The Czech-born American director Milos Foreman was once famous in the Western film scene for directing "Flying Over the Cuckoo's Asylum" (1975). The success of "Mozart" made him once again an Oscar winner. The film was adapted by the British dramatist Peter Schaefer based on his own stage play of the same name. Both were called "fantasy works with Mozart as the theme" by him. His jealousy", and the film highlights Mozart and his music. The film covers almost all the major events in the last 10 years of the 35 years of Mozart's life. In a stage play, music is only expressed through an alluding fixed tone pattern; in the film, music becomes the center of the work. The audience can hear Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro", "The Magic Flute" and other famous operas, several concertos and "Requiem" fragments. The plot of the whole film is unfolded in the alternation of Salieri's "current" regret for his murder of Mozart and the "flashback" scene of the performance. The original title "Amadeus" is the middle part of Mozart's full name Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, which originally means "beloved by God". In the film, Salieri wanted to murder Mozart, precisely because God was "unfair" to him, and he wanted to retaliate against God for his unfairness. Salieri was born with only one long-cherished wish: to be the greatest composer of our time. He once prayed to God: "After I pass away, let people remember my name forever because of my works." For this reason, he always vowed before God to be loyal, diligent and humble. Ironically, God made him a well-known European composer, but he let him live a long life and made him witness the obsolescence of his music. In the end he had to watch his own demise slowly with grief. In his eyes, Mozart was just a wild man, a silly idiot who loves to tell dirty jokes, but God has given him a genius for writing the "Voice of God". For this reason, he even threw the crucifix into the fireplace angrily. Here the director once again portrays the "rebel" he is passionate about in his films: a person who dares to challenge God. Of course, as far as the "rebel" is concerned, Salieri's antithesis, Mozart, should first belong to this list. This is shown in his attitude towards the powerful, in his social interactions with others, and even in his music creation. His work is very different from the monotonous music of the time. The composition of the drama "Le Figaro's Marriage", considered presumptuous and lawless by those in power, is one example. The play was denounced because of the potential danger of inciting class hatred, and Mozart dared to present to the emperor the novelty and ingenuity of his masterpiece, showing his unscrupulous spirit. But with Forman’s previous portrayal Compared with "Flying Over the Cuckoo's Asylum" by a "lunatic" McMurphy who dared to stand up against the iron-fisted nurse head nurse, "Mozart" has another difference: in addition to describing rebellion, the rear part also particularly portrays the same class of people in society ( Between Salieri and Mozart). Therefore, from the perspective of the content of performance, it does not seem to be accidental that this film has received special attention from the Western film industry.
After the film was released, it achieved great commercial success. An important factor is that it has certain characteristics of traditional American music biographies. The film is reminiscent of films such as "Spring on the Green Bank" (1938) and "An Unforgettable Song" (1945) in the 1930s and 1940s, and even the specific expression techniques can make people think. In "Spring on the embankment", when Strauss and Carla Donna came to the Vienna Bird Forest in a carriage with Carla Donna, he was inspired by the sound of birds and the sound of horseshoes and rhythm, and created the "Story of the Vienna Woods" ". There is a similar technique in "Mozart": When Mrs. Weber once reprimanded her son-in-law Mozart for being arrogant and abusing her daughter at home, Mozart immediately realized that her shrill humiliation could be used for reference to write "The Queen of the Night" in "The Magic Flute." "aria. But this film seems to have caused more criticism from critics in terms of historical authenticity. It is even considered a distortion of history and Mozart himself. The main reason is that it has exceeded the limit of general "artistic processing" or "artistic extraordinary". "Artistic exceptional" refers to those acceptable "extraordinary" in art works. For example, in the movie, Mozart and Constantze had only one child, but in fact they had six children, four of whom died shortly after giving birth. This omission allows the film to avoid clutter and verbosity, although this fact in Mozart's family life, if told to the audience, is likely to win their strong sympathy for Mozart. But some content is not, they make it intolerable for informed audiences. According to incomplete data records, there is indeed reason to believe that Mozart is short in stature, likes billiards and vulgar jokes. He also likes to spend money, spoils his wife and is enthusiastic. However, the film is intended to show that genius has its own unique character and is bestowed by God. , Mozart was turned out to be a binge-drunk and erotic. Another example is that "Requiem" was commissioned by Mozart under the condition of ensuring confidentiality, and it was not requested by Salieri disguised as Mozart's father. The client is an earl, and he wants to dedicate this requiem to his wife as his own work. So Salieri forced Mozart to compose this song before his death is purely fictitious. The notion that Constantze is not with Mozart at this time is even more fabricated. According to records, in the late autumn of 1791 Mozart was always "cared for by Constantze and his younger sister Sophie."
The film was also criticized for "deliberately" leaving the audience with an illusion. Some researchers pointed out that many scenes in the film seem to support Salieri's point of view: Mozart's arrogance and obscene words prove that Mozart is not worthy of his talent. Swearing was a commonplace phenomenon among the civilians in Vienna at that time, but the film gave the impression that Mozart was the only person who appreciated swearing. Similarly, when he happily informed the emperor that he had converted the duo in "Le Figaro's Marriage" into a triple, and the trio into a quartet, the film did not show that this joy was not out of self-righteousness. Better than others, but because he is willing to create humorous structures. And this kind of creative enthusiasm is the characteristic of Mozart's music. Another comment pointed out: The end of the film shows that Mozart was buried in a cemetery for the poor, but according to the record: "According to the customs of Vienna at that time, he was buried in a cemetery in the cemetery of St. Marks Church outside the city. "If the later report said: "There were no mourners at the burial, which was consistent with the custom of burials in Vienna at that time, but according to Jan 1856, Salieri, Smail, Van Switten and the other two The music house was there at the time. The wind and snow combined with false claims, the weather was quiet that day.” It can be seen that apart from the weather, the filmmakers did not seem to distort history. Naturally, there will be an illusion that both the deserted burial and the cemetery are regarded as a symbol of the burial of the poor. The scene where Mozart's body was randomly thrown on the ground and exposed to the wind and rain along with other corpses in the film actually deepened this illusion.
All in all, this film can be said to be Schaefer's "fantasy work" to some extent, but it is groundless and the fantasy is not unfounded. Pushkin wrote a satirical short poem "Mozart and Salieri" in 1830, saying that Salieri killed Mozart with poison (the poem was later adapted into an opera). Salieri’s following monologues are included in the play:
I am jealous, I am jealous.
My goodness,
Divine talent, immortal genius
It was not awarded to
Self-sacrifice, love, work,
Passionate and praying people,
But he just patronizes
An arrogant, a wanderer,
What justice is there?
Oh, Mozart, Mozart!
Another important factor for the success of the film is that the director has his own personal innovation or uniqueness in his artistic treatment. He chose a lesser-known cast, but their performance met his artistic requirements. The film is hailed as "the enjoyment of seeing and hearing". In order to enhance the historical atmosphere of the film, Foreman once led the film crew back to Czechoslovakia and filmed on-site at the Prague Tyre Theater where the first performance of Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni" was performed. The music and plot in the film are interspersed with emotion and imagination, including Mozart's above-mentioned series of famous plays and pieces of famous music. The music was conducted by the famous British conductor Neville Marina and performed by the "St. Martin in the Field" Chamber Orchestra. Mozart's music has effectively played two roles in the film: first, it serves as background music, which effectively creates an atmosphere; second, it is part of the plot. At the end of the film, the combination of sound and painting shows even more artistic appeal: the music is played by Mozart's "Requiem", and what is seen on the screen is a set of long, silent funeral scenes. This is really a touch of Foreman's magic.
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