Amadeus Analysis

Amadeus Analysis

The scene begins with a low angled medium close up of Mozart conducting the a rehearsal of The Marriage of Figaro, giving us a sense of how important his character is. Mozart, in this scene is placed in the middle of the shot with a candle either side of him. The symmetrical shot makes the audience focus on Mozart and the religious connotations that come with the shot, as though he is standing at an altar reciting prayers. The music is so loud at the beginning of the scene that it overwhelms the audience in the same way Salieri himself was overwhelmed. The camera cuts to show all the actors on stage dancing; this also is as symmetrical as the first shot.
 

 The shot then cuts to a mid of Salieri and then his two accomplices, all three men are dressed in dark colours making our audience believe they are bad people compared to Mozart who is dressed lightly. In the shot with Salieri is in low-key light that also adds to our insinuation of him being a darker character.
 

The camera cuts back to Mozart conducting. In this mid shot, Mozart is still dead center and if you look up slightly you see seven chandeliers. One looks like a halo above his head, this helps us, as the audience believe Salieri's assumption that Mozart is indeed a vessel of God.

The scene moves on to old Salieri recounting what he felt during the opera, the non-diegetic sound of music picks up in the background and builds up as the camera flips back to young Salieri. Salieri's voice flips from diegetic to non-diegetic through-out the scene. Present day his voice being diegetic as we see him talking and the music taking on the non-diegetic role. But as the scene flips to his past the music becomes diegetic and his voice becomes a non-diegetic commentary.

The camera tracks closer Salieri as he becomes more miserable by his 'defeat', connoting that he is a childish character and prefers to sulk on his own, unlike his accomplices who are surrounded by people. The camera flips to the Emperor as young Salieri notices his restfulness and with that the yawn, old Salieri leans closer to the camera as he becomes gleeful at the memory.

The mise-en-scene is important throughout the film as time periods switch, audience get a clear indication of when each scene was shot, from the 'present' day Salieri to his past. Clothing is key in this film as it expresses who is 'good' and who is 'bad' just by the shade of what each character wears. Candles are key to the scene and so shows the audience that the time period was before electricity  but with that grandeur of all the sets that it must only be a few centuries ago.