Mozart Change In The Movie Essay

The focus on Mozart in the film as opposed to Salieri in the play

The character of Mozart undergoes the most significant change from stage to screen. On stage he is portrayed as a genius composer but he is also is crude, vulgar, and a tactless young egotist who has absolutely no modesty with regard to his talent.

Not only is he the centre of drama but he is shown as innocent and naïve to the devious world of court politics and too insensitive to veil his contempt for the court and Salieri’s music. It is partly due to the influence of Milos Forman that Mozart’s character was changed so drastically in the film. Forman “envisioned a Mozart figure portrayed in a more sympathetic light in the film than he was shown in the theatre”. Peter Shaffer also agreed that it was necessary to “humanize him and make him more of an all-rounded character”.

Another change from stage to screen is the breaking of the fourth wall, which is understandably harder to present in the cinema. Salieri often addresses the audience to gain their support and understanding as the scenes shift back to the play’s present. At the beginning of

This development is the logical continuation of the changes that Shaffer had already decidedly made between the production and the film. The most important of those changes was the removal of Salieri’s servant, Greybig, who played the part of the masked figure in place of Salieri. Upon reflection, Shaffer realised that the presence of Greybig brought more disadvantages than benefits. With Greybig for an accomplice, Salieri had simply too little to do with Mozart’s ruin. In the film, Greybig is “replaced in full horror by Salieri himself as the agent of destruction”. (The play shifts to a movie about Mozart, so to battle that the role of grey big was removed to make Salieri come across as a more evil