Directed
by Milios Foreman, the eight-Oscar winner “Amadeus” is one of the
best movies ever made about the process of creation of music and its
creator, the composer. As indicated by its title, the film portrays
the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, focusing on his last ten years
in Vienna, narrated by Mozart’s rival Antonio Sallieri, the court
composer to Emperor Joseph II.
“Amadeus” is a movie where the creation
surpasses the creator and attracts the audience attention setting the
question “Who is truly the protagonist?”
In
the end of the movie, one may argue that the music in this film is
not just a soundtrack used as a background, which usually serves the
movie and creates the atmosphere of a scene adding thus to its
artistic value and helping enhance the audience delightment. One may
indeed support the notion that in “Amadeus” music’s name is
written in the casting as it becomes the protagonist or to use a
metaphor “a maypole” on which are tight and swindling around
people’s lives in an endless dance full of sounds.
In
“Amadeus” music acts, reacts, influences and changes the
characters lives, participates in society’s actions and activities,
becomes rivals weapon in the political arena and serves as man’s
mediator to God. Music’s presence in the movie is powerful and
ubiquitous in private and public life with orchestras, chamber music
and church choir employing all known musical instruments of that time
such as violin, piano, viola, cello and basso. At the same time its
role is multidimensional releasing emotions, delineating social
activities, portraying colorful cultural events, and revealing
historical and political disputes.
As
character, music in “Amadeus” is vivid, interesting,
unpredictable, independent, nonconformist and rebellious like any
form of art should be in order to serve its purpose in life as the
watch dog of society healing human soul, praising humanity’s
achievements and cauterizing its prejudice. In this sense from the
beginning of the play music shows its rebellious nature. It escapes
Mozart’s control and becomes an independent medium. Many are the
scenes in the play where in moments of creation music manifests its
self not as a product of thought but as an impulsive flow that spurs
out of the composer’s mind and leads his hand in musical
compositions written “without a single mistake” as Sallieri
admits.
Music
unfolds its emotional existence by expressing the characters’
passions, joy, sorrow, hatred, jealousy and obsession employing
different forms to manifest them. Every passion of each person in the
film is being expressed through music.
When
it comes to happiness and joy the dynamics are in forte or mezzo
forte, while in moments of sorrow there is piano and pianissimo.
Obsession and hatred are given in fortissimo and forte too, while
introspect and remorse is expressed with fortissimo, forte or even
piano. Music is part of people’s everyday life revealing with forte
and crescendo the fast pace of life in the bustling streets of
Vienna, while at the same time renders the soft whispering of nature
with piano and diminuendo that flows like the snowflakes that cover
Vienna in white and melancholy.
It
is music with its presence that reveals the fundamental truth of the
coexistence of life and death in man’s life. In the opening scene,
using one single musical piece in forte slowly changing into
fortissimo, music embraces both the agony of the spiritually and
physically wounded Sallieri and the joy of people’s dancing in the
great Hall. It is the opera Don Giovanni with its forte and
crescendo dynamics that expresses the remorse and dark shadows of the
past that haunts Mozart.
Finally,
music with a requiem laments death literally in Mozart’s loss and
metaphorically in Sallieri’s degradation and loss of moral values.
The Requiem is changing into fort and crescendo, but it includes
parts of piano where female voices appear and which is the softer
parts of the music.
On
a cultural level music manifests its presence as a powerful factor in
life at that era. With music as a vehicle we wonder to the
magnificent but austere halls of the Emperor’s court and
Archbishops establishment where music suffers by the suffocating hug
by a sterile church that allows only forte dynamics, a few notes and
no innovations. At the same time in private parties people enjoy
music in fortissimo which is also entertaining without restrictions.
On
a social level the audience is informed about the importance of music
in all aspects of people’s life. From birth to baptism and from
marriage to death, in moments of joy, or sorrow music is ubiquitous.
People hire teachers to teach their children music, become musicians
or musical instrument manufacturers to earn a living.
Last but not least, in the historical and political dimensions music
becomes the hero that using Mozart rebels against the Establishment
of that time declaring that Art in any form is beyond language
barriers, geographical borders or political disputes. Defying the
Emperor’s decisions Mozart will perform innovating for his time
operas. By doing so in the “Marriage of Figaro” for the first
time opera does not deal with mythology and its heroes or with
Saints’ lives and God but rather with contemporary characters and
situations. Emphasis is placed on the interplay of personalities on
the scene and special interest was given in the various ways
orchestra could be utilized to express the characters’ emotions.
Rarely
a biographical movie reaches the top ten of the Box Office and
becomes the darling of the critics. “Amadeus” which means God’s
beloved succeeded both because of its charismatic protagonist- Music.
