancholy.
• The anonymous person who commissioned the Requiem Mass was a Count named Walsegg. For years after Mozart's death Walsegg claimed that the Requiem was his own work. Apparently, he fooled no one.
• Mozart was constantly in financial distress. At his death, he told those near him that his major regret was that he had not provided for his family. In fact, the wealthy of Vienna and the government saw to it that Mozart's family could exist in comfort. His wife was produced a series of concerts and sold his original manuscripts. She was able to pay Mozart's debts, live comfortably and accumulate a small amount of money.
• Mozart was buried according to his own instructions, in a common grave with several other persons. He was sewn into a linen sack and his body was carried to the grave in a wooden, reusable, coffin. The white powder sprinkled into the grave was quicklime, used to hasten the decomposition of the body. Mozart's internment was a standard third class burial, costing about eight and 1/2 florin. The customs of the time discouraged large funerals and the burial was sparsely attended. There were, however, memorial services for Mozart in several cities including Prague and Vienna. It was generally recognized at the time that a great man had died.
• Many cultures believe that music, particularly sacred music, is the voice of God. Many people still believe this. Other movies which explore this theme include The Jazz Singer.
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed some of the world's greatest music. He was a child prodigy who was dragged from one royal capital of Europe to another beginning at the age of four. From 1771 - 1781 he was concert master to the archbishop of Salzburg. He moved to Vienna in 1787 and became court composer to Emperor Joseph II. He died four years later at the age of 35. He was a prolific composer during his short life.
• Antonio Salieri (1750 - 1825) was beloved and respected by most musicians and by his public. He became court composer for the Holy Roman Emperor and later served as Kappellmeister (conductor of the court orchestra) for more than fifty years during which time he influenced most aspects of Viennese musical life. For a time his work dominated the Paris Opera. He taught music to Schubert, Beethoven and Liszt. Despite his success, Salieri's musical talent did not approach that of Mozart. Of the Viennese Court that Mozart served, only Salieri attended Mozart's burial.
• Joseph II (1741 - 1790) was Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and a patron of the arts. Founded by Charlemagne in 962 A.D., the Holy Roman Empire in the 10th and 11th centuries included Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Low Countries and portions of Czechoslovakia. It was much reduced in size by the late 18th Century and destroyed by Napoleon.
• In the 18th Century, great artists were kept on retainer by great nobles. There was a century's old rivalry between the Holy Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church. In Amadeus the Emperor and the Archbishop of Salzburg are shown competing for the services of Mozart. One of the reasons the Emperor decided to offer Mozart a commission to write an opera was to lure him away from the Archbishop.
• In the 18th Century, artists were strictly controlled. The stories they could present and the manner in which they were presented were subject to the whim of the sovereign. Thus the Emperor had banned "The Marriage of Figaro" and "ballet."
• "Il Signore" is Italian for "God."
• On a map or a globe, show your child the location of Vienna and its relationship to Germany and Rome. If you can find a map of the Holy Roman Empire, show that as well.

Discussion Questions:

Answer the following questions after you have viewed the film. You should read the questions before viewing the film, then take relevant notes as you view the film. Your answers should thorough and written in complete sentences.

Words and phrases: majesty, requiem mass, "Il Signore," vaudeville, censorship.

Discussion Questions:

1. Many of Mozart's compositions were so beautiful that they seemed to be the "very voice of God." Salieri was appalled by the fact that such beauty could be created by "a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy," while a person like Salieri, who worked hard and who had an excellent education, could only compose nice, but essentially mediocre music. Salieri objects to the fact that the gift of extraordinary talent comes from an accident of birth and has nothing to do with whether the recipient of that gift is a deserving individual. What does this conundrum tell us about God and/or the nature of the Universe?
2. Salieri was a very religious man. He called Mozart's music the "very voice of God." But then he burned his crucifix and said to God, "From now on we are enemies, you and I. Because you choose for your instrument a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy and give me for reward only the ability to recognize the incarnation. Because you are unjust [and] unkind, I will block you. I swear it. I will hinder and harm your creature on earth. As far as I am able, I will ruin your incarnation." What did he mean by this? Would you say that this statement was Salieri's conversion to the "dark side" of "the Force" described in the Star Wars movies?
3. Did you admire the Emperor for trying to learn music or did you object to the fact that someone of so little talent had power over people of much greater talent? Or did you have both feelings?
4. What would our world have been like without Mozart?
5. Did God (or the universal intelligence) owe Salieri triumph over Mozart because Salieri had studied hard and worked assiduously?
6. What was the moral flaw in Salieri's attitude toward Mozart?
7. Is the creation of beauty a competition?