Antonio Salieri, court composer to the Austrian Emperor, is eaten up by his hatred of the divinely gifted Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The film is about how a mediocre man relates to a genius. The mediocre man tells the whole story, and he understands exactly what he lacks and cannot forgive it.
Amadeus is a 1984 drama, history and music film directed by Miloš Forman. This breakdown covers 8 techniques (3 narrative, 2 sound, 2 cinematography and 1 psychology), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Chinatown uses several of the same techniques.
Telling the story through a character you can't trust, because they are lying, mentally unwell or fooling themselves. At some point, you have to rethink what you were told.
How this film uses it
Salieri narrates from an asylum, decades after the events. He lived through them twisted by an envy that had become a sickness. His Mozart is brash, vulgar and always laughing, which is possibly accurate and certainly exaggerated. You have to read between the lines of Salieri's bitterness to glimpse the real genius he couldn't bear.
Where to see it
Salieri's account of hearing Mozart's compositions for the first time. He describes divine music, and you hear it through the rage of a man who can recognize it and cannot create it.
Wrapping the story inside another story that turns out to be a trap or a deception. The listener, or you as the viewer, gets locked into the teller's version before realizing what it is for.
How this film uses it
The asylum confession frames the story, so Mozart's whole life reaches you through Salieri's wound. You get no neutral view of who Mozart was. You're locked inside the worldview of the man who destroyed him, and you have to judge genius through the warped lens of envy.
Where to see it
The film's opening. Salieri attempts suicide and demands to confess to the priest. The trap is set before the story begins.
Using existing classical pieces as the soundtrack, with no newly composed score. The music brings its own history, cultural weight and emotion into the film.
How this film uses it
Forman uses Mozart's actual compositions throughout, including the Requiem, the symphonies and the operas. The music is the film's score and its subject at the same time. You hear, alongside Salieri, the genius he can't match. The score proves the film's central point without a word of dialogue.
Where to see it
Mozart dictating the Requiem to Salieri on his deathbed. The music is composed in front of you, and the score and the drama become 1 thing.
Building the whole plot on one character's fixation with a person, goal or rival. Every scene ties back to it, and the obsession keeps feeding itself while it destroys them.
How this film uses it
Every scene in Amadeus connects back to Salieri's envy. His schemes to destroy Mozart, his calculated sabotage and his prayers to a God he accuses of cruelty all come from 1 obsession. The film never softens or excuses that obsession. It only takes it apart piece by piece.
Where to see it
Salieri's prayer of vengeance. He formally declares war on God and Mozart at the same time. His envy becomes a position on religion.
Lighting a scene with strong contrast between bright light and deep shadow, a style borrowed from old paintings called chiaroscuro. How lit a character is hints at their moral or mental state.
How this film uses it
Chiaroscuro is lighting built on strong contrast between light and dark. Miroslav Ondříček lights Vienna with candles and fires. That creates deep shadows where Salieri does his scheming, while Mozart moves through brighter, messier spaces. The lighting marks Salieri as a man of shadow (intelligent, hidden, destructive) against Mozart's careless brightness.
Where to see it
Salieri watching Mozart's rehearsals from the dark. The man in shadow watches the lit stage. The lighting shows his position exactly: he is a spectator of another man's gift.
Pairing the main character with a second character who mirrors them. The double shows what the hero wants, fears or secretly is.
How this film uses it
Salieri and Mozart are built as doubles. Salieri has the piety and discipline Mozart lacks, and Mozart has the divine gift Salieri desperately wants. Each is the other's nightmare. In Mozart's music, Salieri hears the voice of God, which is also the voice that has rejected him. I feel like this mirroring is the whole psychology of the film.
Where to see it
Salieri sight-reading Mozart's manuscripts. He hears perfection, and in the same moment, he understands that he can recognize it and will never produce it.
Giving each time period or social world in the film its own set of colors. You always know where and when you are, and the colors carry a mood too.
How this film uses it
Vienna's imperial world is shown in golds, crimsons and warm candlelight, and everything looks rich. The asylum scenes that frame the story are cold and gray, with the color drained out. The contrast lets you follow the film's structure by color alone. The past is warm and full of music and obsession. The present is cold, with only madness and confession.
Where to see it
The cut from the asylum's gray corridors to the first flashback in Vienna's gilded concert halls. The color shift tells you which world you've entered.
Repeating a short piece of music or a sound every time a certain character, idea or feeling comes up. You learn to connect the 2.
How this film uses it
A leitmotif is a piece of music tied to a character. Here, Mozart's own compositions do that job for him, like 'Non più andrai' from The Marriage of Figaro and the Commendatore scene of Don Giovanni. Forman uses the real music to reveal character. Each piece tells you something about Mozart that Salieri's narration can't. You get a second account of the man that goes around the unreliable narrator.
Where to see it
The performance of Don Giovanni. The music plays as Mozart's self-portrait, and Salieri hears it at the same time as an accusation.
Questions
Amadeus: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Amadeus use?
CineCode breaks down 8 techniques in Amadeus (1984): Unreliable Narrator, Frame Narrative as Trap, Classical Music as Score, Obsession as Structural Engine, Chiaroscuro Lighting, Psychological Doubling, Period Color Separation and Leitmotif.
Who directed Amadeus?
Miloš Forman directed Amadeus, released in 1984. CineCode also covers One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Man on the Moon (1999).
What films are similar to Amadeus?
Films that share techniques with Amadeus include Chinatown (1974), Citizen Kane (1941), The Power of the Dog (2021), Black Swan (2010).
