A fascinatingly rich and complex movie about mediocrity and, in religious terms, the faithlessness that accompanies it.
Here, an inferior artist (Antonio Salieri) tries to do a deal with God to provide himself with the superior musical skills of Mozart in exchange for believing in Him. This quintessential lack of faith forms the basis of a tale about the social snobbery and so called good taste mediocrities use to compensate for their lack of ability. Yet using music as a means of gaining favours from God is the false virtue that ensures the favours are never gained.
This story neatly encapsulates the issues of sacrilege, blasphemy and the resultant lack of humility of a man who hates not Mozart but God: For those who cannot create can only destroy.
Ambition is greater than talent here in one who recognises the genius he, himself, lacks. This is a clever riposte to dilettantes who think talent must be hard work and so desire to stifle genuine, facile ability. Leopold Mozart parasites off his son by refusing to allow him to grow up to solace the resentment at his own lack of achievement. Similarly, enviously rationalising fellow composer Salieri blames his own mediocrity on Him rather than his own lack of self respect: His Machiavellian conflict is more with his idea of God than it is with men or Man.
However, there's not enough here about the nature of creative genius – only Peter Shaffer's own envy of greatness. He says it is not genius that is akin to madness but mediocrity – the mad refuse to match ambition with talent (vainly avoiding personal frustration) by achieving the self knowledge (& self acceptance) sanity requires.
Copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
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