Great

Rating: Null/10 (6 June 2001)

My favourite bit is the part at the beginning, where Mozart improvises an "improvement" on Salieri's music - without even seeing the score!
This film may be seen as ahistorical - but if it is, it is based on old myths. Even Beethoven believed that Salieri killed Mozart. In fact, at one time Salieri was let into an asylum, just as in the film, claiming that he had poisoned Mozart. He later denied it. But nonetheless the film can be seen as historical in that Salieri is mad at the time, and watching the film we are seeing the past through temporarily insane eyes.
There are some indications to suggest such an interpretation is correct. For example, Salieri thinks he killed Mozart at the beginning of the film - yet at the end of the film we see he has done nothing of the sort - he mrely plots to kill Mozart, who dies of overwork and illness.
In other words, don't knock the film for being too fictional. It can be seen as a view of Mozart through the eyes of Salieri who is temporarily mad.
Jonathan Lim