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The first time I saw Amadeus there was still the juice of fresh creation ainning out of it. Not to mention the oyster-and-lemon 18th century, in which $18 million had framed the irreproachable (and perhaps not quite approached) subject. But I get high sipping Mozart and his age from the half-shell. I am a sucker for Watteau and Hogarth bringing a golden crust to record sleeves. I can taste the fruits in Chardin. I even long for a movie of Tristram Shandy shot by Renoir but edited by Godard. So I was ready to go with this Enlightenment taken from gourmet advertising. After all, isn't "Let them eat cake" history's best-known label for the 18th century? Let's eat Mozart, I agreed, as the lights went out.
The occasion was a Saturday brunchtime screening in June in San Francisco for crew and friends. Saul Zaentz, the producer of Amadeus, and Milos Forman, the director, were there with many of the people working on post-production. You could feel a suspense in which there might be further small adjustments. It was said that Forman was still experimenting with the gurgle of Mozart's last, heaven-sent laugh. (Was he running those John Huston pictures where the foolish world ends in laughter and forgetting?) It was hard to resist the zeal to get things right, but much harder to know they might not be the right things. Getting oneself exhausted does not guarantee good judgment, and no one ever chucked this kind of film and started again if it was wrong.
Amadeus was as yet in double system. There were three false starts to prime the first crash of chords. The music ravished the ear and made the seats tremble. It was as total as light, but so "noiseremoved" it might have made Wolfie jump out of his silk breeches. I had never seen the play, but the film slipped down like syllabub. Who else but Forman could put so many complex scenes on the screen with such sweet smoothness? You could smell the 18th century and its mixture of death and pleasure. For a moment, Forman seemed the virtuoso of his time, our Minnelli, a beautiful arranger; yet more detached than Minnelli, less prone to dream, too suspicious that beauty...