Amadeus - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Amadeus or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Amadeus

[jesus]

Understandably, no major studio was interested in financing a three hour biopic about a classical music composer.

[mathew]

An important theme of movie is the change in Salieri's belief in God. That might be the reason for the title Amadeus, which means "love of God". Ironically, the word Mozart means "sloppy".

[willard]

When shooting the scene in which Salieri is writing down the death mass under Mozart's dictation, Tom Hulce was deliberately skipping lines to confuse F. Murray Abraham, in order to achieve the impression that Salieri wasn't able to fully understand the music being dictated.

[duane]

The original script for "Amadeus" saw a number of variations in character actions and roles: Salieri's initial suicide attempt saw him attempt to jump out of his bedroom window as his servants tried to coax him away from the window and back to his own room (at which point they, as in the finished film, break down the door and find Salieri wounded); Salieri's servant girl Lorl played a slightly larger role; Leopold Mozart took a more vehement stance against stopping his son Wolfgang's marriage to Constanze; and the Baron Van Swieten was cast as "Von Swieten".

[amber]

The only Best Picture Oscar nominee not nominated in either of the support acting categories that year.

[manuel]

This is one of only seven films to receive more than one Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In this instance, F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce were so nominated. The other six films were Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) for which Clark Gable, Charles Laughton and Franchot Tone were all nominated, From Here to Eternity (1953) for which Montgomery Clift and Burt Lancaster were nominated, Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) for which Maximilian Schell and Spencer Tracy were nominated, Becket (1964) for which Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton were nominated, Sleuth (1972) for which Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine were nominated and The Dresser (1983) for which Tom Courtenay and Albert Finney were nominated. Of the actors in question, only Schell and Abraham won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the relevant performances.

[brent]

Meg Tilly originally was cast as Stanze but tore a leg ligament in a street soccer game the day before she was to film her first scene. Elizabeth Berridge, Rebecca De Mornay and Diane Franklin were both screen tested as replacements, with Berridge getting the role. Milos Forman would later succeed in casting her in a costume drama, Valmont (1989), alongside Amadeus actors Jeffrey Jones and Vincent Schiavelli.

[kenzi]

The piece of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's music with the oboe and clarinet themes, whose score Salieri so deeply admires in the early scenes, is the Adagio, or third movement, of the Serenade No. 10 in B-flat, KV361, also known as "Gran Partita".

[steve]

F. Murray Abraham learned to read and conduct music for his role.

[ronnie]

In the movie Salieri deliberately sabotages Mozart, envious of the superior talent of a man he regards as morally mediocre. There is no historical evidence of anything more acrimonious than a friendly rivalry between the two composers; in fact, Salieri even tutored Mozart's younger son. The tradition that Salieri hated Mozart and was even responsible for his death comes from a work by Russian writer Pushkin, which inspired Peter Shaffer's drama on which this movie is based. Hence the saying "Salieri didn't murder Mozart, but Pushkin for sure murdered Salieri".

[albert]

In the movie Salieri is portrayed as celibate, having chosen celibacy as a way to thank God for his gifts. In real life, Salieri was a married man when he first met Mozart, although he later lost both his wife and his only son.

[claude]

The first Best Picture Oscar winner to also win Best Makeup and Hairstyling.

[liam]

The movie was shot without the use of light bulbs or other modern lighting devices.

[harry]

"Amadeus" joins a select group of other Best Picture Academy Award winners never to crack the box office top 5.

[terry]

The original Broadway production of "Amadeus" opened at the Broadhust Theater on December 17, 1980 and ran for 1181 performances starring Ian McKellen and Tim Curry. The movie was based on the Peter Schaffer play which won the 1981 Tony Award Best Play and who also wrote the movie screenplay. Patrick Hines was in the original Broadway production, but played a different role in the movie version.

[liam]

The filmmakers often used music with text that could be interpreted as referential to the pathos of the story, and several times in Latin. One instance is where Mozart yells at his wife: "Go back to bed!" The music heard starting in that moment is the Rex tremendae from his Requiem mass as the choir sings "Rex tremendae maiestatis/ qui salvandos salvas gratis/ salve me, fons pietatis," which translates as "King of awful majesty/ You freely save those worthy of salvation/ Save me, fount of pity."

[carla]

The play, on which the film is based, was first performed on November 2, 1979 at the National Theatre in London.

[marc]

Several paintings in the film are based on real portraits of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his father, Leopold Mozart. When Leopold is reading the letter about Wolfgang and Constanze's marriage, the portrait behind him is of a young Wolfgang, created circa 1768 by Thaddeus Helbling. The original painting is in the care of the Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg.The portrait of Leopold seen in the film, while made to look like Roy Dotrice, is based on and has a very close resemblance to a real portrait of Leopold. This original too is in the care of the Mozarteum.

[lena]

The Emperor tells of the young Mozart proposing marriage to his sister, Antoinette. This was Marie Antoinette, then Queen of France. Later - when talking about how "The Marriage of Figaro" may incense the people - the Emperor mentions that she has written to him, feeling "afraid of her own people". As "Figaro" was written in 1782-83, this foreshadows Marie Antoinette's eventual fate: fettered into constitutional monarchy during the French Revolution in 1789, and eventually deposed, tried and executed in 1793.