I think Janos has completely missed the bus on this one. While I really
admire his taste and his critical talents generally, I think that in this
particular instance he has missed the point.
Make no mistake: there are weaknesses everywhere. But it is a "concept
movie" (of a concept play) and in such cases, one has to accept or reject
the totality of it. It is only rarely that such a movie can be dissected
into slivers that can be criticised individually--of course, in a terrible
execution, one can, and must, do so; but this is not a terrible execution
of a concept. It is an excellent movie of a miraculour play.
Others have justified the movie as a parody of Mozart--certainly a valid
point of view, and, of course, the ultimate defense.
As for myself, I believe that Shaffer has transformed the personalities,
the events and the facts into understandable 20th-century entities that
not only are the basis of a parable of talent versus mediocrity, but he
has also shown us a remarkably astute vision of the historical Mozart.
One can peel away the parodic elements, and see the truth beneath. One
can pierce through the manufactured dramatic devices to see the motivations
at the heart of them. Mozart was no 18th-century pale adumbration of the
struggling artist, though certainly he was that. He was a very, very,
unusual man. The more one knows, the more one sees the genius beneath the
vapid exterior that Tom Hulce portrayed.
Let us agree to disagree about this play and this film. If the personality
of Mozart as protrayed there is disturbing to anyone, then that person
should consider that it is a parody, and dismiss the film in all its forms.
After all, it is more important to love the music than the man. But for
me, personally, there is room in my world for strange people such as
Mozart, I believe, was. Strange, wonderful, brilliant and foolish,
conceited, but often humble. Vulgar, sometimes, but then, capable of
exalted feeling. It is too limiting to make Mozart fit into our images
of a respectable artist.
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