Amadeus

This paper will take a look into the movie Amadeus, to see if the film accurately

depicts the history of Amadeus and the enlightenment of the characters. The time period

that the film takes place in is the 18th century. There is a mixture of social class in this

film. There are rulers and commoners shown in this film. The main characters in the film

which are Mozart, Salieri, and Emperor Joseph represent actual historical figures. The

film was made in 1984.

The film was somewhat accurate with the characters and the time, but for the

most part the film never stated what year everything was happening in. Someone could

tell that the time frame of the film was the 18th century, but you really couldn't tell the

exact year it was happening. For example in one scene where Mozart's father comes to

see him and his wife, we find out that she is pregnant. Later on in the movie she has a

child. There was no reference of time in the film. You can tell that months passed through

simple action like that one in the film. Another example would be in the time Amadeus

took to make his works. It's hard to tell how long he took to make his operas, the way the

filmed showed. As for the characters the film depicted them well. There were some

things that did seem right. For the way they showed Salieri to kill Mozart. Looking at

information on this, I couldn't find a fact to state that Salieri killed Mozart. As stated in

Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia "he died of typhoid fever in Venna on Dec. 5

1791; his burial was attended by few friends and the place of his grave is unmarked."

This states nothing that Salieri was the reason for Amadeus' death. The film is trying to

market the film as a tale of murder. But there really wasn't any murder in this film. More

like a man willing to die to finish something he believed as a work of art. The film

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depicts Mozart more to killing him self then Salieri murdering him. Someone could argue

that Salieri did kill Mozart by dressing like his father to make the final opera. But this

was Mozart own doing, as his obsession with having perfect music took him over. Not to

get me wrong the film did a good job in showing Mozart. It had historical value and

entertainment. This film can be viewed as a quick historical view of Mozart not a detail

work of Mozart.

Enlightenment is shown many times through this film. For example when

Emperor Joseph wanted Amadeus to stay in Vienna to make an opera he also wanted him

to stay because it would upset the bishop. There were also many ideas that Mozart

showed Joseph. Joseph allowed these works to happen showed his enlightenment. These

idea were seen wrong in the social class in Vienna, but Joseph still accept these ideas.

One example was the first opera that Mozart did for Joseph. Amadeus wanted to

do the opera in German. This was seen as unmoral cause all opera's were in Italian. Also

Mozart wanted to use a setting of Turkey. This idea was accepted by Joseph. The ideas

that Joseph accepted looked to be the most risky. These idea showed that he was an

enlighten Despot. Another example was when Mozart was plan on doing an opera on The

Marriage of Figaro. This was a very risquй opera. Mozart promised that it not going to be

a vulgar opera. Joseph again agreed to this opera, even do his subjects didn't agree. Then

during rehearsals there was ballet in the opera which was against the law to have in the

opera. This law was made by Joseph. Then after seeing the play without it, he wanted it

in because it didn't look right. He basically changed his own law, to the displeased of his

subjects again. Emperor Joseph showed enlightenment many times in this film.

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Mozart can be viewed as an enlightenment hero. He stood against the opposition

of the church and the convention. For example Mozart showed his displease of what the

bishop said by showing him how much the people loved him. Also Mozart's actions were

totally different to the social class. He was a vulgar young man that followed his own

beliefs. When Salieri was looking for him, he played a game with himself. To see if

Mozart's famous works can be shown by his personality. Salieri seen a young perverted

young man that he couldn't believe was the genius known as Mozart. This was a