Wolfgang Amadeus, By Milos Fomran

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is recognized as one of the greatest and most relevant composers in the history of classical music. Born into a musical family, he wrote, composed, and excelled in all of the musical genres of his day and time. He traveled around Europe with his father and sister playing for various people and composers impressing everyone he came across. Although his music is a different style than we're used to today, it still lives on by being studied and taught to musicians worldwide. The movie "Amadeus" directed by Milos Fomran looked to portray every aspect of Mozart's life and his relationships with other composers of his time, specifically Antonio Salieri. The movie begins in the early 1800's with Antonio Salieri trying to

I never knew how off the wall he was and how crazy some of his actions were. All I have ever known of Mozart was how special his music was and how he was a genius but the viewer truly gets a glimpse of how he really was and his true personality. In the beginning parts of the movie, Salieri notcies Mozart and his crazy personality. But this is where he also first acknowledges the enormous talent that Mozart has. This is where we really see when Salieri forms his love hate relationship with Mozart. A theme or philosophical issue I picked up right off the bat with their relationship was the distinction between Nietzsche's Apollonian and Dionysian forces. The book explains the Dionysian force as "unrestrained and continuous force within life itself" or chaos and intoxication (Cooney,123). The apollonian side creates order out of the chaos and represents organization and individuation. I see Mozart representing the Dionysian force with his chaotic and almost immature personality while Salieri can be seen representing the Apollonian side because although he gets jealous of Mozart, he shows that he is a more organized individual while trying to show his dominance over a "chaotic" person. This is when we slowly but surely begin to see Salieri questioning his relationship with God. He seems to wonder how a person with the personality and immaturity of Mozart have the talent and compose the music that he does. Overtime, Salieris faith is shaken. He begins to wonder if God is mocking him by giving all the talent and fame to Mozart. The film shows Salieri's battles with God while it also shows Mozart dealing with his own personal problems going on in his life. Mozart becomes more and more concerned with his financial problems and Salieri looks to prey upon that