Steve Schwartz responds to me:

The movie tells us that someone who wants to make a deal with God and
thinks that the giving of gifts like musical talent can be manipulated
by a "good" and morally correct life-style will be surprised
>>about life's
unfairness.
>>>
>>>Does anybody seriously believe this idea? I can't quite accept the fact
>>>that an 18th-century person would believe it, let alone a modern.  After
>>>all, there are such things as the book of Job and Voltaire's Candide.
>>
>>Why is it so unbelievable that someone sticks to this idea? A lot of very
>>religious people of the past and the present time did resp.  do so.  - And
>>yes, there is the book of Job: how many people knew it? There is Candide:
>>how many people knew it?
>
>Wait a minute.  You can't have it both ways.  If this isn't about history
>(and of course it isn't), then don't bring in historical justification.

You began with historical justifications resp. thoughts about a play
which just uses history for a theatrical purpose and doesn't want to be
accurate.

>How many people today know Job or Candide? Obviously, not very many if
>they're satisfied with Shaffer's handling of the idea.  Neither Job nor
>Candide solve the "problem" of people who deserve better suffering.  But
>both provide far more interesting explorations.

This sounds extremely snobbish:  the learned can read Job and Candide and
the people without taste can stick to Shaffer.  So, if someone (like me)
is satisfied with Shaffer's handling of the idea he can't know Job and
Candide.  Dear Steve, I know both and I know them pretty well.  You compare
things which cannot be compared.  Job and Candide deal with the problem of
suffering, Amadeus does not.

>By precision, I mean a precise observation of human beings and a
>particularity of argument, not the precision of setting forth Mozart's life.

I find this precision in the movie.

>>Shaffer just didn't want to be precise about Mozart and there is no
>>law forcing him to be precise.  Amadeus is a work of art, a fantasy about
>>Mozart, not an essay.  Would you criticize our hero Mozart because his Don
>>Giovanni is an imprecise fantasy about Casanova and not an accurate essay?
>
>Again, of course not.  But Mozart gives me something more than an essay.
>He gives me precisely observed portraits of a womanizer, his pandar, and
>the women he ruins, not to mention great music.  Shaffer gives me little
>stick men and fairly unexciting language.

The language in a play does not have to be exciting (by the way:  the
language in Don Giovanni is not very exciting and far from being masterly).
I love Don Giovanni a lot but do you really think that Mozart gives as a
precisely observed portrait of him? We are given hints and sketches and all
this in wonderful music - but a real portrait? I don't think so - and it is
not what I expect in an opera.  Opera characters are often very
stereotypicaln and they often sing banal stuff.

>>Could you please either stop ranting about the movie or starting to show
>>your points by analysing and proving? What about the movie is not
>>original?
>
>Good people suffer.  Gosh, I didn't know that before.  You're right, it's
>original as all get-out.

"Good people suffer" is not the idea of Amadeus.  The idea of Amadeus is:
how tragic is it that you think you have to fight someone (and fight
against the supposed injustice of the world) and when you have fought
them you see that you have ruined a fantastic chance to be happy in
collaboration and communion.  If you think that "Good people suffer"
is the idea of Amadeus you haven't understood both play and movie.

>That's one of the things bad poetry fails to do.  It speaks sentiments
>which sound false because it can't speak any other way.  It fails to earn
>the reader's respect and belief.  Is there anything wrong with the emotion
>behind "Did Your Mother Come from Ireland?" No. But there's a lot wrong
>with the lyric.

Now where is such false sentiment in Amadeus? I cannot remember a single
scene from the movie where with false sentiment in it.

Robert