MovieChat Forums > Amadeus (1984) Discussion > Little things you notice on repeat viewi...

Little things you notice on repeat viewings..*might contain spoilers*


First, allow me to say that I hate how IMDB removed so many great threads especially on this board. I remember having some great and in-depth discussions about this movie with the fellow users but they are all gone:|

Okay, small things I noticed but of by no means small significance I'd like to share:

1.the medallion Emperor Joseph awarded Salieri in the "best opera yet written" scene. Salieri had been wearing it from that moment until the very end when he was old and grey. It was by then the only thing he had to prove his glory.

2.Salieri's butler when he introduced Constanze the second time. You can tell he was displeased with his master but somewhat tried to hide it. But you see the struggle.

3. At the beginning when Sarieli started playing Eine kleine Nachtmusik after the priest failed to recognize his music, you can see from the look of the priest'e eyes that he recognized it after the first three notes. That's how catchy Mozart's music is. :D


4. After playing Sarieli's little march on the piano Mozart bursted out the "laugh". You see the Emperor standing right next to him fliched by the surprise.

5.When Katerina was first introduced in the movie, Salieri totally missed her hand when he greeted her.

6.At the masquerade ball, Salieri was carefulling examing the roasted cow/or some meat right before he was startled by Mozart's laugh.

7.Not a small thing to be exact. But Kappelmeister Bonno(a performance by Patrick Hines btw) looks like Krang from teenage mutant ninja turtles.

8.When Mozart snuck out of his house to have a little party with Schikaneder and some women performers. The tunes they played on the piano were all from "the magic flute". And when the overture was played, Schikaneder started puppeteering a skull to sing.

9.Pretty obvious, as the story goes on, Mozart's costumes, especially his wigs change from light to dark, a reflection of his life going downhill.

10. I can't believe it took me so many viewings to realize that "queen of the night" was actually in English and is slightly slower than the other versions I've listened to. I'm a bit confused as to why. You see the Don Giovanni scene was in Italian.

11. As Mozart was being carried out of the theatre during "the magic flute", you see the cloud and sky background used for "queen of the night", and 3 boys with in angel wings.

There are more of course. I'll add them later when I finish the movie for the 700th time. I'd love to hear what you guys noticed during watching the movie:}

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In the first 30 seconds, there is a woman seated at the asylum, dressed in red. She has the back turned to the camera, and plays card with a patient. It is listed here as a goof, since the dress looks like a jacket with shoulder pads. But I can't see anything other than a woman wearing a red dress.

I didn't notice her at first, but I see her now.

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Thanks for replying:}

Now that you've mentioned it, I see her! Her jacket looks out of place and her bob hair cut:o For some reason I'm a little scared.

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It also appears that she has a white wrist watch on her left wrist..

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Maybe she was from the future! If she came from the future and tried to tell somebody, she would have been placed in an asylum.

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I'm not sure if this constitutes a valid reply, but:
I've always been drawn into the early scene, in which Salieri says to the priest, "Ah, what about this one?" He then plays the intro on the harpsichord, stops playing and starts conducting along with the music in his head. The camera moves to the reverse angle, and we see the priest looking utterly bewildered, in the middle ground behind Salieri's hands. At the end, as the applause in Salieri's mind fades, he turns to the priest and says, "Well?"
The priest could not possibly have heard any of the flashback music in this scene or, indeed, in the entire film.
Most of the film is a flashback in the mind of Salieri. We, as the audience, have to make the leap of logic and imagine that Salieri's audience (the priest) is able to share in the flashbacks.

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The movie begins after Mozart has died. Salieri attempts suicide, feeling severe guilt over the death of Mozart, whom he believes he killed. He is taken to a mental asylum, rather than a prison, because there's no direct proof that he killed Mozart, who died of an illness. The majority of the film are his memories of when Mozart was alive. He is telling the priest the story of his life and how it involved Mozart. The flashbacks are entirely in Salieri's mind and the Priest is only listening to his narration of them. I love how they did this. It's a terrific style and format and movies don't do this anymore.

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@FloatingOpera7: Actually, they do still do movies in flashback narration. I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button right before Amadeus, and that is how it was told.

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I wrongly assumed it was Salieri who bought the masquerade costume identicle to Mozart's late father; and only just recently spotted it wasn't.

When I switched to the commentaries; director Foreman confirmed it was Salieri's servant.

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That's one of my fav scenes:D
Yes you can tell it's Salieri's servant. You could spot him from the scene where Stanzi paid a visit to Salieri.

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The HI subtitles indicate it is Salieri, it also sounds like him.

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They are talking about the actual rental, when we see the servant walk out of the shop with the box. Salieri's servant rents the costume. It isn't the servant inside the costume, it is obviously Salieri, as you noted.

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Interview With A Vampire is another good one

"If you mess with the King's Queens, you better watch your Ace, Jack."

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This style is literally the novelization of a movie-
should do more often

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do you ever think about just how tortured Salieri must have felt over Mozart's death? When he attempts suicide, he's old, but Mozart died when he was still fairly young, so that must have been decades of doing nothing but turning over that thought in his mind. imagine twenty years of constant "you killed Mozart. you destroyed God's beloved." over and over and over. and then he finally snaps

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1) When Salieri spies on/lusts for the yummy buffet at the Archbishop's festivity, and servants carrying more food get close to noticing this, he acts as if he's examining a candelabra to appear innocent. Cute. :)

2) Salieri likes Caterina despite everything still enough to let her play the title role in his opera we see, "Axur".

3) After Salieri is honored with the Emperor's medal for "Axur", the singers leave the stage and Mozart walks to Salieri. While the two men talk, we can see Caterina in the background explicitly stopping and staying to watch them.

4) During "Seraglio" and "Figaro", look in the front row - right in the middle sits of course Emperor Joseph, next to him - I think it's the princess Mozart was supposed to teach? - and then next to the princess ... there is a big golden chair -just- for the tiny lap dop of the princess!

5) When old Salieri talks about how he would play the requiem during Mozart's funeral and everyone would think it is his creation, he calls Mozart only "Wolfgang Mozart". Did he leave out the Amadeus deliberately to stress his triumph over the "beloved by god"?
But then I noticed Peter Shaffer also calls him Wolfgang Mozart during the audio commentary on the DVD. Is this maybe a bit of an English thing? Here (Germany) he is either just Mozart or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, never Wolfang Mozart.

6) During "The magic flute" children in the audience walk towards the orchestra in curiosity but then get send back by some sort of 18th century usher. :)

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But then I noticed Peter Shaffer also calls him Wolfgang Mozart during the audio commentary on the DVD. Is this maybe a bit of an English thing? Here (Germany) he is either just Mozart or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, never Wolfang Mozart.


I usually only see the full "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart" when it's written down rather than spoken. To my ears, it sounds a tad formal when said aloud, like a bigger introduction than what's usually necessary.

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You're mostly right, about this era, **after** the film "Amadeus" was such a sensation to America (and obviously to the rest of the world, since this had a large world-wide appeal, but I can only speak to the situation in America). Even in this post-"Amadeus" era, I still sometimes hear his "full name" without the middle name, but not as often as the true full name with the middle name.

I'm a baby-boomer, so I can also speak to the period from the end of WWII to 1984. The fact is that, prior to the movie's release in 1984, apart from fairly-serious classical music fans, almost no one had heard Mozart's middle name. Even if they had heard it, it didn't register as important and was immediately forgotten. [I was a minor classical music fan, and was in the minority of that group, because I had heard the name "Amadeus" and did remember it.] Even most classical music fans didn't usually use it. In general society, one only said "Wolfgang Mozart" when saying his "full name." Truth be told, the majority of the people couldn't even recall his **first** name.

Within weeks after the movie exploded on the scene, nearly everyone knew that Mozart's middle name was "Amadeus." By a year or so after the release, when referring to Mozart with other than just his last name, almost everyone added the middle name. The people's memory of the middle name was later exceedingly reinforced by the silly, annoying to many, but very catchy rock song "Rock Me, Amadeus." Since those two events occurred, almost no one has forgotten the middle name, and it's usually included when saying his full name.

Anyway, that's what I offer regarding this from my own experience and memory of the past.

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As far as #10 goes, both "Abduction from the Seraglio" and "Magic Flute" are sung in English in the movie because they were written in German. Since everyone in the movie is supposedly speaking German, they just translated everything that was supposed to be in German into English for the sake of continuity. Both "Don Giovanni" (written in Italian) and the Requiem (in Latin) are sung in their original languages, to show that they were a foreign language from Mozart's mother tongue.

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Very good point. Something I didn't catch.

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I just noticed that a small portrait of Haydn adorns Mozart's wall. I thought that was cute.

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Here's a good one:

I'm pretty sure that Saleri's servant in the beginning (the tall guy who brings him the doughnuts) is the same servant boy that Salieri has around in the flashback scenes. Just a little something I never thought about

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i always thought so too!

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When Mozart's body is buried in the communal pauper's grave, you can see fingers sticking out of one of the other wrapped bodies. It's totally unnecessary, but adds a touch of gruesome reality.

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After watching this movie for many, many years, it only occurred to me just a moment ago that there is no tangible reason for Salieri to believe in his old age that he murdered Mozart. What we see toward the end of the film is that Stanzi, Salieri, and Mozart's son are all present when Mozart dies in 1791. Thus, one of the overarching themes of the film is that people eventually reach a pont in life where they are prone to believe whatever they want to believe, and nothing will dissuade them.
















JEB BUSH IN '012 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Here's something else. Try to keep an eye open for the little ways Salieri tries to distance himself from his schemes to derail Mozart's career. A previous poster mentioned that Salieri's servant is the one who actually buys the black costume from the costume shop. Also keep your eye on Salieri when the emperor attends the "Figaro" rehearsal and wants to "see the scene with the music back." Before calling for the palace set, Mozart bows in the direction of both Salieri and the emperor who are sitting just a few seats apart. The emperor could easily, and correctly, believe that Mozart is acknowleding him. At the same time, Salieri is waving his hand to Mozart in a "low sign" gesture, as if to say "No, no--no need to be formal. Just get on with it." This could maintain in Mozart's mind the fiction that Salieri is working on his behalf and that it was Salieri who convinced the emperor that the music should be restored. It's quick, and it's subtle--but it's there.
















JEB BUSH IN '012 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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I might be wrong on this but one thing I remember from the last time I watched the movie was that whenever we saw an opera by Salieri the set design on stage was in dark colors but Mozart's were of bright colors (with the exception of Don Giovanni). Did anyone else notice this? The difference in colors meant to give the film audience the idea that Mozart's work was better then Salieri's.

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1.
Salieri: That was Mozart. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Priest: The man you accuse yourself of killing.
Salieri: You've heard that?

The glint in Salieri's eye reveals his desire, still, to be talked about and be the subject of gossip. This speaks to his character throughout to film. It's also a great little piece of acting.


2. When the priest first walks into the room and positions the chair, Salieri is improvising a melody with a simple chordal accompaniment. The melody and chords are not "resolved" (for non-musical types, that means they don't come to the natural finish you would probably expect)--this establishes Salieri as a character who feels incomplete, both musically and personally.

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2. When the priest first walks into the room and positions the chair, Salieri is improvising a melody with a simple chordal accompaniment. The melody and chords are not "resolved" (for non-musical types, that means they don't come to the natural finish you would probably expect)--this establishes Salieri as a character who feels incomplete, both musically and personally.


That's a great one. I think I always noticed that subconsciously but never actually thought about it. I guess that's kind of the point of the effect though

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