\nClose observers of theatre hardly can be faulted for their curiosity, if not
\ndownright concern, when a significant work for the stage is adapted for the
\nmovie screen. Transplanting plays to film always has been chancy, with rather
\nmore misses than hits. One can point to exceptions, of course, such as movies
\nmade of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Tennessee
\nWilliams’s Streetcar Named Desire, John Osborne’s The Entertainer, Harold
\nPinter’s Betrayal, Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth, Ronald Harwood’s The Dresser,
\nand a handful of others. But even in these instances, the acclaim typically is
\ncritical rather than popular in the commercial sense. 1 While one lists successes
\nsuch as these, one also must be conscious of the far greater number of
\ndisappointing movie adaptations made from hit dramas.
\nNor, incidentally, is the general situation much different with novels on the
\nscreen. Possibly the more amorphous shapes of fiction permit the novel to be
\n“massaged” more readily to fit requirements of the film medium. That capacity
\nwould help to explain why movies based on novels have proved aesthetically
\nsatisfying with greater frequency. The success ratio of fiction into film
\ntherefore stands arguably higher than that of drama. 2 The irony is unavoidable,
\nthen, that despite obvious affinities of dialogue, scenic structure, and the rest,
\ndrama ends up more resistant than fiction to the format of motion pictures. 3
\nWhy are dramas so difficult to transfer happily to the silver screen? What
\nunique hurdles stand before a screenwriter when adapting a proven stage
\nvehicle for the movies? If the conceptual essence is cored out in a film version,
\nwhy would (or should) a successful writer submit his creations to commercial
\nmoviemakers? Or, stated differently, what aesthetic compensations make it
\nworthwhile for a distinguished author to relinquish his work to Hollywood?
\nThese questions form the general subject of our discussion.
\nThe larger issue of interconnected cinematic aesthetics and techniques
\nadmittedly invites abstract theorizing, a problem we hope to avert by tightening
\nC.J. GIANAKAR1S
\nour focus to a single major writer and his situation. As case in point, we shall
\ncenter our attention on the plays of Peter Shaffer. More explicitly, Amadeus
\nwill serve as our chief illustration among Shaffer’s plays, because it recently
\nwas adapted into a high-budget motion picture under the guidance of
\nAcademy-Award-winning director Milos Forman. Our concentration on the
\nShaffer situation should permit us, through a process of induction, to reach
\nanswers to some of the broader questions posed above. Further, focusing on
\nShaffer allows us rich examples with which to work. First, Shaffer already has
\ndistinguished himself as one of the premium playwrights of our day.
\nAccordingly, on an auxiliary level, a consideration of his works as films should
\nshed valuable light on his stage techniques as well. Second, his case is
\npotentially rewarding because so many of his hit dramas have been chosen by
\nfilm producers for conversion to the movie theatre, thereby providing multiple
\nillustrations for reference. Third, it is especially worthwhile for purposes of
\ncomparison that Shaffer himself was the adapter for two of his recent plays
\nrefashioned as films. Changes in one form from the other obviously can be very
\ninformative within logistical and aesthetic perspectives.
\nFinally, and most thought-provoking, the Shaffer situation offers an
\nopportunity to observe firsthand potential pitfalls in the adapting of literary
\ntriumphs for the screen. Most of the movies made of Shaffer’s plays have fallen
\nfar short of the popUlarity – and excellence – of his original pieces. To
\nillustrate, the roster of Shaffer’s works turned into motion pictures is long and
\ndistinguished. It includes Five Finger Exercise (movie, 1962), The Royal Hunt
\nof the Sun (movie, 1968), The Private Ear and The Public Eye (movies, 1972),
\nEquus (movie, 1977), and now Amadeus (movie, 1984). Nor have the casts
\nassigned to these films lacked for talented stars, among them Rosalind Russell,
\nJack Hawkins, Maximillian Schell, Christopher Plummer, Robert Shaw,
\nRichard Burton, Peter Firth, and F. Murray Abraham. To baffle casual
\nspeculation further, whereas the earlier movie scripts were written by different
\nscreenwriters, both Equus and Amadeus were adapted as screenplays by
\nShaffer himself. We thus return to a specific question, whose answers we can
\nemploy to extrapolate more general conclusions: aside from Amadeus , how can
\nShaffer’s enormously popular theatre dramas., featuring first-rate actors in
\ntheir cinematic versions, nevertheless fail to distinguish themselves in the
\nmovie theatre?
\nIn Shaffer’s case, the pathway to involvement in the movie medium has
\nbeen bumpy and strewed with disappointments. Until the making of the
\nAmadeus film, there has been little to cheer Shaffer about films drawn from his
\ndramas. The first of such adaptations for the screen, Five Finger Exercise,
\ncame off as lackluster. The second, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, was just
\ndreadful as a result of the mishmash of acting and directorial styles. Another,
\nEquus, though powerful in certain respects, emerged all the same as fatally
\nflawed because of misguided decisions by the director. Moviemakers, and film
\nDrama into Film: The Shaffer Situation 85
\ndirectors especially, seem puzzled about how to capture Shaffer’s highly
\ntheatrical plays on celluloid. It is little wonder that in my own earliest
\nconversations with him, Shaffer expressed misgivings about trying his luck
\nagain with movies. 4 As late as 1982, he continued to dismiss anyone’s giving
\nserious consideration to those earlier disappointing movie attempts with his
\nplays. In correspondence that year, he wrote with total sincerity: “Really, I
\nthink my films are best left alone. They are all terrible …. They bore and
\ndepress me, even in retrospect.,,5 On a related matter, Shaffer also has made it
\nclear that he does not necessarily need or expect his plays to be transformed into
\nfilms in the first place. When asked about Amadeus before the movie project
\nwas announced, he said: “I don’t accept the notion that if a play is successful it’s
\ngot to automatically be turned into a film.,,6 Before the deal was struck for the
\nAmadeus movie version, then, we have no reason to think that Shaffer was
\neager to return to the movie wars. Quite the contrary. He was apprehensive and
\nskeptical about such prospects, and he had to be convinced.
\nThe absence of effective cinematic equivalents for Shaffer’s source plays is
\nimplicit in the earlier failed films of his works. Shaffer’s cautious attitude
\ntoward future movie adaptations emphasizes the tacit tug of war that occurs
\nwhen any literary success is made subject for the screen. In the present
\ndiscussion, we cannot do justice to the range of complex elements entering the
\nprocess of adaptation in moviemaking. Nevertheless, to reach a fair and helpful
\nassessment not only of Shaffer’s situation, but of the universal problems
\ninvolved in film adaptations, we shall codify a few fundamental truths about the
\nadapting operation. This exercise should produce a frame of reference for the
\nseparate and frequently competing value structures inherent in shooting movies
\nand writing dramas.
\nThe differences in aesthetic premises underlying live stage productions and
\nmotion pictures provide endless fascination to theorists of both modes. Each
\nmedium – not surprisingly – seeks to take fullest advantage of its own unique
\nstrengths; and conflicts arise when the artistic values of the two collide. In
\nshort, we might say that differing values lead to competition between two
\ncontending approaches for representing the drama scene. In a stimulating study
\nentitled Cineliteracy [:] Film Among the Arts, Charles Eidsvik phrases the
\nmatter this way: “Cinematic innovators from Griffith to Bergman .. , have
\nattempted not to imitate theater but to do what the theater can do while
\nexploiting to the maximum their resources as film makers.,,7
\nWhat are some of these discrete values which can become the basis for
\ncontention between allied dramatic arts? At the risk of damaging oversimplification,
\nlet us try framing the situation thus: motion pictures are primarily (not
\nexclusively) a visual medium; theatre is primarily (not exclusively) verbal,
\nhence largely metaphoric. Theorists such as Panofsky, Kracauer, Bazin,
\nEidsvik, and even Canby suggest obvious corollaries. Among the most
\nself-evident is that motion pictures emphasize “motion” and “pictures”: they
\n86 C.J. GIANAKARIS
\nexcel at creating a visual reality realistically. Their natural zone of greatest
\neffectiveness involves that part of the physical world that can be seen and
\nknown phenomenologically. The live stage, on the other hand, best exploits its
\nnatural potential when creating a fictionalized reality metaphorically. Its forte
\nlies within the realm of thought and speculation – the “what if’s” in life. 8
\nConsequently, in an important way, we can identify the problem as a factor of
\nthe degree of realism in the source drama and the resulting picture.
\nVincent Canby, an articulate spokesman for both film and theatre, recently
\nconsidered this sensitive relationship between movies and the stage. In an
\nessay called “Stage and Screen Go Their Separate Ways,” Canby crystallizes
\nseveral facts concerning these sometimes antagonistic art modes:
\n[A]ll serious playwrights everywhere are increasingly committed to the creation of a
\nkind of stage literature that is complete unto itself, which cannot easily be adapted to the
\nneeds of the screen without compromising the particular art of the original.
\nThese playwrights, including Mr. Shaffer, understand the theater to be a kind of
\nprison, but one whose severe restrictions – whose unrealities – make possible a kind of
\nlanguage you will respond to nowhere else. It’s a place where the audience becomes an
\nactive participant in the exercise of the playwright’s imagination, and where artifice,
\ninstead of being exhausting, as it can be in movies, is liberating. 9
\nNot coincidentally, the Amadeus film and playwright Shaffer are central in
\nCanby’s discussion. Shaffer is a logical case in point, given Canby’s thesis
\nconcerning the “unrealities” of the stage, because the source for much of the
\nfriction between Shaffer’s art and the demands of cinema resides in the dramatist’s
\nimaginative theatricality, where metaphor and nonrealism dominate.
\nAllowing for the myriad preconditions impinging on any screenwriter, let
\nalone the natural defensive instincts of a prominent dramatist where his work is
\nconcerned, it is a wonder that successful playwrights ever relinquish their
\npieces to moviemakers. 10 If Shaffer himself manifested no driving interest in
\nhaving Amadeus filmed, how did the movie come about? Bringing to the screen
\nthat exceptionally popular and controversial drama in a genuine sense
\namounted to a concession on the dramatist’s part. Shaffer himself furnishes the
\nanswers. In an article written for Film Comment in 1984, Shaffer declares that,
\n“but for the enthusiasm of Milos Forman, I doubt if there would be a film of
\nAmadeus at all. ,,11 Because Amadeus embedded within its texture so many
\ntheatrical approaches and devices, the risks in any film conversion were great.
\nOne or two additional links in Shaffer’s chain of decisions will help complete
\nfor us the sequence leading to the Amadeus movie.
\nShaffer’s eventual involvement in filmmaking arose as a defensive response,
\nnot out of zeal. A specific turning point was reached because of the
\nunbe1ievabl y bad film made of The Royal Hunt of the Sun. That fiasco proved a
\npainful but effective learning experience for Shaffer. During interview sessions
\nDrama into Film: The Shaffer Situation
\nin 1980, I asked Shaffer what involvement he had had with that movie. His
\nresponse was blunt: “Nothing. It taught me a lesson, in a way. I mean, I shall
\nnever not do my own films again. It was terrible.,,12
\nShaffer was true to his word. When Equus was contracted for the movie
\nscreen, he made certain that he was connected with the operation (as the writer
\nof the movie script, it turned out) to keep an eye on the project. Unfortunately,
\nthe Equus film brougpt Shaffer nothing but added grief. Despite the respected
\ndirector, Sidney Lumet, and such exceptional performers as Richard Burton,
\nPeter Firth, and Joan Plowright, the movie of Equus missed the mark, ending
\nup a box-office disaster although it earned both male leads Academy Award
\nnominations. Nonetheless, even with fine actors, a knowledgeable director
\n(Lumet is a three-time Oscar nominee), and Shaffer’s own script as the point of
\ndeparture, the film never approached the effectiveness of its source. One
\ncrucial handicap to its success was a boycott supported by a national movement
\nfor animal rights. The issue of cruelty to animals was raised when Lumet
\ninsisted on simulating the blinding of the horses in ultrarealistic fashion.
\nShaffer once more felt betrayed by the moviemakers. He previously had been
\nassociated as co screenwriter with the successful transformation of William
\nGolding’s novel Lord o\/the Flies for the screen in 1962 and therefore had come
\nto the writing of the movie script for Equus as no novice. The ultimate problem
\nwith the movie lay not in its script, but in the basic approach taken in filming it.
\nAbout the resulting film, Shaffer said: “I wrote the script originally. Not that it
\ndid me much good, because the script I wrote was not really shot. I think … I
\ndid much more imaginative work than was shot. … I don’t want to attack
\nanybody particularly. Sidney Lumet did a very competent job. And he included
\nme in all the time. What depressed me about the film is that it didn’t have any of
\nthe images I wanted to see in it. I was very disappointed in the visual side of
\nit.” 13
\nIn private correspondence, Shaffer used far harsher terms to denote the
\nirreparable damage done to his play through the movie’s extreme literalness.
\nShaffer’s displeasure became clear when he lent me his personal copy of the
\nEquus movie script he had written. A comparison of that text with the film shot
\nrevealed a major discrepancy. Lumet, as he had claimed, used a good deal of
\nthe screenplay as written by Shaffer. At the same time, Lumet chose to ignore
\nthe essential stage directions Shaffer had given. In them, a visually attuned
\ndirector had available an invaluable blueprint of filmic equations for the
\nmetaphors of the play. Lumet failed in particular with those pivotal episodes
\nwhen Alan Strang is abreacting. To illustrate, Alan’s nude, midnight horseback
\nrides were shot in the movie exactly as such; even the artificial lights required
\nby the cameras accidentally show up in the final cut that was released
\ncommercially. Most desperately misguided of all, however, were the shot
\ndecisions in the final stable scene. There, Strang encounters his sexuality in
\nclinical fashion through Jill, in total, realistic nudity but without any sense of
\n88 C.]. GIANAKARIS
\nlove. There, too, Alan confronts his god Equus physically – not spiritually – by
\nrealistically hacking out the horses’ eyes. Absolutely none of the mystery so
\ncentral to the play is retained in the movie. 14 Nothing is left to the imagination;
\nall the spiritual dimensions of the drama were excised by Lumet in the film.
\nWithout question, Lumet simply failed to locate an appropriate filmic approach
\nto capture the true sense of Shaffer’s original work.
\nIn 1979, two years after the Equus film, Milos Forman happened to be in
\nLondon seeking actors for his movie Ragtime. Robert Lantz, his agent as well
\nas Shaffer’s, invited him to see a play while there. The play was Amadeus.
\nWithout even waiting for the second act, Forman sought out Shaffer to propose
\nthat a movie be made of Amadeus. 15 By then hardened to the realities of making
\nmotion pictures, Shaffer remained hesitant to accept the proposal with which,
\nShaffer has written, Forman “persisted for two years.,,16
\nAside from the earlier cinematic misfortunes which had befallen him,
\nShaffer was also restrained by awareness that the fundamental theatre-versusmovies
\ncombat would need to be fought again. Further, collaborating with
\nMilos Forman would mean dealing with another strong artistic will. Forman, as
\nOscar winner in 1975 for his film One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, was like
\nShaffer successful, energetic, and absolute in his tastes. Shaffer describes his
\ninitial encounters with Forman and the Amadeus project:
\nWhen I asked him what he would do with my piece, he told me what he would not do:
\ntum it into a stagey hybrid, neither play nor picture. He also pointed out that the film of a
\nplay is really a new work, another fulfillment of the same impulse which had created the
\noriginal. The adapter’s task was to explore many paths in order to emerge in the end at
\nthe same emotional place. During this process a fair amount of demolition work would
\ngo on, some of it perhaps painful to the author. In the case of Amadeus, its operatic
\nstylization would probably have to go, and its language would have to be made less
\nformal. … 17
\nThe details are now widely known about Forman’s collaborative efforts at
\nwriting the screenplay for Amadeus. Starting on February I, 1982, for four
\nmonths, the two creative masters worked together – five days a week, twelve
\nhours a day – to produce the script into which “nothing went … that both did not
\nagree upon.,,18 Shaffer wrote in a letter during that period: “The work with
\nForman is hard and trying. So far there’s not one scene from the play in the
\nfilm!,,19 Collaborating with Forman must have exacted a psychic price,
\nparticularly since Forman’s often repeated modus operandi for adapting drama
\nto the screen involves “tearing the play apart and putting it together in a new
\nform. ,,20 In this process, the original drama serves only as building materials
\nfor another construct altogether. All the same, some other level of Shaffer’s
\ncreative impulse was apparently stimulated by Forman’s determination to seek
\nout new means to fulfill previous objectives. For Shaffer, it eventually became
\nDrama into Film: The Shaffer Situation
\nclear, the Amadeus film would provide a challenge for expressing his
\ninterrelated concepts about Mozart, music, creative genius, and metaphysics in
\nanother, new format.
\nShaffer stated his thinking on the matter late in 1984:
\nCertainly I was not afraid of new approaches. In composing the play I had spent over a
\nyear simply finding a way of beginning it. … Why not join a brilliantly talented film
\ndirector in even further exploration? Of course partnership would mean permitting him
\nto write the script with me, alone in his house – the Forman method, and one not easy
\nfor an author to countenance – but I reckoned that I had ultimately far more to learn than
\nto lose from such an adventure, and finally I agreed. 21
\nTo me, Shaffer’s quoted statement could not be merely self-serving rationalization.
\nIn the letter he wrote which is cited above (March 1982), Shaffer
\nacknowledges that working with Forman indeed was energy draining. But he
\nalso .states there: “I just trust that it [the Amadeus project] is all for the best! At
\nleast I’m learning a little about thinking cinematically. If that is ultimately
\nimportant I don’t mind.”
\nOnce he made up his mind to pursue the Amadeus movie version, Shaffer
\nparticipated in its making every step along the way. Fortunately, he shed his
\nnormal reluctance to speak about films and his plays. His comments –
\npublished or personal- about the shooting of Amadeus, when added to those of
\nother close observers, form a chronicle of this astute man of the theatre tackling
\n– and mastering – another medium. It is true that substantial monetary reward
\nawaited him if the resulting motion picture proved commercially strong. 22 But
\nthere were other motives for his acceptance.
\nFirst, there was the obvious defensive reason spoken of earlier. Shaffer
\nneeded to make certain that the eventual movie would not emerge a mangled
\nembarrassment, distorting his original drama. Although difficult to claim as a
\nfaultless masterpiece, the Amadeus picture that was released late in 1984
\nproved impressive in many ways. And, as we shall see, many of its strongest
\nfeatures can be traced to Shaffer’s involvement. Second, beyond assuring that
\nthe basic integrity of his source play was maintained, Shaffer made ingenious
\nuse of the movie to fulfill a long-held objective unattainable in the legitimate
\ntheatre. Amadeus, the film, marks the next step in an extraordinary artistic
\nodyssey: it represents an innovative attempt to employ film in conveying
\nabstract values through a fusion of the visual and the musical. 23
\nWhat means did Shaffer use to seek out the solution for his combined
\naesthetic and metaphysical conundrum? To begin, he realigned the potential
\nconstrictions of the cinematic method to force that medium to serve his own
\npurpose. If he had to remove from his film script any of the “play’s staginess,”
\nhe nonetheless found compensating means to project his notion regarding
\nMozart and music. 24 Shaffer’s most striking and effective technique was to
\n90 C.J. GIANAKARIS
\nsteep the film in great quantities of Mozart’s own music on screen and in the
\nbackground, via the sound track. Shaffer has called the movie “a fantasia on
\nevents in Mozart’s life,” and as such it represents his further evolved
\nspeculations on the deeper meanings of great art and music in the lives of flawed
\nDrama into Film: The Shaffer Situation 91
\nhuman beings. Mozart’s life, based wholly on music, deserves the radical
\nemployment of music in the film as correlative. The remainder of our
\ndiscussion, therefore, will document what Shaffer wanted to achieve in the film
\nversion and how he went about trying to effect his aims.
\nWhy did Shaffer believe that he could discipline music, an abstract art form,
\nto serve him as both theme and technical tool in the movie Amadeus? Audiences
\nshould be aware that music has always held a unique position in Shaffer’s own
\nlife and career. At one time a music critic, Shaffer has embedded music in each
\nof his previous dramas for the stage as important thematic metaphors. 25 His
\nconcentration on Mozart is a natural extension of his lifelong pursuit of the
\ntranscendent values he knew existed in musical art. Even music commentators
\nunhappy with Shaffer’s characterization of Mozart in Amadeus grudgingly
\nadmit that: “There is an enormous amount of material about Mozart, and Mr.
\nShaffer apparently has assimilated every last word.,,26 Any remaining doubts
\nabout Shaffer’s mastery of facts concerning Mozart or about his sincerity in
\ndwelling on the Mozart materials should have been dispelled by his impassioned
\ntestament entitled “Paying Homage to Mozart.” That essay, which
\nappeared late in 1984, codified Shaffer’s personal belief in a metaphysics
\nconstructed on the excellence of human artistic attainment. He writes: “My own
\napprehension of the divine is very largely esthetic. I am aware that this is by
\nno means a general condition …. Not to be vague, the creation of the ‘C Minor
\nMass’ or the final act of ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ seem to me to give a point to
\nevolution. Most human activities do not.,,27 To manifest man’s craving for
\nsome ultimate ideal in his life, Shaffer originally fashioned a Salieri who alone
\n92 C.J. GIANAKARIS
\nwould recognize the divinity in the music pouring from Mozart’s pen. Shaffer
\nexpands on this point, when writing: “What I wanted to emerge clearly from the
\nplay is the obsession of a man, Salieri … with finding an absolute in music. ,,28
\nShaffer refused to call the movie just an adaptation; he considered it rather “a
\nparallel work” to the original play. 29 His design relied on the fact that films are
\namenable to the inclusion of much music, compared to the stage. Through
\nmusic, Shaffer hoped to help movie audiences understand what it was in
\nMozart’s music that became Salieri’s ideal as well as his torment. To that end,
\nShaffer wrote into his film script detailed instructions for vast quantities of
\nMozart selections on the sound track. Mozart’s career “arena” was the musical
\nperformance of his works; accordingly, Shaffer built into the action numerous
\nrecital, concert, and operatic episodes connoting Mozart’s artistic life and the
\ngeneral musical world of Vienna in his day. Furthermore, to ensure that the
\nscript’s musical directions were carried out appropriately and imaginatively,
\nShaffer and Forman contracted one of the finest Mozartian conductors in the
\nworld to serve as Music Director. Their hiring of Neville Marriner, reported
\nAmerican Film, was an attempt “to give those unschooled in classical music at
\nleast a fighting chance at understanding what made Mozart the nemesis of
\ncourt composer Antonio Salieri. ,,30
\nWith so much of Mozart’s music playing on the sound track, and with
\nsamples of Salieri’s music, as well, Shaffer intended that audiences should
\nactually hear a contrast between Mozart’s voice and the conventional musical
\nsounds of the era. Audiences should also comprehend, as a result, the allusions
\nin the script to “too many notes” – the accusation aimed at Mozart’s music by
\ntaste setters in the court of Emperor Joseph II – and to “tonic and dominant” –
\nMozart’s description of the boring Italian musical style of the time. Thus,
\npeople attending the movie could draw their own conclusions concerning the
\nmusical tastes of Mozart’s day which reflected disapproval of his daring,
\nthreatening tonalities and musical forms. 31
\nShaffer’s concept for an enveloping musical backdrop won Forman’s
\nacceptance on a purely separate basis. Forman envisioned a Mozart figure
\nportrayed as more sympathetic in the film than he was shown in the theatre.
\nForman also wanted Mozart positioned more prominently in the action: “The
\nportrait of Mozart in the film will be more balanced …. We are trying to show
\nmore a drama of a man who, without knowing it, is destroying himself.,,32
\nShaffer agreed, at least on cinematic grounds, saying: “In the film he [Mozart]
\nis a more ordinary, rather childish man. His marriage and his relations with his
\nfather are treated in a more detailed way. We had to humanize him and make
\nhim a more rounded character. This is sensible because of the literalness of the
\ncamera.,,33 Mozart’s own compositions, played throughout the film, help to
\nkeep attention on him at all times, while also providing a shocking contrast
\nbetween the “voice of God” and the “obscene child” – both of course being the
\nsingle person Mozart.
\nDrama into Film: The Shaffer Situation 93
\nMozart’s music permeates the film in strategic ways. In sheer quantity, first,
\nthe amount of music performed on screen and heard off screen is enormous,
\nmaking the Amadeus movie a veritable musical bonanza for audiences. Of
\napproximately I70 scenes appearing in the screenplay which actually were
\nshot, seventy include explicit musical directions detailing what pieces of music
\nare to be heard, where in the action, and serving what function. 34 Some of the
\nmusic is shown being performed within the action, while some is used as
\nmusical background. Altogether, over a dozen episodes feature Mozart’s music
\nbeing played or sung in a variety of programs on screen. These excerpts, of
\nvarying lengths, include several musical types. There are individual arias,
\nsometimes entire acts, from several operas: Abduction from the Seraglio,
\nMarriage of Figaro , Don Giovanni, Magic Flute, Zaide, and a brief section of
\nSalieri’s opera Axur. These scenes, meant to represent command performances
\nbefore Austria’s royalty, are staged in rich opulence and include some
\nchoreography designed for the film by Twyla Tharp. In addition, portions of
\norchestral music by Mozart are performed on screen as part of a concert scene;
\nand other sections of orchestral music are heard on the sound track as musical
\ncounterpoint to the action of a given scene. Such works include Symphony No.
\n25 (K. I83), Symphony No. 29 (K. 201), Serenade for Winds (K. 361), and
\nSymphonie Concertante (K. 364). Several piano concertos are used, again as
\nmusical concerts built into the plot line or as “sound-over” on the sound track:
\nConcerto for Two Pianos (K. 365), Piano Concerto in E flat (K. 482), and
\nPiano Concerto in D minor (K. 466) are heard in the film. Finally, besides
\nmiscellaneous incidental folk music and snatches of other Mozart works,
\nextended passages of choral music occur on the sound track: the Mass in C
\nminor (K. 427), Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, and Mozart’s last, unfinished
\nRequiem Mass (K. 626).
\nA simple gathering together of the chief musical pieces heard in the movie
\nfails utterly to convey the many techniques used and effects gained thereby.
\nScenes featuring a musical performance in the plot – usually a concert or opera
\n– are designed to fit the action with blueprint accuracy. Even when a complete
\nact or movement is not shown, the section used is surgically inserted to allow
\nthe music to breathe and bloom, without bringing the plot action to a halt. One
\ncannot fail to perceive that Mozart’s music, as such, is given highest priority in
\nthe film. Scenes were deliberately planned to fit the compositions, not the other
\nway around. In published interviews, Marriner expressed pleasure and surprise
\nat this unique situation: “We really put the cart before the horse – it’s very
\nunusual to record the music so comprehensively and shoot the film around it.
\nMilos and Peter were very keen from the start that the music should be
\nuntouched – that this should be the music as Mozart wrote it and not
\narrangements.,,36 As a result, perhaps not since The Red Shoes from the late
\nI940S has music played such an organic part in the shape and soul of a motion
\npicture.
\n94 C. J. GIAN AKARIS
\nNot unexpectedly, in scenes not picturing musical performances, the
\nbackground score is taken entirely from Mozart. Even then, the excerpts are not
\ncut or arranged, but left in Mozart’s notations and orchestrations. One result is a
\nwelcome crispness. At the same time that the music enriches the visual
\nmoment, it reinforces our awareness of Mozart’s unsurpassed genius at
\ncomposition. The film breathes Mozart’s music, creating an effect of its
\nomnipresence to underscore Salieri’ s paranoia concerning the threat of his
\nyounger colleague’s work.
\nA striking and original effect is gained by the use of music to segue from one
\nepisode to another, emphasizing causal and associative relationships in the
\nprocess. This brilliant coup de cinema in Shaffer’s script always evokes great
\npositive responses from audiences seeing the movie. Two effective
\nillustrations (out of many) will help to confirm the originality of the technique
\nwhich depends again on using music flexibly. Scene 49 of the screenplay
\ninvolves Salieri’s voice pupil Katherina Cavalieri. Before commencing her
\nlesson, she inquires of Salieri about potential singing roles for her in Mozart’s
\nrumored new opera. Salieri attempts to dissuade her from considering
\nassociation with Mozart; he seeks to halt further discussion on the subject by
\nstarting Katherina to work on her vocal exercises. The script directions offer a
\ntactic for the action to leap forward, while also giving us a glimpse of
\nKatherina’s stubborn determination:
\nScene 49. (continued) He SALIERI strikes the chord again, firmly. CAVALIERI sings her
\nnext scale, then another one, doing her exercises in earnest. As she hits a sustained high
\nnote the orchestral accompaniment in the middle of “Marter Aller Arten” from Il
\nSeraglio comes in underneath, and the music changes from exercises to this
\nexceedingly florid Aria. We DISSOLVE on the singer’s face, and she is suddenly not
\nmerely turbaned, but painted and dressed totally in a Turkish manner, and we are on:
\nScene 50 INT. THE STAGE OF AN OPERA HOUSE. VIENNA. 1780’S ….
\nThe heroine of the Opera (CAVALIERI) is in full cry addressing the PASHA with scorn and
\ndefiance. 37
\nEqually stunning in effect is the connection made between Mozart’s crude,
\ninsensitive mother-in-law, Frau Weber, and the cruel Queen of the Night in
\nMozart’s opera Magic Flute. In Scene 151, Frau Weber fiercely berates Mozart
\nfor not treating Constanza better. Her shrill harangue perfectly bridges the
\naction into the opera performance in Scene 152. The script says:
\nScene 151. (continued) And with a scream MADAME WEBER’S voice turns into the shrill
\npacking coloratura of the Second Act Aria of the Queen of the Night, in the MAGIC
\nFLUTE.
\nDISSOL VE TO:
\nScene 152. SCHIKANEDER’S THEATRE BY THE WElDEN. NIGHT …. Onstage we see the
\nDrama into Film: The Shaffer Situation 95
\nQUEEN OF THE NIGHT fantastically costumed, furiously urging her daughter to kill
\nSARASTRO. 38
\nA final specimen revealing the musical dimensions of the Amadeus picture
\ncomprises the entire late section, from Scene 162 through 173A. In an amazing
\nepisode that is just barely credible, the exhausted and dying Mozart lies
\npropped up in his bed, dictating to Salieri the remainder of the partly done
\nRequiem Mass. As Mozart weakly mutters out the melodic line and vocal and
\ninstrumental directions, Salieri frantically scratches them down on paper. As
\nsoon as the notations are imprinted on paper, the sounded music of what had
\njust been dictated is heard over the sound track. By such fits and starts, verbal
\ndictation is conveyed to paper, the written version in tum transformed into the
\npowerful music of the Requiem which we then hear.
\nSimultaneously, brief visual shots interjected into the dictation pattern show
\nMozart’s wife, Constanza, boarding a coach to begin an overnight journey back
\nhome to be with her husband. The total effect is of contrapuntal visual shots and
\nmusical phrases. The music comes from Mozart’s glorious Requiem, and it
\nfloods the movie theatre to accompany the visual portraits of worried wife,
\nfrenetic rival Salieri copying furiously, and fading Mozart. The fusion of visual
\npictures with enveloping music creates a powerful movie effect not soon
\nforgotten. Admittedly, music plays a key role in the stage Amadeus. There,
\nhowever, as Shaffer has acknowledged, the play can accommodate only a set
\namount of music “without subverting the drama and turning the event into a
\nconcert.” He goes on to add that film, on the other hand, “positively welcomes
\nmusic in floods. ,,39 What had been snatches of musical phrases heard as
\n“sound-over” on the legitimate stage becomes a profusion of music flowing
\naround the audience in the movie theatre.
\nHas Shaffer’s huge dosage of music led to a successful rendering of
\nAmadeus? Box-office success is one matter, of course, and artistic success
\npossibly another. Commercially, the results are forthcoming as this discussion
\nis being written; aesthetically, we can say that the movie does achieve much of
\nShaffer’s initial intention. The enormous investment of energy and money to
\ncreate this film in parallel forms to a musical composition pays off handsomely .
\nVisually, as well, the shooting of the film in Prague leads to more than simply a
\nsense of authenticity. More importantly, both the interior and exterior scenes
\nconjure up the sometimes opulent, sometimes austere, ambiance framing
\nMozart’s own life and milieu. These aural and visual evocations are wholly
\nsuccessful.
\nIf one has reservations about the lavishly filmed Amadeus, they probably
\ngrow out of problems introduced because of cinematic objectives. Despite
\nfilling the scenes realistically with figures only alluded to in the play (e.g.,
\nLeopold Mozart, Frau Weber, Schikaneder, and others), Forman’s more literal
\nmedium ends up actually simplifying the story’s conflict. The price for breadth?
\nC.J. GIANAKARIS
\nand scope is focus and complexity of thought. When rehabilitating the character
\nof Mozart, even modestly compared to the stage version, the movie leaves him
\nmore an annoying, whinnying prodigal than a tragic figure whose own actions
\nbetray his career time after time.
\nConcomitantly, as the center of the movie shifts away from Salieri and his
\nspiritual conundrum concerning art and godhead, the story line is simplified yet
\nfurther. For the movie, the main plot action becomes a straight-line tale of HOW
\nDID SALIERI RUIN MOZART? The “intrigue” quotient is diminished when motives
\nare set forth in such bold outline. As another result, the film too often takes on
\nan episodic rhythm. The episodic shape, in tum, leads to a longer movie than
\nperhaps needed. Fortunately, the supreme music of Mozart being played helps
\nsoothe impatient auditors.
\nThe movie of Amadeus, then, has permitted playwright Peter Shaffer an
\nopportunity to develop even further than in the play his conjectures on music
\nand art, and their possible relationship to the divine. Whether or not Shaffer has
\nin fact added something new to his concepts already stimulating the play’s
\naudiences is another matter. Only those experiencing both versions can
\nhonestly respond, and then only for themselves.
\nNOTES
\n1 Vincent Canby, “Stage and Screen Go Their Separate Ways,” New York Times, 30
\nSeptember 1984, sec. 2, pp. 1, 19.
\n2 Along with Canby, Michiko Kakutani has been concerned with the issue of film
\nadaptation in his several articles: “Books into Movies,” New York Times Book
\nReview, 10 July 1983, p. 39; “How ‘Amadeus’ Was Translated from Play to
\nFilm,” New York Times, 16 September 1984, sec. 2, pp. 1, 20; and “The New
\nWriter vs. Hollywood,” New York Times, 25 April 1982, sec. 2, pp. I, 30.
\n3 Louis D. Giannetti, Understanding Movies (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972),
\npp. 176- 181.
\n4 In July of 1980, Peter Shaffer allowed me time over a period of a week for
\nconversations and interviewing about his work. The tapes made of those talks
\ncontain this information. All such citations will be referred to as Tapes
\n(1980) hereafter.
\n5 Letter to this writer from Peter Shaffer, dated 29 September 1982.
\n6 Kakutani, “How ‘Amadeus’ Was Translated,” p. I.
\n7 Charles Eidsvik, Cineliteracy[:] Film Among the Arts (New York, 1978), p. 233.
\nConsider, as well, Giannetti, p. 177.
\n8 Helpful on this point are the works I have cited by Canby and Eidsvik.
\n9 Canby, p. I.
\n10 Useful discussion in this regard appears in the articles by Kakutani already cited, as
\nwell as in John Brady’s The Craft of the Screenwriter (New York, 1981) and
\nWilliam Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade[.} A Personal View of Hollywood
\nand Screenwriting (New York, 1983).
\nDrama into Film: The Shaffer Situation 97
\nI I Peter Shaffer, “Making the Screen Speak,” Film Comment, 20 (September-October
\n1984), 56.
\n12 Tapes (1980).
\n13 Ibid, and personal letter to author from Peter Shaffer (March 1982).
\n14 Shaffer noted (Tapes [1980]) that he could not bear to watch the blinding scene
\nwhen it was shot, nor can he look at it even now on the screen – so painful was
\nits crude literalism.
\n15 Henry Karnm, “Milos Forman Takes His Cameras and ‘Amadeus’ to Prague,” New
\nYork Times, 29 May 1983, sec. 2, p. I.
\n16 Shaffer, “Making the Screen Speak,” 56.
\n17 Ibid. Shaffer had made similar observations previously: “Milos is infatuated with
\nthe medium, with film. It parallels my own infatuation with the theater. Obsessed,
\ninfatuated people get on very well with each other. But naturally, it’s a mixed
\nfeeling. When somebody invades your mental territory it’s always alarming”
\n(quoted by Kamm, p. 15).
\n18 Kakutani, “How ‘Amadeus’ Was Translated,” p. 1. ,
\n19 Personal correspondence from Peter Shaffer (March 1982).
\n20 Kamm, p. 15.
\n21 Shaffer, “Making the Screen Speak,” 56.
\n22 According to information derived from interviews with Saul Zaentz, producer of
\nthe Amadeus film, the production budget alone ran to eighteen million dollars,
\nwith one million dollars earmarked for Shaffer, “deferred” (in Harlan Jacobson,
\n“As Many Notes as Required,” Film Comment, 20 [September-October 1984],
\n55)?
\n23 In a letter to the editor of the New York Times, Shaffer declared that he wanted
\n“triumphantly [to] blazon sound as the central obsession of the fable, even in a
\nvisual medium” (New York Times, 14 October 1984, sec. 2, p. 8). Shaffer
\nwas responding to a sniping article by Donal Henahan called “Never Mind
\nSalieri, Siissmayr Did It,” New York Times, 23 September 1984, sec. 2, pp. I,
\n21.
\n24 Canby, p. 19?
\n25 In extended conversations (Tapes [1980]), Shaffer surveyed how much music
\nhe integrated into all of his stage plays. He also used his piano to offer some
\nclarifying musical demonstrations regarding Mozart’s “new” sound, relative to his
\nera.
\n26 Harold C. Schonberg, “The Villain of ‘Amadeus’ in Real Life,” New York Times,
\nI February 198 I, sec. 2, p. 1.
\n27 Peter Shaffer, “Paying Homage to Mozart,” New York Times Magazine, 2 September
\n1984, p. 22.
\n28 Ibid.
\n29 Kamm, p. 15?
\n30 Richard Sasanow, “Scoring with Mozart,” American Film (September 1983),
\n13?
\n31 In our talks in 1980 (Tapes [1980]), Shaffer specified what he thought there was
\n98 C. J. GIAN AKARIS
\nabout Mozart’s compositions that alarmed Emperor Joseph II and “those sort of
\npeople who shared the sort of common eighteenth-century language of very, very
\nsimple harmony. Mozart was a threat to him – the sound he made – because I
\nthink he thought it morbid like a lot of Viennese of his day. Because of all that
\nchromaticism – it worried him.” Along similar lines, see Will Crutchfield’s
\n“Did Music Hit Its Peak with Mozart?”, New York Times, 8 July 1984, sec. 2, pp.
\nI, 17.
\n32 Kamm, p. IS.
\n33 Ibid.
\n34 I am genuinely grateful to Shaffer for a copy of his screenplay for Amadeus
\n(unpublished). Incidentally, there are two or three significant changes made in
\nthe movie that was shot compared to the film script.
\n35 Producer Saul Zaentz and the Saul Zaentz Company have produced a remarkable
\ntwo-record sound-track album of Amadeus (1984). Along with the music (in
\nexcellent sound) performed by Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martinin-the-Fields,
\nthere are nearly three dozen colored shots from the film. The album
\nalso includes highly informative comments about the story of the movie and each
\npiece of music it reproduces. The recording is from Fantasy, Inc., W AM – I 79 I .
\n36 Quoted by Sasanow, 13.
\n37 Shaffer, unpublished film script of Amadeus.
\n38 Ibid.
\n39 Shaffer, “Paying Homage,” p. 22. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Close observers of theatre hardly can be faulted for their curiosity, if not downright concern, when a significant work for the stage is adapted for the movie screen. Transplanting plays to film always has been chancy, with rather more misses Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}