Amadeus

In the beginning [I refer to the days when I used to solely write things on Facebook to distract me from the mundane corporate safety net I was in], I’d had some real momentum with my writing and as I was approaching the one hundredth artist review, I started wondering “Do I keep on with the artists? Do I do something else?” and without a second to think about it, I’d landed on soundtracks.

Why? *shrugs and looks strangely at you with one eye squinting* Well…there are a bucketload of reasons, but the only one that counts is that I love soundtracks and I’ve had love affairs with more than one of them in my time. Enough to warrant writing about anyhow.

It was a big question [in my head] as to where I begin with Soundtracks. The only reasonable answer I could come up with was “Well, at the beginning I suppose”. And so with that, I began writing the next chapter of reviews with the soundtracks that, in my mind, nearly trumps them all. Maybe its because we had this movie in the VHS cabinet during my youth, or maybe it’s because my Dad seemed to have such a connection to the film and music, either way, this film and the music that accompanied it have always had a very deep rooted emotional connection with me.

Amadeus has been called many things, but in essence, it is a goddam triumph from director Milos Forman but mostly…well, for Mozart really.

There is no point in me going into movie plots or awards it has won. I think most people know how powerful this film is, but I think that is why I chose it. There are great performances. Amazing direction and the costumes are magnificent. But 200 years after he graced our planet, Mozart’s music was the instrumental element in this film. [yes Mykel, I saw what you did there…].

For me, the entire soundtrack is beautiful. But it’s that first violin to begin the album on ‘Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183; 1st movement’ literally gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. Pretty goddam amazing considering he wrote it when he was only 17. In the film, it is also partnered with the panic of transporting a suicidal Salieri through the snow covered streets of Venice in a scene that is so beautifully composed that it warrants applause even though it is the introduction to this film.

What a way to kick of a story like this. When I first saw this, [it was made in 1984] I was 9 or 10 and as a sensitive young pre teen [yes, I wasn’t exactly the ‘Hard as nails’ type] and that first scene with Salieri on the ground, a blade in his hand and blood everywhere partnered with the look on his face and that amazing music behind it made a very, very big impression on me.

Now it’s true to say that you could reel off names like ‘Serenade for Winds, K. 361; 3rd movement’ or ‘Mozart / Requiem, K. 626, Introitus’ and I would be like…OK dude, Whatever. But when you put them into context, you recall such amazing imagery from the film and start to have an appreciation for how the classical world of music is so meticulous about not only the crafting of it’s music, but the naming of it as well.

For an audience in the early twenty first century, we are so often marrying the visuals with the audio that sometimes you need one to remember the other. More notably the soundtrack to Don Giovanni overlaying the beginning of the end for Mozart in the film that amplifies to something you wouldn’t get if you watched or heard either in singularity.

In short, I was moved by the music of Mozart via the cinema of Milos.

The other piece of music that so aptly reminds me of this wonderful movie is a powerful composition called ‘Mozart / Requiem, K. 626, Dies Irae’. It’s strong and demanding. Somehow perfect for a film that is its equal.

Milos never ran away from a great story. In fact, he was probably running toward them as others were figuring out how far away they could get. With films like ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest’, ‘Man on the Moon’ & ‘The People vs Larry Flint’ under his belt, you can start to see how he has a [tasteful] taste for the dramatic. But I think there are more than a few who will state that ‘Amadeus’ is his best….actually, I think it would be most directors best.

Writing about classical music is very different from anything else I’ve come across though. I feel somehow like a street beggar who’s found himself at the castle gates pretending to be of noble blood to try and somehow gain access to whats on the other side, which all seems quite…educated? I suppose for a very long time it was the music of the elites. In some way, it still is. And yet we praise the composers of yesteryear like they were the granddaddies of music but apart from Yo-Yo Ma, I couldn’t name another straight up classical musician to save myself. But I don’t live in those circles I spose. Like I said, I do feel a little like a fake writing about classical music because of what I assume is a vast and never ending sea of compositions by amazingly talented musicians, but its never stopped me before.

But really, the lines are very blurred. The likes of Phillip Glass and Brian Eno could easily become the new Bach or Beethoven. Even Nick Cave and Warren Ellis in their own right are more composers that cross to popular music. But for some reason, we’ll never hear the end of Mozart’s impact on the music world. Even when he was ridiculed in this famous movie that will stand the test of time, the real takeaway is that for a man who never saw his 36th birthday, he was simply a conduit for what music could be.

There are some people who just understand music like a language. Then there are those who are fluent in it. Then there are the few who can bend that knowledge into whatever they please. Then, there was Mozart.

I will say that as a side note, Tom Hulce [Mozart] was so fantastic in his complete upheaval of this character that you can’t help but love hime and how hopeless he becomes before his death. That being said, F Murray Abraham [Salieri] made this film the success that it was. But I’ve probably got one opportunity to say my peace here when I tell you that as a 10 year old boy, I used to hold a very big crush on Elizabeth Berridge [Constanze]. I could tell you that I don’t know why…but that would be a complete load of bollucks, because she’s cute as a button.

I’ve mentioned it in the byline at the top of the page that there will never be another Mozart movie. And in a way, this film is so good, it may stay true for quite a few years to come. But we live in a much more global community than in 1984. It wouldn’t surprise me, and I secretly am hoping, for a film production crew to somewhere, somehow have the nouce to create a film…but in German. As it should be instead of the Americanised watering down of it.

So with that, I will flash back to a brown woollen couch cushion in a small western suburb of Sydney where the TV still had a knob to turn, the V-Hold went nuts on occasion and the art wasn’t in enjoying such a kick arse film, but in pausing the VHS so that you leave out the ads for the playback. It sometimes makes me sad that they’ll never know the pain.

But really, no one is going to be sad if they never make another Mozart film again. Ever.

M /