Amadeus - Marriage of Figaro Scene

In the scene of Amadeus ‘Marriage of Figaro’ it is Salieri reminisces about Mozart. We know its Salieri reminiscing because we can that the expression of the younger Salieri matches the older mans feeling at certain points.

The fact that this scene is a memory from Salieri things like the camera angles and light tells us exactly how things are from his point and how he feels. First of all the lighting tells us that Mozart and Salieri are binary oppositions. Mozart is bathed in light being in the centre of the shot whereas Salieri is stuck in the right side of a frame, in the corner in dim low-key lighting. The costumes also reinforce this by the colours and patterns of their clothing. Mozart is colourful with patterns and Salieri is in dark block colours. This is a reflection of their personality and thoughts. That Salieri is filled with darkness and hatred for Mozart and is dressed accordingly so.

The positioning of Mozart tells us exactly how Salieri felt about him. Although the older Salieri is telling us how he disliked him we can tell from the framing that he was jealous. Mozart is framed in a low angle, telling us that Salieri looked up to him and thought of him as superior. Mozart is put in a god like position with the background out of focus making him the subject, but so that we can still see the following behind him a lot like Jesus had. With his arms outstretched and light on either side symmetrically it gives Mozart a Jesus like feel, which makes sense as Salieri always said that God chose Mozart to speak through.

The fact that when Salieri is in the balcony with the low-angle camera looking up at him doesn’t tell us that he is the ‘dominant’ character but that because its from his own memory that Salieri thinks of himself as just more superior and talented than Mozart and he should be positioned higher. However as the shows goes on the camera does zoom in and get closer towards Salieri showing that he is becoming less and less relevant needing less and less space as a character, he is becoming unimportant even in his own mind and memory. But when the Emperor, who we can tell by the costume he is wearing, yawns we see the older and younger Salieri’s delight, reinforcing the fact it is him, which makes the camera zoom out and give Salieri more room in the framing to show that he then feels superior again.

The majority of the sound you hear is the diagetic sound of the music that Mozart is conducting, its loud and angelic so that we can hear what Salieri is talking about, so that we can be just as impressed and understand why he has his god like position. If Salieri was just telling the story and there was no music of Mozart then the audience would not have an understanding of Salieri’s feelings.