Amadeus Analysis

The scene begins with Mozart conducting his opera in front of the emperor and a large audience, with Salieri in a booth by himself. We get a shot of the stage but it is concealed, acting as a POV from the audience and giving us a sense that we are in the film and closer to the performance. The music fades quickly when we see older Salieri, we can tell he’s older because he has aged quite a bit and is recalling the story. His voice switches from diagetic to non-diagetic when we get a low-angle shot of his younger self, looking down at the opera – this suggests that he is dominant over Mozart but as we are seeing the story for Salieri’s mind this may not be the truth. As he tells us “God will sing through this little man, to all the world” we see a low-angle shot of Mozart conducting in between two flames, symbolising religion. The next shot is of Salieri sitting in his dark booth with the light from the stage being the only thing that is lighting him up, suggesting that Mozart’s work outshines his own.  The camera pans towards the Salieri, suggesting that he is stuck in deciding what he is going to do.