Amadeus: A Crescendo into High-Cinema

WRD 201: Style for Writers

Spring, 2025

This ornately gold-crested fictional biopic dives into the relationship between Salieri and Mozart, two clashing composers in the heart of Vienna, Italy. Directed by Czechoslovakian director and screenwriter Miloš Forman, Amadeus encapsulates nothing short of the meticulously organized chaos of a baroque ballroom. Pink wigs bounce about a crowd, donned by whimsical unicorn headdresses that barely shield this movie’s gnashing motif of greed and dark jealousy. 

Amadeus opens with a sprawled-out Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) sputtering in a pool of his own blood, found in his villa by two of his servants. In his hand, a knife; the late composer had attempted suicide. In a flurry of snowfall and footsteps, Salieri’s body is rushed to the nearest hospital, scored by the thrumming violin stings of Allegro con Brio—a striking piece from Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 in G Minor.  Because this movie details the lives of two of the most prolific composers, Amadeus' soundtrack has big shoes to fill. Despite this, Forman does an incredible job at maintaining the movie’s integrity by never straying from Mozart’s source material. The movie featured more than 20 pieces, including Mozart’s operatic compositions (i.e., Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni) as well as his original symphonic works. For classical musicians, the soundtrack is an absolute treasure box of sound, though even casual classical enjoyers can get behind Forman’s lineup of songs. The morning after his attempted suicide, Salieri is drawn into a confessional by a priest, where he states that he killed Mozart. With a haunted, warbling voice, he sets up the rest of the movie, launching us back in time to explore the lives of the movie’s two main characters.

Forman introduces us to these characters not in the swells of their compositional careers, but as two children. One, a pious boy, pledges chastity and humility at a church altar for a musician's immortality. The other plays harpsichord in a blindfold, plucked and pruned for a royal crowd. The first is Salieri, who, after taking the death of his unsupportive father as a miraculous sign to pursue court composing, becomes the tutor for the Emperor of Austria. The other is Mozart (Tom Hulce), who grows into the prodigal royal composer for the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg.  We learn plenty about these composers just through the movie’s artful cinematography. Never once does the movie feel inaccessible through abstract camera work, and instead, this movie encapsulates the warm, grainy charm of any other 1980s film, with its classic camerawork and artful angles. For example, when Mozart’s father comes to visit him in Vienna, Forman paints an unspoken power imbalance by placing Mozart at the base of the stairs, while his father, Leopold, looms at the top of the steps with arms outstretched. Visceral like these subtextualize years of resentment and jealousy in ways that dialogue fails to convey.

Mozart and Salieri formally cross paths in the city of music, Vienna, where Mozart is invited to write a Germanic opera. Their feud begins when Mozart publicly criticizes and reworks Salieri’s gift to him: a welcome march. In turn, a vengeful Salieri denies Mozart a job as the tutor for the emperor’s cousin. This pattern of rivalry continues; back and forth the composers go, upstaging each other as the years pass. To many, Amadeus’ success and Hulce’s performance as Mozart walk hand-in-hand. Hulce accepted the “David di Donatello for Best Foreign Actor” award, a prestigious Italian title that compares to winning an Oscar in America. It’s easy to see why; Hulce’s quirky mannerisms and iconic giggle are entrancing. No spoilers, but in the climax of the movie, Hulce deliberately skips some of the lines in his script to confuse F. Murray Abraham. This deviation from the original screenplay sets up a spontaneous but powerful improvisational moment that deepens Salieri’s character, where he slowly grasps Mozart’s methods of composing music and comes to terms with his arch nemesis' prodigal talent. After his success in Amadeus, Hulce went on to play Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, an acclaimed Disney animated feature. While he has since stepped out of the spotlight to produce musicals, Hulce will forever be known as the man behind Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Outside of Hulce’s achievements, Amadeus has received 40 awards, including 8 Academy Awards. It’s no wonder that among these accolades, Amadeus won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design in 1985. The costumes appear as if they’ve been stripped from a time machine that went back to the 18th century, adapted to fit Mozart’s larger-than-life personality. In one scene, Mozart dances at a party with an oversized unicorn headdress, while his wife twirls with a hat fashioned to look like the neck of a swan. Wigs were all the rage, and Forman leans into this heavily. Women wear luxurious pieces that pile up into the air by the foot. Mozart dons a notorious pink wig during the highs of his life, during his first operatic release in Vienna. Wigs aside, no dress or suit is skimped out on, and it's clear that this movie was a labor of love for its respective costume department. Even in the climax of the movie, where Mozart and Salieri’s lives unravel (you’ll have to watch to find out why), Mozart’s rumpled tunics and Salieri’s chaste black overcoat provide tasteful commentary on the mental states of the two composers. The movie ends back at the psychiatric hospital, where the priest, horrified by Salieri’s tale, slumps in his chair as the composer is wheeled away for his morning bath. As Salieri exits, his bitter laugh overlays the echoing, boyish chuckle of Mozart, and the credits begin to roll. As the movie fades to black, Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D Minor swells atop accreditations to Forman, Hulce, Abraham, and the talented production team. Overall, Amadeus is an arpeggio of swelling highs and lamenting lows, leaving viewers with the indescribable desire to don a fantastical wig and waltz to baroque music at a high culture ball— or scheme the death of your wretched nemesis in a candlelit studio, with your back hunched over the piano you worship.