Eighteen years after the release of "Mozart", the main creators were interviewed and told a lot of short stories about the filming process of the year, which is the documentary The Making of Amadeus. I didn't see any translation on the Internet, so let me record it here.
1. In 1983, when the crew was filming a theater in the Czech Republic on July 4th, the National Day of the United States, so the filming site called action and played the American national anthem instead of Mozart. Hundreds of Czech extras also sang along, and the crew was surprised. . Only a small group of people did not sing because they were afraid that the Czech secret police would be among the extras. The actor who played Joseph II said that he thought at the time, when it was over, everyone would go to jail.
2. In 1979, screenwriter Peter Shafer took director Milos to watch the original stage play in London. Milos was reluctant to go because the musicians’ biographies were usually boring, but he was stunned after watching the first act. During the break, he told Peter that if the second act is also so good, I will make it into a movie
3. Peter Shaffer finished the script with the director in the director's home (Connecticut). It took 4 months to complete the script. He was locked in the house from Monday to Friday, and it felt like a prison. Then the screenwriter returned to New York on Friday night to enjoy the weekend without having to talk to the director, and then he was taken to prison on Sunday night.
4. The two had a lot of disagreement on the script and encountered a lot of trouble, so they just spent a few hours a day listening to Mozart together, and by the way, the music was allocated to the story. This process gave the screenwriter a lot of inspiration, and the music brought out the dialogue and many words. Is written in accordance with the rhythm of the music
5. The screenwriter made a request to the director, saying that he does not want music to become a tool for expressing emotions, but should be the precursor of emotions and the third protagonist of the plot
6. The producer, director and scriptwriter trio met with music director Neville Marriner at the New York Airport. Neville was about to catch a plane, and he only made one request, that is, the Mozart music used in the film, not a single note can be changed
7. Entering the casting stage, the main role in the film auditioned thousands of actors, and the actor who played Joseph II said it seemed to have tried for a year. During the audition for Mozart, the director asked F. Murray Abraham to play against him. When he needed to play the old Salieri, F said that he had not prepared for the old part, but Milos insisted on letting him play it. F wanted to try it. Then the storm played it, and the director was stunned again. A few days later, he told him that you were the first choice, and F said that you would directly tell me what to do next (to be sure to get the role), because I Still busy cleaning the kitchen. After a while, the crew asked F to audition again, and F said I don't want this role. The director then told the producer that this kind of talent is the Salieri I want, and both on stage and off stage have Sa’s personality.
8. Later, when I called F to confirm the news, F was already on the Scarface set. F said that when the news came out, the attitudes of the people on the Scarface set, including the stars, towards him were different, because he got it. A role that all English-speaking actors dream of
9. In terms of framing, the director only considers Vienna, Prague and Budapest, because only these three cities have similar 18th-century architectural styles, especially Prague. You can shoot with a good camera. As long as you don’t shoot street lights, you don’t need special effects at all.
10. The opening snow scene. Due to the poor conditions in Prague at that time, a large amount of artificial snow was impossible, and the weather forecast said that there would be no snow that year and it might have to wait until March of the following year. So the crew prepared two sets of equipment every day and prayed that it would snow at night.
11. The actor who played Salieri's servant said that he has a Czech friend and asked his daughter to bring him two pineapples and lemons to the crew to visit the crew. At that time, half of the Czech staff were the Czech secret police. Everyone knew that one of them ran over and asked him who the woman was doing. The male servant actor said it was a friend who sent the pineapple, and the secret police asked him if it was canned food. , The actor said no, no, it’s not a real pineapple. The police were shocked, and then the whole crew was shocked, because obviously they were the only two pineapples in the Czech Republic in January that year.
12. The scene of the mental hospital was part of a Czech military archive. Although only the first floor was used (there are military archives on the top), the whole crew was questioned by the secret police for a long time before shooting, worrying that they were the CIA. Undercover. In addition, it is rumored that there are 2,000 pounds or several tons of explosives in the building. The director said after listening to it, it’s great.
13. Salieri’s old age scenes have to put on makeup for 4 hours before filming. F said that the makeup process is so tiring and it doesn’t take much effort to play the old people well.
14. Originally, the role of Constanze was played by another actor. The rehearsal and everything went well, but the actor was injured when he was playing football before the filming. So the director met with 60 actors a day to find a substitute, and finally chose between two of them. At that time, the director said that the role should not be too beautiful, so he decided on Elizabeth
15. Elizabeth said that the first scene she filmed was about eating Venus’ nipples. After eating about one million, they all became nauseous. At the time, she was relatively simple, and she didn’t expect to chew and spit it out.
16. Joseph II’s first scene was to greet Mozart. He had to learn how to play the piano badly. Later he said that he could already play the piano perfectly badly.
17.Tom (playing Mozart) has to practice piano for four or five hours a day, and the piano practice room is opposite the director, so there is a lot of pressure. The only time the director praised his progress was actually the piano teacher doing a demonstration. But later I practiced very well, and even played the prom scene lying down by myself.
18. All opera plays were filmed in Prague. When the director, scriptwriter and producer went to see the venue, the scriptwriter suddenly disappeared. Later, the director found him secretly hiding in the corridor and crying because he just learned that this is Mozart. The place where Don Giovanni personally directed the premiere
19. In fact, the opera theater is a little dangerous, because the interior of the Prague City State Theater is all wood, but the crew has to light thousands of candles in it. The theater still chose to agree to them. Every day there are thirty or forty firefighters standing by. One day when Don Giovanni was filming a dialogue with ghosts, the peacock hair on the actor’s hat was really lit by the candlestick on the table. NS
20. Milos is very straightforward, but he never said wrong. The valet walks in the snow with a mirror and does not walk well. Milos said directly that "TV has ruined you". Then I will try a second time immediately. Director: "Excellent". His guiding principle for actors is that the less you say, the less confusion the actor will be.
21. Both actors were very different from their usual self during filming. Tom (Mozart) dyed blond hair and entered the role, so he was much more cheerful than usual; F (Salieri) wanted to keep the character of the role, so he kept a distance from the rest of the crew, but he was only in life. It was the cheerful one. Afterwards, the crew did not invite him to a party. In order to create the characters, during the filming, the two were not very familiar, and there was a little bit of opposition.
22. In the scene where Mozart was lying on the bed dictating the Requiem, both actors wore headphones and listened to the music guidance, because the time point when they described the lyrics and rhythm of the chords should correspond exactly to the finished Requiem. The actors are easily confused in this process, especially when Tom is going to be seriously ill, so F will really remind him to communicate with each other, just like what is written in the script. Later, Tom would secretly omit some lines and let F interrupt him to make him clarify, so that it seems that Salieri's character is not as smart as Mozart. Later, when F got the best actor, he said, if I have any regrets tonight, it is that Tom can’t stand next to me.
View more about Amadeus reviews
