Between film and theatre, there lie many discrepancies in focus that set the two art forms vastly apart. In theatre, everything is exaggerated and enhanced for theatrical effect. There is much imagination and symbolism, while realism is largely diminished for theatrical and dramatic purposes, but also for budgetary reasons. In adapting a theatre piece into a film, these differences must be considered with great care, so as not to simply set in motion the filming of a play. The realism that theatre lacks must be sufficiently developed and captured on camera in a way that sets apart the two interpretations. With Amadeus, Milos Forman skillfully manages to balance and differentiate what elements make a film, and what elements make a play.
The realism that Forman manages to draw out of Peter Shaffer's play and screenplay adaptation can easily be attributed to the director's thirst for authenticity, which can be seen oozing from the pores of his 1975 film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. During production on Cuckoo's Nest, he had his actors staying at Oregon State hospital, where they had intimate experience with genuine mental patients, and where the film's interior scenes were shot. This "on-location" style of filmmaking served Forman well then, drawing out terrifyingly real performances from the cast, most of whom were unknown at the time, again adding to the reality and pretense of the film. These are the same kinds of techniques that Forman uses once again in Amadeus, made in 1984, roughly nine years after Cuckoo's Nest. The movie was shot entirely on-location in Prague, Czechoslovakia, which was under communist rule at the time. Foreman is also from Czechoslovakia, and his familiarity with the country allowed him to envision the city of Prague as being the perfect filming location for the setting of the script: Vienna. Because the country was under communist rule, the city of Prague was essentially decades behind in appearances and technology, which added to the authenticity of being able to film anywhere without danger of capturing anything too modern.
Watching the film, it indeed seems as if Forman and his cast and crew time-traveled to 18th Century Vienna, and began filming. An opening sequence set in a mental hospital was filmed in a neglected military museum, and the debut of Mozart's Don Giovanni was shot on location in the theatre where the opera actually premiered more than a century prior. In addition to the on-location filming, Foreman once again chose to cast largely unknown actors in the lead roles. F. Murray Abraham, who won the Oscar for playing Salieri, had been in the business for a time, but had never received much recognition. Tom Hulce had done some work, but Mozart was and still is his most notable performance to date. The performances, and the Prague location ground the film in a deep and magnificent realm of reality and drama that Forman captures in a way that only he could have done. He develops an atmosphere of pretense that his characters manage to mimic and parallel in their actions. Salieri pretends to be Mozart's companion, while secretly he consistently plots to sabotage his career in a fit of jealous madness. There is pretense shaded into the film just as it is shaded into the actual production, which emulates Forman's style and technique.
It is also worth noting that in Amadeus, the music of Mozart is the third main character. It does not suggest or dictate what we, the audience, should be feeling. It stands alone as an independent force of emotion, just as Jack Nitzsche's theme in Cuckoo's Nest does, and so it is no surprise that one of the film's eight Oscar's was for best sound.
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