The IFC Center in New York’s Greenwich Village is currently showing a newly restored version of Miloš Forman’s Amadeus (1984) in commemoration of the film’s 40th anniversary. This re-release of Forman’s masterpiece is a cause for celebration not least of all because the original theatrical version has become all but completely inaccessible since the director’s cut was released in 2002 with some twenty minutes of additional lines and scenes. The director’s cut was not without interest but could not be called an improvement on the original in any way, shape or form – and some scenes were grossly inferior to the standard set by the theatrical release. The IFC’s screening of a 4K restoration of the theatrical version is to be welcome for that reason if for no other.
By Sam Ben-Meir
Comparisons between the director’s cut and the original theatrical release aside, what is of particular interest is the philosophical-theological significance of Amadeus, which is based on a 1979 play of the same name by Peter Shaffer. To get at this requires us to draw a sharp distinction between the history and the mythology surrounding Mozart and Salieri, and Mozart’s premature death in 1791, certainly among the single greatest tragedies to ever befall Western music. Amadeus is the retelling of a myth that holds the composer Antonio Salieri responsible for the death of Mozart at 35 – a myth that entered popular culture with Alexander Pushkin’s Mozart and Salieri (1830), a one-act play that was later adapted into a highly successful opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1897). Setting aside the enthralling works of art that the myth of the hyper-envious and scheming composer has produced, there is no doubt that history has done a great disservice to Salieri, both the composer and the man.
Though a cinematic treasure, Amadeus reinforces a false narrative about a composer who, while unequal to Mozart as an artist, was by no stretch the quintessence of mediocrity that the film suggests. Let’s not forget that in addition to composing some 37 operas, along with a large number of choral and instrumental pieces, Salieri could count among his many pupils such masters as Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, not to mention Beethoven himself, who saw fit to bring his one operatic composition, Fidelio, to Salieri for the latter’s critical appraisal. Notably, Salieri would also teach, without compensation, Mozart’s own son, Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart – born only four months before his father’s death, the younger Mozart would enjoy a successful career as a composer, pianist and conductor in his own right. In short, there is no question that Salieri exerted a powerful influence on contemporary composers. And, of course, Salieri had nothing whatever to do with the death of Mozart, whose life was cut short most likely from rheumatic fever, a debilitating condition that caused a horrifyingly painful swelling of the joints, and projectile vomiting. One thing the film does get right is that Salieri was Mozart’s only colleague to be present at his funeral.
Amadeus endorses another myth about Mozart himself – namely, that of the eternal child. Mozart had a penchant for scatological humor, as we know from his many letters. But the story that Shaffer tells must emphasize this aspect of Mozart’s character to sharpen the contrast with Salieri, a contrast of which Shaffer’s Salieri is not only conscious, but which touches the heart of what torments him.
And what is that? My claim is that to truly appreciate Amadeus – that is, to grasp what is timeless in a film that so easily brushes aside the historical record – one must realize that the story is not ultimately about Salieri’s relationship to Mozart, but about Salieri’s relationship to God. It is not Mozart that drives Salieri to distraction but God. Take, for example, the scene when Mozart mocks Salieri’s musical ability at a party, not knowing that Salieri is standing right there hidden behind a mask. Salieri exclaims to the befuddled priest: “That wasn’t Mozart laughing at me. It was God. It was God laughing at me through that obscene giggle. Go on, Signore” (that is, Lord) “Laugh… someday it is I who will be laughing at You.” In other words, Salieri’s entire plot is not against Mozart as such, but against God. Which is to say that Amadeus touches on the fundamental problem of theological ethics: it raises the problem of evil, but in a very particular and unusual form.
In its most basic form, the problem of evil simply asks how do you reconcile an all-loving God with the existence of evil, or suffering (which is the paradigmatic instance of evil in the context of the theological problem of evil)? It is the same problem that consumes Salieri, who feels victimized and betrayed by God. Amadeus is ultimately about Salieri’s struggle with God – “What was God up to?” he queries in exasperation. Before Mozart’s arrival in Vienna, Salieri is sure that God has answered his heartfelt prayers, and accepted his offer of giving God all he has (“my chastity, my industry, my deepest humility, every hour of my life”) in return for making him a great composer – but to his shock and dismay he discovers that God’s intentions towards him were in fact “unjust, unkind” and nothing less than abject humiliation. He is not furious with Mozart but with God, and it is not Mozart that he regards as the enemy, but God. “All I ever wanted was to sing to God. He gave me that longing. And then made me mute. Why? If He did not want me to praise Him with music then why implant the desire like a lust in my body, and then deny me the talent?” That is the particular form of the problem of evil that Salieri presents to the priest, who finds by the time Salieri has finished telling his story that he has no answer.
The priest is left desolate, because he finds that he is unable to answer Salieri’s formulation of the problem of evil: that God would rather see His own instrument (Mozart) destroyed rather than let Salieri share in the slightest bit of his glory. Salieri sees himself as being punished by God, much like Job, without any explanation, because he is able (unlike everyone else) to fully recognize the divine incarnation that Mozart represents. He can appreciate Mozart’s genius unlike any other, but he cannot produce music that embodies the voice of God. So, his torture is only that much greater.
In short, Salieri’s problem is with why God wants to humiliate him, when all he has ever wanted to do is praise Him with music, renouncing women for His sake, allowing himself only the indulgence of sweets – whereas Mozart was “dirty-minded” and crude: he drank, fornicated and could be found “wallowing on the floor,” like an indecent child. Again, it is a one-sided and exaggerated depiction of Mozart as irretrievably immature, but it serves the purpose of the story. God forces Salieri to watch as his music is gradually forgotten, while the stature of Mozart only grows over time. He sees Mozart immortalized while his own music fades away into obscurity until no one remembers it all. Interestingly, there has been some success in recent decades to bring Salieri’s music back from under Mozart’s shadow – and ironically, Amadeus was in no small part responsible for prompting this revival.
It is not the historicity of Amadeus that is, or should be, of primary interest, but rather its unique rendering of the problem of Job. The key to the film lies in the very ambiguity of the title: ‘Amadeus’ can mean both ‘one who loves God’ and ‘one who is loved by God.’ The tragedy for Salieri is that he cannot reconcile the fact that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is God’s beloved, the one that God favors; whereas he, Salieri, loved God and longed to be loved in return, but his love remains unrequited and all in vain. Instead, he is inexplicably punished like Job; but whereas Job refuses to “curse God and die” as his wife suggests, Salieri is ready to war against the Almighty, “to hinder and harm his incarnation,” not because he despises Mozart but because God Himself is ultimately heartless and cruel.
The film begins with Salieri’s botched attempt at suicide because he is racked with guilt for having taken out on Mozart his rage against God. To Salieri, God, not Mozart, was the guilty party. The film closes with the tables turned between the priest and Salieri: instead of the priest absolving Salieri and offering him God’s forgiveness (which Salieri does not want), Salieri absolves the priest who is, after all, just another mediocrity – and in the end Salieri speaks for all mediocrities. He is their “patron saint,” as he puts it. The priest is left speechless, because he thought he knew God, in the sense that God was benevolent and loving.
In the end, Salieri has the last laugh because he has shaken the priest’s faith down to its foundation. The irony is that in giving his “confession,” Salieri has in a sense been saved. Salieri’s confession has justified his accusation against God. In Job, God finally speaks in the end from out of the whirlwind and says in effect, Job is right. Don’t even try to understand or explain My ways: Job did nothing to warrant his punishment. In Amadeus, God remains silent, but in that silence, Salieri is finally vindicated.
Sam Ben-Meir is an assistant adjunct professor of philosophy at City University of New York, College of Technology.