Sali Rizahu Amedeus

Amadeus

The scene starts as a flashback from Salieri’s memory, as he is in an asylum confessing his sins to a priest. Its at the opera house and Mozart is playing, they music is they key focus in this scene it is over-whelming. Salieri thinks that Mozart is a ‘voice of god’ and he hates him for it because he is envious of his god given talent. When he is composing the mise-en-scene gives an impression of god  and religion because his table has two candles either side this makes him look like he is on a alter the reflects Salieri’s saying. When he his performing there is a low angle wide shot of him and the audience behind him are blurred out this shows that they are not significant in this scene and the director want you to focus only on Mozart and the icon music he is composing.  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.

Mozart’s character is contrasted with Salieri’s, for example Mozart is always within high-key lighting however Salieri is hiding in the dark in low-key lighting shots, connoting that he is a dark and mysterious character. when Mozart is getting better during his performance the camera tracks closer towards his character, but when he notices the emperor yawn, and he believes out of his defeat that he is better and is the chosen one by god. the camera gets further away, representing his release of tension.

Salieri’s voice switches from Non-Diegetic to Diegetic throughout the scene. In the present time, when there is an implication of him speaking, the voice is diegetic as we can see him on our screens. But when go back into his memory of the past, his voice-over becomes non-diegetic, this has the use of giving us a story-telling effect of Salieri's memories.