In the movie Amadeus, Salieri was portrayed to be a very rich man, having a large mansion, great power and influence, and flocked by students. Most men would be content to experience such happiness. But Salieri is oblivious of that fact.
For him, that is a happiness he did not desire. It was not the gift he had prayed for, and the desire for that gift has made his life miserable. Since childhood, Salieri has been instilled with a profound passion for music. However, his father did not approve of this, and did not like the idea of him being a “trained monkey” (Drew's Script-O-Rama, 2008).For this reasom, he prayed to God, whom he believed to have given him the desire to be a musician, to “celebrate Your Glory through music, and be celebrated myself” (Drew's Script-O-Rama, 2008), in exchange for a humble and celibate life. After this did his father eventually die, giving Salieri the opportunity to study music and later becoming the court composer.
Upon the event of the “miracle” (Drew's Script-O-Rama, 2008), Salieri believes he has already made a pact with God—a testament similar to those made with the prophets of old, only that His Glory be realized through his music.Salieri told the priest that he did the part of his deal, that he lived a life of “chastity, industry, and deepest humility” (Drew's Script-O-Rama, 2008). He told him that he teached music to students, and many of those for free. He gave help to the less fortunate musicians and worked hard for music. He liked everything he did and was assured of his dream to “celebrate God through his music” (Drew's Script-O-Rama, 2008), until Mozart came.
Through his compositions, Salieri was eventually convinced of Mozart's superior musical genius, and with that knowledge, he felt that God cheated on him.He did everything in his power to Last Name 2 live the life as he had promised, and why did God gave him so little, when in fact he can give so much more? And despite his sacrifices, why did He chose to hand the gift to the underserving such as “a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy” (Drew's Script-O-Rama, 2008)? It feels as if God is saving a heretic from damnation and casting him in hell instead, and more than that, the heretic is given the privelege to enjoy the lofty heights of heaven. After this did Salieri turn into a kind of a vigilant.He wants to put everything, at least for his own sake, in his own hands. He belives God to be “unjust, unfair, unkind”, that He has no capacity of administering justice.
The belief was confirmed by the fact that when the priest told him that “all men are equal in God's eyes”, he answered with “are they? ” (Drew's Script-O-Rama, 2008). His world suddently turned into a pit of torture, and he became bitter. He asked the reason on why did God implant him with the desire for music “like a lust in his body” (Drew's Script-O-Rama, 2008), with a talent not worthy of immortal glory, but enough to mock his own mediocrity.He cannot conceive of His divine purpose in the course of events, except the feeling that the mockery of him would be to God's pleasure. For Salieri, however, things were not pleasurable.
He wanted vengeance. And he did avenge himself, but to his own regret in the end. We could also think of God personified first as Mozart and then as the priest, communicating with Salieri in quite different ways. Mozart could be compared to the Old Testament God in human form with both power and agression, while the priest could be likely compared to the One in the New Testament, submissive, yet comforting.Throughout the entire film, Salieri's feelings for Mozart has a mixture of both jealousy and admiration.
He admired Mozart dearly for his love for music, yet he hated him as well because he knows he's greater than him. His begging for forgiveness from his victim maybe due to him having learned to accept his own mediocrity or having missed a very rare musical genius such as Mozart, or both. Or maybe due to the realization that Mozart has nothing to do with the situation, it's just that Salieri fought Life and Life inevitably won.
