Amadeus: A Movie to Remember

How is it possible that a “dirty, giggling creature, crawling on the floor,” could have created such major works in classical music? It was a daunting question in the mind of Salieri, as portrayed in the movie Amadeus. This movie is an artistic licensed version of the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a musical genius, who began writing music even in his childhood, according to biographers.

The crux of the problematic, theme of the movie, is how does a man lead a life of sin and riotous living and still be God’s chosen, as Mozart was in regards to talent? One of the famous scenes of the movie presents Salieri talking to the priest who was interviewing him. Salieri wanted to be absolved of the sin of murder, because in his own view he was the main perpetrator of the death of Amadeus Mozart. The priest tells Salieri: “For God’s sake, my son, give yourself some peace.” But Salieri, ignoring the advise, looking the priest in the eye and says: “How well are you trained in music?”

The feverish mind of Salieri, in the end of his life, in the movie version, was such that he could not think any other thing but of his own competence in the face of a genius like Mozart.Salieri kept always inquiring the ultimate questions about life and death touching his obsession with talent and its correspondence with religious worthiness.

Mozart is portrayed as a drunkard and a self aggrandized workaholic, who excessively spends the family fortune in parties and other vanities. On the other hand, Salieri is viewed as a pious, dedicated, humble musical director at the height of his career. But Salieri is not concerned with outdoing Mozart with just the common trappings of success; what he wants is to be as outstanding and capable as Amadeus is as a composer: he wants to be a genius, he wants to be the musical “voice of God on this earth”.

Wanted or not, the movie spectator is unknowingly carried to examine his own life in regards to these personages: Amadeus and Salieri. Is Amadeus a worthy human being in order for him to be the receptacle of such a musical revelations? Is Salieri better than him as a person, and as such better deserving of the favors of God?

The spectator may ask himself/herself, have I succeeded in life? If yes, why? If not, why not?

Besides, the inevitable, most important of questions is asked, even though unspecifically: Is God a just being? Why does he allow a man such as Mozart, licentious and riotous in living as any street bum –according to Salieri–, be able to produce such remarkable music, to the point that it was believed he “had been touched by God”.

Indeed, the answer to the questions in this essay hang in the air, like the music of Mozart, like a “single note, hanging there, unwavering, until a clarinet took it over with such delight…” And so was the life of Mozart, who ended a forgotten man, with no earthly possessions, rejected by his own father. The only one in the end who stayed with him was his wife, who with his little son came back to him after a serious family dispute.

Salieri’s own answer was to reject God, for he was, according to him, unjust and his own enemy, for he never permitted him to be the possessor of such glorious talent as was Mozart.

Now: Is it really money the measure of genius? Is it the work of God to immediately reward our pious living, and to chastise the unbeliever? Is it artistic genius the result of a religious life?

And finally, did we live before we came to earth?

You, the reader, may want to answer those questions, for in them is hidden the understanding of life. Please, answer them with the heart.