Steve Schwartz responds to me:

>>"Amadeus" is, in my view, one of the most
>>intelligent movies made in the last decades, a clever, profound, moving
>>essay on mediocrity, vanity, passion.
>
>Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion.  Janos's "overblown" comes
>closer to mine, except I'm not nearly so kind.

Thank you to remember me that I am entitled to my opinion.  But I hadn't
forgetten I am, you know.

>>It is NOT a movie about Mozart, this is a common mistake - it is about a
>>fantasy Mozart and a fantasy Salieri, it is about the tragical relationship
>>between two artists who destroy each other instead of communicating.
>
>Actually, it's a play that purports to tell you something about the
>nature of genius vs.  talent.  Of course, it does nothing of the sort.
>It cops out along the way and winds up with "it's a mystery." This wouldn't
>be quite so bad if Shaffer had thrown the audience some sort of a bone
>before he announced there was no meat.  As it stands, the play is a
>blood-and-thunder "melodrammer" made tonier and More Important because
>one of the characters is named Mozart.  It is also pretty short on ideas,
>especially ideas that haven't been recycled to far better use.

Here is MY opinion again after you expressed yours (and you are entitled
to it, you know):  The play tells a lot about the nature of genius vs.
talent.  It tells 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.
This is, in my opinion, a bone with a lot of meat.  The movie shows us how
unhappy Salieri has, how he works to destroy Mozart and how shattered he is
at his actual death, after the first real intense human contact he had when
composing the Requiem with his colleague - this is a bone with a lot of
meat.  This is no melodramatic stuff but clever and profound meditating
about human issues - Mozart is just a symbol for the problem of how to
deal with genius when it comes your way, Shaffer could as well have taken
Goethe, Dante, Shakespeare.  He took Mozart in a play full of clever ideas,
some of them, as I have shown above (Steve, only my opinion I am entitled
to but proven a bit better than your statements), pretty original and
moving and thought-provoking.  But I guess if you want to be biased
against emotional art you won't be able to see things in a different way.

Robert