Word: salieri
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Amadcus Mozart began his musical career at age three. By five, he was famous for his performances on the harpsichord and violin. At 26 he arrived at the court of Emperor Joseph II where he would write his greatest music, and forever change the life of court composer Antonio Salieri. For the decade that Mozart lived in Vienna prior to his death at 36, the two musicians were locked in an unspoken rivalry for the favor of both the monarch and the Viennese public...
Playwright Peter Shaffer selected this twisted musical battle as the unlikely subject for his 1979 stage hit, Amadeus. The story of Salieri an artist driven mad by his own in adequacy, entranced audiences--and Shaffer himself. Three years later, Shaffer was probing the dense story once more as the screenwriter for a film adaptation of the award winning play. And that film, which opened this week, is no less indicate provacative than the play--and perhaps even the musicians who inspired it. To the richly layered stage production, Shaffer--and director Milos Forman--have added yet another coating of deceit...
...story unravels in the confessional of the aged Salieri, an infirmed, half-mad man confined to a mental institute. In the opening scenes, Salieri, who has both attempted suicide and confessed to murdering Mozart, scorns the attentions of the young priest who is sent to absolve him. But perverse pride overcomes derision, and the musician cannot resist recounting the role he played in Mozart's demise...
...think of a time when I didn't know his name," Salieri remembers. And so begins almost three hours of brilliant film making -- a sequence of vivid scenes not only linked, but actually thickened, by the voice of an old man captivated by his own life...
...wonders: Can this galloping metaphysical thriller find an audience? For the vast majority of today's moviegoers, the 18th century is far more remote than the sci-fi 25th; Salieri is a loser from Loserville; and Mozart, he's the guy who wrote Elvira Madigan, and his first name is Mostly, isn't it? The film's $18 million budget may be less than is spent on many a teenpic flop, but it still makes Amadeus a ricochet roll of the dice; the film will have to bring in more than $40 million...