Vienna, the late 1700s. Court composer, Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) is at the height of his career under the Austrian Emperor, Joseph II (Jeffrey Jones). When he hears of an impending visit from musical child prodigy, the infantile and foul-mouthed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce), Salieri is thrilled, but then horrified to realise that Mozart’s ability far supersedes his own. With his position as the Emperor’s favourite threatened, Salieri concocts a plan to impede Mozart’s growing popularity, to ensure his operas never gain notoriety, and, eventually, to kill him.
Hamlet was adapted by Disney into The Lion King. Seven Samurai became A Bug’s Life. And here, we have Amadeus, which provided the prototype for Toy Story. It’s a tale about the old being threatened by the new, with the irony that the new is far more enticing, and more interesting, than the old. Does one maintain the old for the sake of posterity, or give in to an unconventional, potentially dangerous modernity?
These are the questions that Peter Shaffer’s adaptation of his own play purports, and it’s an enjoyable addition to the '80s Best Picture winners. It has the grandeur, budget, bolshiness and love for melodrama that is so synonymous with this era, which is refreshing after last week’s rather dreary entry. It also benefits from two great performances from the main male leads, which is necessary as their characters are the cement holding the whole thing together. F. Murray Abraham especially, who nabbed the Best Actor Oscar from Tom Hulce for this, narrates and drives the film with gravitas. I loved his background looks of discomfort whilst listening to Mozart play his own tunes, and make them better, and his unhinged mental state as an old man in a lunatic asylum. His proclamation of himself as the Patron Saint of Mediocrities whilst wheelchair-bound and surrounded by deranged and chained-up patients made me question whether we’re supposed to wonder if his killing of Mozart was real, or a figment of his imagination. A well-deserved win for an actor who you may have seen in other films without even realising it - look him up.
Tom Hulce (who also voices Quasimodo in Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame) injects genuine energy into Mozart, revelling in his puerile humour (Mozart really did have a love of toilet humour and swearing), his playfulness, and his arrogance as well. I certainly fell on his side in his opening few scenes in which he wows snobbish and unlikeable court officials with his ability.
The downside to Amadeus is how static it is sometimes. This is a lively, ridiculous tale, and almost entirely made up. Mozart drove himself to an early grave through over-work, over-spending and over-indulging. He lived a chaotic and cluttered lifestyle, leaving behind various gambling debts, an apartment impossibly full of furniture, and a legacy that had barely taken off. Salieri being the orchestrator behind his death is so daft that the film needs a lot more humour and flamboyance than it lends.
This is what the recent stage adaptation at the National Theatre offered. Fragments of scenery, ballet-like movements of the Chorus, and lucid, flowing direction created a dream-like, deliberately over-blown presentation of life at the Viennese Court. It was a prime example of how writing, acting, movement, lighting, music and scenery can all work together to create a sumptuous whole, and it was so good we saw it twice. The film needs more of this. The Emperor especially was a massive disappointment. He’s depicted in the play as an under-educated, egotistical philistine, who simply says “well, there it is” whenever someone says something he doesn’t understand (which is frequently). Many of his comic lines were missed here, and although Jeffrey Jones had a Golden Globe nomination for his role, I didn’t think he was putting in much effort.
Various sequences needed more life. A satirical performance of Don Giovanni; a battle over whether an opera includes a ballet; Salieri and an ailing Mozart composing furiously together. All of these had the opportunity to explode on the screen and provide more insight into characters - but they all felt flat and lifeless and, as a result, far too long to me.
Amadeus is great Sunday afternoon entertainment. It’s not too taxing, it’s visually quite stunning, and it’s got enough drama and great music to keep you entertained. What it’s missing is the sort of directorial innovation that the works of Guillermo Del Toro and Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina had, as well as a stronger sense of fun.
Highlight
Amadeus’ first appearance, in which Salieri moves about the room trying to guess who the infamous Mozart is. It’s a sequence made all the more enjoyable by the realisation that Mozart is the one pursuing a woman and making lewd remarks to her.
Lowlight
The satirical Don Giovanni, involving dwarfs, various horses, and acrobats, sounds great but doesn’t really do much for the story. It’s 5 minutes that could have been cut altogether.
Mark
5/10
The problem with Amadeus is that, as Paul said, we’ve seen the far superior stage production of this, which being able to fully embrace its theatricality, packs more of a punch. Here, they try to keep it realistic and natural which ends up feeling a little bit clunky at times.
The story is fab, it’s a classic tale of jealousy and ultimate betrayal and Salieri makes for a brilliant anti-hero, his fascination and disgust with Mozart in equal measures drive him to try and destroy him, while still unable to stay away from his music, visiting every show of his productions. In this film we see older Salieri recounting his tale to a priest - and this is an example of my issue with it. In the stage production, the actor playing Salieri flips between young and old in the space of a scene, addressing his monologues directly to the audience, shocking and appealing to us - the watchers - and making us consider his actions more deeply.
Here, there are moments of good staging - Mozart, dying, directs Salieri to write a line of notes for his ‘Requiem’. Salieri writes it down and then we hear the music as it is, highlighting Mozart’s genius at grasping complex musical styles and making it sound effortless. But these moments are few and far between.
I think I’m being slightly unfair, but it’s hard to applaud something even if it’s fine, when you’ve seen how it can be done a hundred times more effectively on stage. This is a passable film but the same material has been made electrifying on stage simply by the director refusing naturalism and taking an artistic angle. As Paul says, this isn’t impossible on film - Anna Karenina did this incredibly well, and created something fresh and fitting to the source material. Here they don’t rise to the challenge, but rather force the play into a natural setting, and hope by the liberal use of Mozart music on the soundtrack that we will appreciate his genius.
Acting-wise it’s decent. Again, neither the leads stand up to the National Theatre’s version, but Lucian Msamati’s Salieri was an extraordinary performance, and likely as not will never be surpassed, so that’s not saying F. Murray Abraham does a bad job - his performance doesn’t strike me as particularly awards-worthy but the Academy thought otherwise, and his ‘old Salieri’ is absorbing at least.
In essence, it’s a decent film that’s not going to stick in too many minds, but it’s a perfect example of when one medium is probably better - and here the National Theatre’s stage production blew this out of the water and didn’t even look back.
Highlight
I’ll always enjoy the moment when Mozart sits down, plays a little ditty Salieri wrote for him, and then improves upon it ten-fold. It’s a moment that would stick in any craw, let alone a self-absorbed, pompous court musician’s.
Lowlight
It doesn’t embrace its innate theatricality, forcing a play bursting with life and vigour into overlong static scenes that insist upon realism. Considering the Salieri-Mozart rivalry has been pretty much proven to be fiction, this seems unnecessary…
Mark
4/10
No comments:
Post a Comment