Word: salieri
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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...
...story soon travels back to Salieri's childhood, when the Italian boy discovers his fascination with music. Pledging to pursue a life of virtue and piety, the boy in exchange requests that God grant him the talent to create immortal music. When a sudden turn of events finds the peasant boy installed as the king's composer, Salieri assumes that the heavenly powers have agreed to the bargain...
...this illusory compact is shattered in 1781, when Mozart arrives at the court of Emperor Joseph II. The older musician is at once disgusted by Mozart, who seems a spoiled self-important adolescent. When Mozart chase a giggly female companion into a room where Salieri is sneaking pastries, Italian composer inadvertently overhears the two exchange infantile jokes. "Say 'say I'm sick backwards," the musical prodigy insists, his words punctuated by an obnoxious high pitched giggle...