All language subtitles for the Making of Amadeus the

-Changed by lmb77@tlen.pl-

That was an incredible scene.
It was fourth of July.

And, of course, that's
not a holiday there...

...so we were working.
And we were shooting an opera scene.

The camera was behind the stage,
over the singers and dancers...

...seeing the whole theater
full of the audience.

So we had like 500 extras there.
So I said, "Roll it, playback".

And suddenly,
instead of Mozart's music...

...the American national anthem
starts to play.

And out of the flies
came this huge American flag...

...that unrolled on the stage.

And 600 Czechs stood up
and sang the U.S. national anthem...

...and knew the words.

I get goose pimples
when I think about it.

All the extras stood up either sang or hummed
"The Star-Spangled Banner" with us.

All stood up except 30.

Men and women, standing,
panic on their faces...

...looking at each other,
what they should do.

That were the secret police
dispersed among the extras.

And I was thinking,
"Good God, the army's gonna come...

...and we're all gonna go to jail.
Because this is an act of rebellion."

It started when we crossed the border.
In customs they said, "You can go on".

Milos said to me, "You're now
in Czechoslovakia, forget logic".

Only in a taxi I learnt...

...we were going to see a play
about a composer.

I thought, "I'm going to faint".

Milos made a great fuss and said:

"I hate biographies of musicians.
No, I'm not coming."

In communist countries they love
to make movies about composers.

Because composers make music.
They don't say anything subversive.

And they were the most
boring films I ever saw.

So I was prepared
for a painful evening.

The curtain went up,
and there is this wonderful drama.

I couldn't believe my eyes.

I was introduced to Milos.

Peter was nervous. I met him
the first time that night.

And he said to me, with the marvelous
directness that characterizes him:

"If the second act is as good as
the first, I will make a movie of it."

I called Mr. Zaentz...

...only to find out he already had
the name of the play on his list of what to see.

And that's how it all started.

I thought it was a great play.
It really worked for me.

He said, "What about a picture?"
I said, "It's not a picture".

I said, "There's not enough
about Mozart".

And then Milos hit me on the arm,
I still have the bruises...

...though that was 20 years ago.

He said, "That's right. It needs
music, Mozart and music".

And Milos invited me up for the weekend
to his house in Connecticut.

He was just as forthright then.

We spent an extraordinary weekend
in which he said to me:

"You realize that everything
will be different."

In the theater,
everything is stylized.

Nobody pretends a tree is a real tree
or a sunset is a real sunset.

So in the language
when it's stylized, it's proper.

Acting is a little exaggerated
and stylized, and it's proper.

Film is a photography.
In photography, everything is real.

Anything stylized
would feel, you know, fake.

What we ended up doing was spending...

...four months together in his house
in Connecticut.

Monday to Friday...

...we were locked into
what we came to regard as our prison.

And then we would go back
to New York on the Friday...

...and instantly separate.
And not exchange a word...

...for a blissful Saturday
and Sunday...

...till he would come
to my flat to collect me...

...and drive me back to prison
for the next...

...almost unendurable five days...

...when we slowly hammered out
the whole script, moment by moment.

They had some bumpy bumps
in the road along the way.

I spoke to both of them at different
times, and both used terms...

...you don't use in mixed company
about each other.

Well, no, we had a big conflict,
you know, big conflict.

Because I hated his cooking,
and he hated my cooking.

I regarded both of us
as the odd couple.

On the other hand, we had an enormous
advantage to have the music before.

For example, every day,
we spent a couple of hours...

...just listening to the music,
to Mozart's music.

And then picking up pieces which would
fit here or would fit there.

And that humbled Peter S haffer.
The music humbled Peter Shaffer.

Suddenly you start to play music
and you start to say the lines.

And Peter himself was,
"No. Stop talking. Stop talking".

I said to Milos that
I did not want repetitions.

I did not want the Mozart theme.

I did not want one piece of music.

It was not in the background,
cueing the emotion we should feel.

But it was, in fact, the foreground.

Peter Shaffer one day said:

"Listen, the music is becoming
the third character of this film."

I think possibly the first film that
has music as its leading character.

We met in the airport
in New York to discuss it:

Peter, Milos and Saul Zaentz.

And they proposed this as a project.

I had an hour to think about it because
I was moving on to catch another plane.

Immediately, apart from being slightly
flattered they thought of me...

...I thought of it as a project which,
so long as it didn't develop...

...into a Hollywood scenario,
I would be very interested in.

He said, "I would,
under one condition.

That not one note of Mozart
will be changed."

"You have our word."

We had no idea what the film
was going to look like.

Although I knew the play,
I'd seen the play...

...I knew that once Milos
got his hands on it...

...it would be a completely
different animal.

We are rolling, stand by for speed.

And action anytime, please.

- Your excellency...
- Let's cut. Give him some water.

- All right, let's...
- It's fine. It's perfect.

Casting is enormously important because
that's finally whom the audience sees.

My ideas mean nothing if what
I see on the screen, I don't believe.

It was an interesting situation because
a lot of big names wanted to play...

...especially Salieri
and Mozart, right?

And I somehow felt,
"I don't want to see known faces.

I want people to see Mozart
and Salieri."

Both Saul and Peter,
you know, agreed.

"We don't need stars.
We don't need big names.

We have Mozart and his music.
We believe in the movie."

Mozart was tough to cast.

This man had written his first
concerto at the age of 4...

... his first symphony at 7,
a full-scale opera at 12!

Did it show?

Which one of them...

... could he be?

When you look at the portraits
of Mozart from the time...

...you notice an interesting thing:
none looks like the other.

He must have had
a very nondescript face...

...that you wouldn't notice him
in the crowd at all.

So he couldn't be a leading-man type,
you know, a leading-hero type.

But he has to be a wonderful actor,
and he has to master the music.

He was very hard on me, and he
was quite gentle with the others.

Then in the process, I learned.
On one day...

...I spent maybe six to eight
hours in a screen test.

Every twenty minutes other actors came in,
and I played opposite them all day long.

And so I got to watch Milos working...

...with a different set of actors.

Very good. No, that's fine.
That's enough. You still...

Oh, I walk out!

And then I began to understand
that the people...

...who I was assuming
he was most interested in...

...because it was clear
from their work...

...he was treating
the same as me.

And the people you felt weren't
gonna be the right combination...

Thank you, Milos.

...are the people there was
a more gentle relationship with.

We auditioned over 1000 people
for the parts.

I think the number we had at one time
was 1263, and we weren't finished.

I know someone ran a tally,
but we were not finished.

I'm sure we passed
close to 1400.

It seemed like
I auditioned for a year.

What we were really
doing was rehearsing.

I wasn't auditioning.
I was rehearsing.

I thought I was still
working to get the part.

But in that time I thought,
"This is a wonderful project...

...and he's a great director,
and I'm lucky to be still here."

Of course you start
with the main characters...

...and then you go down.

But down doesn't mean less important.
I think the small parts...

...are as important
as the main characters.

In a certain way, I pay more attention
to casting the small, bit part...

...because once you see them,
you will never forget them.

Nothing drives me more crazy
when I am watching a film...

...and somebody appears, then
disappears and then reappears.

And he looks like the guy
who was just there, and I'm mixing...

"Who is he? Who is she?"

Milos called me...

...and said, "Vinnie, I would
like you to be in 'Amadeus'.

It is not a big part,
but I would love you to be in it."

One day, I was reading...

...F. Murray Abraham
for a small part in the movie.

And he was all right.

And then I had a young actor
come in reading for Mozart...

...and I asked F. Murray,
"Listen, would you just help me here."

"This is just to help, read Salieri
for this young man."

And F. Murray...

...probably because, you know,
now it doesn't matter...

...gave a wonderful performance.

I did one of the things from Salieri.

Then I said, "Milos, this
is where he becomes an old man."

Which I hadn't really worked on.
And he said, "Well, do the old man".

And I did the old man. I didn't
think I was gonna get this thing.

But I still acted my heart out, you know.

He read so beautifully that it
started to bug me, you know?

He called and said, "I want you
to know you're my first choice".

And I had been around for a while,
and I said:

"That's nice. I'm very happy,
but what does that mean?"

He wasn't saying, "You got the part",
or, "There's no question about it".

He said, "You're my first choice".

From my point of view,
that doesn't pay the rent.

I'm flattered, and I said,
"Thank you.

Tell me what I have to do next
because I'm busy right now, painting my kitchen."

Some time went by and they said, "We
want to see you for this improv group".

I said, "No, I'm not gonna do it".

Milos said, "That's the kind
of guy who would be Salieri".

And I said, "Why do you say that?"

He said, "He's not gonna be happy
about what I say". Milos or Murray.

He says, "Well, this guy thinks
that he would be a great actor...

...if he didn't have
breaks against him."

"Also, I think he's Salieri off-stage
as well as on-stage."

And he was right.

So after several weeks,
I told F. Murray Abraham:

"Okay, you got the part."

He didn't believe me, because
he accepted a role in another film!

While on the set of "Scarface", I got
the word that I was gonna do "Amadeus".

And everyone's attitude, the stars
on the show, changed toward me.

I was no longer this hardworking
actor F. Murray Abraham...

...like so many other
hardworking actors.

I was the man who got the part...

...that every actor in the English
language was trying to get.

And I was really scared.

Because I had talked the talk,
and now I had to walk the walk.

And it was... For three days,
I couldn't answer the phone.

I was just sucking it up, getting ready
for the thing, for the mountain.

This film could only be shot in three
cities: Vienna, Budapest or Prague.

Because only these cities have the
style of 18th-century architecture.

Prague was ideal. Prague was
absolutely ideal, because...

Thanks to communist inefficiency...

...the 18th century
was untouched, untouched.

Prague was an amazing time capsule.

You could set up camera everywhere
without having to undo...

...signs of the 20th century.
They weren't there.

There was no advertising.

You remove the electric lights,
you were in the 18th century.

All you had to do was
throw dirt down...

...put up lanterns,
and you were ready to go.

You have squares and streets.
You can turn the camera 360 degrees.

- You don't have to change anything.
- It's an exquisitely beautiful city.

I don't think there's any other city
in Europe...

...that has such an extensive...

...uninterrupted core
of 18th-century structures.

For me, it was a very mixed
emotional experience...

...because I was not allowed to go
back. I was a traitor and immigrant.

When I went the first time, which was,
more or less, to negotiate...

...the making of the movie,
that was very emotional for me.

Because before,
I didn't hope that I would ever see...

...my native country and places
where I kissed my first girlfriend...

...ever again in my life.

And then I was coming back for the
shooting, I was arriving January 2nd.

It was very cold, snow everywhere.

And I realize that from now on...

...I have to cut myself,
emotionally, from my past.

Because otherwise,
the work would suffer.

When I got to Prague
in the beginning of "Amadeus"...

...there's the scene where his assistant
comes with the muffins in the snow.

And so I had written a 13-page
snow alert in English and in Czech.

I wanted trucks rigged. I wanted
duplicate equipment. I wanted maps.

They say, "What are you talking about?

Half the people don't have phones.
We don't have trucks we can let sit."

I said, "Just tell me
when it's gonna snow!"

We didn't have the weather
reports as perfect as we have today.

So there was always a snow alert.

They phoned and said, "There's no snow.
It's not gonna snow this year."

"Reports say we're not
gonna have any snow."

"We're not gonna shoot you until March.
We're gonna shoot with fake snow."

I said, "Okay".
"So you can take other work."

Every day we had to prepare two sets.

One for in case there is overnight
snowfall, and one in case there is not.

And...

That was not my problem.
I didn't want him to know about it.

I was engaged to do an episode
of "Taxi" on Monday.

And Saul called on Thursday,
the Thursday before, and said:

"It's snowing. Can you come now?"

He said, "I know. You gotta be back.
We'll get you back on Monday."

I said, "Sure". He said, "We'll do
the one shot in the snow...

...and then you'll come back
and we'll do the interiors."

I said, "Okay". So I got on a plane
Thursday, and I got to Prague Friday...

...and we shot Saturday night,
and I was back for Monday.

I had never been to
a Soviet bloc country before.

And going at such a fantastically
accelerated rate of speed...

...my first impressions
were enormous and huge.

I felt like I was in a grade-B
spy movie.

Followed everywhere,
hotel rooms bugged.

The rooms in this one hotel
were very ornate...

...with a chandelier and sconces...

...and rugs...
Kind of worn, chipped, tacky.

But the fact is they were there.

And this one guy, Frank, he said,
"These guys have got this room bugged."

I said, "Who cares?"
He says, "No, man.

I'm not gonna let them.
I'm gonna knock that..."

"Are you gonna make a problem?"
"I'm gonna show you."

He starts climbing around the sconces.
"No. It's the chandelier."

He gets up on a chair, he's climbing
around. "No, it's not here."

I said, "Let's go to dinner."
He says, "No".

He rolls the rug back and he finds a
plate about this big with screws in it.

He says, "I told you, man!
It's right here."

He gets a butter knife.
We had kitchenettes, right?

He takes it, and as
he takes the screw out...

...there's a large crash
and the chandelier beneath us...

...crashes down into
the apartment below.

We went to dinner like a shot.

A friend of mine, an older
Czech director named Jirí Weiss...

...gave me some pineapples
and lemons for his daughter.

She came to the set that Saturday.
I had the lemons and oranges...

...or the oranges, the pineapples and
the lemons. And I gave her the stuff...

...and half the crew was secret police,
and everybody knew it.

Afterwards, I don't
remember his name...

...but he was sort of a smarmy cop,
and obviously cop.

He said, "So tell me, so,
what is this woman you meet?

This intrigue in Prague?
What is this?"

And I played, like, idiot and I said,
"She's the daughter of a roommate...

...of a friend who's from here,
used to make movies here."

"He asked if I would bring his
daughter some pineapples and lemons."

And he said, "Pineapple?"

I had learned the word for pineapple.
It's "ananas", same as in French.

I said, "Yes, ananas".
And he said, "Yes, in the can?"

I said, "No, no, real, fresh ananas."

"Fresh pineapple? Fresh "ananas"?"

And then for the next 20 minutes,
I watch it go around the set.

And they all do the same gesture.

They're going, "In the can?"

And the teller of the story
says, "No, fresh 'ananas'."

And they all kind of:
And looked at me and kind of:

I think they were the only two
pineapples in Prague that January.

When they go down the corridor...

...of the insane asylum,
that was a war museum.

The central hall where all
the mad people were kept...

...was part of a military hospital
for the wounded from the 30 Years' War.

That was a funny situation.
The Communists took it.

They left only the ground floor
as a kind of museum.

But it was closed for the public.
Up in the second and third floor...

...were secret archives
of the secret police.

There was a panic when they learned
that they showed us...

...the ground-floor corridors.

We were questioned very closely
as to what our connections were.

After all, we could be CIA
members or whatever.

They didn't much like the idea...

...of us invading the archive.
But we persuaded them.

When we went there
the first time, that corridor...

...had 75 two-ton cannons...

...all looking at each other.

And Milos says, "I love it".
I say, "Yeah, I love it too.

What are we gonna do with these 200
2000-pound cannons?"

He says, "Cannons can't be there".

I said, "I figured that
the cannons can't be there.

But we're gonna have to get them
out, and you want pristine snow."

No snow can have footprints in it,
and we got to get the cannons out.

I didn't know it's a problem. There's
some cannons there. Take them away.

I didn't know that every cannon
weighs several tons, you know?

They had to hire
an army to take it out.

The first three weeks of shooting
was Salieri in the hospital room.

I was the guy that went out
with him in the morning...

...and Dick Smith, our makeup artist,
at 4:00 every morning...

...for hours of makeup
before the crew came.

And he'd go out to Barrandov.
No one was there at 4:00 a.m.

And the minute you get there,
"Where's my tea?" You know?

You know, "I just got out of the car,
Murray. I'm gonna go get your tea."

Dick Smith is the best
makeup man in the world.

And when we would start
working in the morning, it was 4:00.

I would get up,
I'd get to the studio by 4:30.

We'd work on the makeup
for four and a half hours.

As much preparation as I had made for
the old man, gestures and so on...

...the fact is after sitting for hours,
at that hour in the morning...

...you are kind of tired and slow.
Your movements are kind of like this:

This starts to happen.
I also had lenses in my eyes...

...which had to be removed,
and my eyes had to be sprayed.

So that the pain, which was always
there, would not be too much.

Once I looked into a mirror
at my face...

...I felt like it
was completely convincing.

All I had to do was believe this guy,
and it was not hard.

I'm not denigrating my work,
I'm a very proud actor...

...but with Dick Smith there,
and the words of Peter Shaffer...

They've got be the most beautiful
descriptions in music ever written...

...whether on film or in literature.

This was a music I'd never heard.

And that we could hear the music
accompanying the words...

Filled with such longing,
such unfulfillable longing.

...what more can you ask for?

It seemed to me I was hearing
the voice of God.

Excuse me.

Because of the schedule,
the first thing that was filmed...

...in the shooting schedule
was all of Salieri, old.

That breathtaking section
of Murray's performance...

...most breathtaking...

...was done in the first couple weeks. But it
gave us the time to work on our own.

We rehearsed a lot on our own.

We rehearsed all of the scenes
before the filming began.

Initially, Meg Tilly was playing
Constanze in the film...

...and she was amazing.

Basically, at one point,
Milos had said he felt like...

...we'd done it, because the work
was going so well up to that point.

And the day before Meg
was to appear on camera...

...for the first time,
she got hurt in a soccer game.

She's playing soccer with some kids
in the street...

...and she tore the ligament
in her leg...

...so badly that the doctor told us...

...we would have to wait
five weeks before she could start.

And we couldn't because Saul
put together all independent money...

...and we just couldn't afford it.

It was shocking. Partly because
we were where we were.

Behind the Iron Curtain, cut off from
our lives to a significant degree...

...more than if we had been shooting
in Western Europe...

...or someplace closer to home.

Suddenly, she was just gone
and in a hospital.

So in a very short amount of time,
they had to find...

...an actress to take over the part.

The casting director who was brought
on to hire the new Constanze...

This woman called my acting teacher
and said:

"Can you recommend anyone?"
He said, "Elizabeth Berridge".

She said, "She's too weird
and introverted...

And she's too quirky for this outgoing,
bubbly girl." Which I was.

We flew to New York for a weekend
and it was extraordinary.

Friday night, we went: Prague, Paris.
And Saturday morning...

...we took the Concorde to New York.
So we went to Milos' apartment...

...and they had 60-odd girls
lined up for us to see.

I saw, like, 60 girls.
Sunday I read, like, 12 of them.

Out of these 12, two were...
I couldn't decide between them.

So Saul decided, "Let's bring them
to Prague...

...and let's do a screen test
with them there."

It felt like calamitous,
like it had gone so badly.

I said to my father, "If I can't speak,
how will I ever get a part?"

Because speaking is required
in that line of work.

Then I got a call: "You're flying
to Czechoslovakia for a screen test.

And there's you
and another contender."

So I had no passport.
And this was, I think, the next day.

Milos went back to Prague Sunday
so he could shoot on Monday.

And I went over there on Monday,
went back with the two girls on Monday.

And that was some ushering job, being
with two girls up for the same part.

I kept saying, "I love you both".

We were flown over and we tested.

And they did the hair and the makeup.

Meanwhile, they're filming the movie
and you really wanna not...

...start to feel like you're part
of the thing, because, in my case...

...I knew I was getting back
on a plane the next day.

Apparently, they couldn't decide,
so they said:

"There's gonna be another test
tomorrow." So we came back...

...and went through all
the hairdos and the gowns...

And this went on for a week.

The other woman and I hung out
every night. We would have dinner.

I was always nervous wreck.
She'd say:

"No, you look lovely in that wig.
I'm sure you did great."

And I was preparing to like, "Okay, how
do I say thank you for having me...

...and for considering me and
for this first-class ticket to Prague."

"Thank you so much, and bye,
and good luck with your movie."

And Milos said, "Essentially, you both
have the part, you know...

...it's impossible to decide
between you so I had to go at the fact

that one of you is simply too pretty
to play Constanze."

"So Elizabeth, you have the part."

And I was like, "Thanks, that's...

Well, I have the part. That's good."

As much as I love Meg Tilly,
I think, as a personality...

...Elizabeth Berridge...

...was more right because Constanze
was a landlady's daughter.

She was a street kid, you know?

So I got to stay and had packed
clothes probably for three days.

I was there for six months
and started work the next day.

And that was it. I was Constanze.

Frau Mozart?

I remember the first day...

...the first scene I shot
was the "nipples of Venus" scene...

...where I come to see Salieri.

I had to eat a million of those...

Go on, try one!

They're quite surprising.

Marzipan! It was foul.
I don't know, it's just awful.

And I remember getting ill
and Milos was like:

"Oh, it's her job."

It wasn't exactly working in a mine,
but eating a million marzipan balls...

I didn't know I didn't have
to eat it all.

At 20 years old, I didn't know:

"Oh, you can spit it out at the end."

We're going again? Okay.

It's funny how that can be the only
thing on your mind. But I couldn't...

They're wonderful!

The first scene that I actually did, in making
the movie, was the march of welcome.

Meeting Mozart for the first time.

I had to learn to play
the piano accurately, and badly.

Even though the harpsichord...
The piano was unhooked...

...the hands had
to be in the right place.

Lightly, then strongly!

They had provided me with several
different versions of prerecorded music...

...and I had to learn
to do it as recorded.

Which was fun. I had a good time.
Then I got to be very good at it.

Tom worked on it too.

Tom had a piano in his room
and he worked on it all the time.

The keyboards that I played on in front
of the camera were all silent.

All of the music was recorded
before we started.

So the sequence was done with the
music played out loud in the room...

...or in my ear, if there was dialogue
that had to go on.

In the scene where Mozart
first meets the emperor...

...and Salieri has written this march,
it was a surreal experience.

It was staged so that the actors
were behind me. The keyboard is here:

Because there's dialogue, the music is
played in a tiny transistor in my ear.

The keyboard is silent.
I'm looking away...

...so when you lose your bearings,
you can't find it.

So it truly was a kind
of schizophrenic situation.

When we met, the only instrument
he ever played was guitar.

He never played piano.

He was spending like three or four
hours a day for several months...

...practicing the pieces
he had to play.

I began, as the months went on,
to believe the illusion a bit.

It was always distressing...

...to hear what I really sounded like
on a sounded keyboard.

The practice room,
where my piano was...

...was right over the room
where Milos hung out.

Imagine what a nightmare
that was for him.

The one day he said
that I was improving...

...was the day that my teacher
was demonstrating to me.

Neville Marriner,
after seeing the film, said:

"He never hits a wrong key.
Even when he plays backwards."

Now you play it backwards!

There was just no way to be able to do
that without being able to do it.

It's one thing to play
to a playback...

...it's entirely different to do it
upside down behind your back.

In the way of stunt work,
you learn what the assignment is...

...and some chemical gets released,
and you actually can do it.

It was a big thrill for everybody
that we were going to film in...

...practically the only wooden
opera house left...

...in central Europe
and also the most perfectly preserved.

It had undergone many alterations,
but they were minor...

...and architecturally,
the place was intact.

The first time I arrived in Prague
for location, and they showed us...

...the theater, we were there
with Peter Shaffer and Saul...

...when suddenly,
I realized Peter Shaffer disappeared.

Where's Peter Shaffer?

We found him
in the corridor, hidden, crying...

...because there he learned
that he is standing exactly...

...at the place where Mozart himself...

...in person, conducted
the world premiere of "Don Giovanni".

I tell you, we felt awed the first
time we stepped on that stage...

...and realized that our hero had been
in that very spot.

I think this fact...

...gave a lot of humility...

...and respect for the place...

...to every actor, dancer
and everybody there.

There's something that happens when
you do it in the place, the atmosphere.

I'm not crazy about
the spiritual ghosts and things.

I'm not, but I don't deny them.

Suddenly, the reality of the place and
the moment really enters into you...

...which is why it was a great idea to
do it there instead of building a set.

It was brilliant.

But again, thanks to the neglect...

...during the communist era,
it was a powder keg.

It was in danger of burning down.

It still had gas lines in it.
They lit it with gas.

They used to have limelight in it.
It really hadn't been modernized.

Now we are going there
to light millions of candles!

All those candles in a wooden
opera house, in a wooden dome.

When the chandeliers were lit, I held
my breath for what seemed like days.

And there we were,
all these extras, all these wigs...

...and all this flammable stuff
in this tinderbox-dry theater...

...where "Don Giovanni" had had its
premiere. That theater we were in.

Amazing.

Imagine the trust of the opera house,
allowing us to be there.

We had every day
like 30 or 40 firemen...

...everywhere, standing there.

But they were absolutely...
I will never forget "Don Giovanni".

At a certain moment, Don Giovanni
moves to the table, does this:

And he has a hat with huge plumage,
you know, a feather...

...like a peacock feather, right?

And leans like that
and talks to the commodore.

We rehearsed. Everything was fine.

Okay, let's shoot.

So light the candles.

We didn't realize
that there on the table...

...is this small candelabra,
which now is lit.

Okay, camera roll it, playback.
We are shooting.

And the actor is performing like that.

He leans...

...and suddenly we see
that this feather caught fire.

The fire is going up and up and up,
but he's in the ecstasy of performing.

He doesn't even notice.

And everybody is staring and nobody...
We have 40, 50 firemen around there.

And his head starts really flaming.

Finally, one fireman dared
to lean from the wings and says:

"Excuse me. Excuse me, Mr. Forman,
will you please stop the cameras?"

"Your actor is on fire!"

When the camera is rolling,
everything is sacred.

My impression, never having done
a movie that size...

I had done a horror film...
That if things went wrong...

...one should just stop.

When we did that scene
where we're playing under the table...

...I don't remember if it was a take or
rehearsal, but I came out of my dress.

Which I was barely in to begin with.

And there was Milos, "Keep going!"

I was like, "Really?"

- Stop it!
- I am.

And Milos looks for the...
He'd love life coming in accidentally.

There. You see?

Milos can be a bit abrupt.

That's kind of a pleasant way
to put it.

But he's never wrong.

On "Amadeus", after this incredible
journey to get to Prague...

...through the night
and all of this remarkable stuff...

...I'm suddenly standing
in 18th-century costume, in the snow...

...in Prague,
in the middle of the night.

Then I have to walk down the street...

...and he says to me,
"Vinnie, television is ruining you!"

He meant my walk was terrible.

"Television is ruining you!"

Then we did a second take a moment
later. He said, "That was wonderful!"

I don't know what changed.

We were six days or five days into
shooting the first scene I was in...

...and Milos wasn't
really saying anything.

I was starting to feel
a little bit more comfortable and I said:

"Milos, do you have any suggestions?"
And he said, "No".

I said, "Well, I mean, is it okay?
I mean, should I do more or less?"

"No, you're doing fine."
I said, "You haven't said anything".

He said, "If there was anything wrong,
I'd have said so".

I was fine, so he didn't need to say anything.

Less you talk,
less you confuse actors' heads.

If you cast wrong then you have to work
and usually, you're in trouble anyway.

A director is little bit of everything,
but a good director always...

...for every part of his work, must
choose people who are better than him.

For me, the operas
were not difficult at all.

Because it was, first of all,
beautifully recorded.

Beautifully cast by Twyla,
and she did all the choreography.

So for me, it was just a question,
you know, how to...

Where to place the camera
and how to shoot it.

It was extremely difficult to work in Prague.
There were no materials.

Everything had to be brought in
and everything was improvised.

They had no properties, no wardrobes,
no fabrics. Nothing to build with.

But they had an ingenuity, a humor,
and a force to their imagination...

...that more than repaid
the lack of materials.

I really enjoyed and had great fun
shooting the parody in the theater...

...the parody of Mozart's operas.

Milos only talks about doing things
extremely and broadly.

That is one of his charms.

You can't go over the top with Milos.
It's not possible. It doesn't exist. I like that.

Peter enjoyed very much
writing this scene.

The parody, words, learning new lyrics.

I had never done anything like that.

I'm not sure Milos ever directed
anything like that.

I'm sure Twyla had never choreographed
anything like that.

I'm sick to death of that tune!

There was a pure joy. We just put
every silly thing in, the dwarves...

It's very inventive, a very Milos
scene. You feel it in the man.

The thing that gives him the greatest
pleasure is that kind of theater.

The guy who is in the back
of the horse, right?

Because he has to reach out
and give out a dove.

When the horse moved,
he had to walk backwards.

That was probably the most
difficult thing in the film.

There were so many extras,
we were hard-pressed...

...for enough wigs
and enough costumes.

Makeup and hair and wardrobe
for 500 people...

It was like a...

It was like a battleground.

Once these people were dressed,
they were on their own.

And they wandered the halls
and ate their lunch...

...and made phone calls
and all in their clothes.

I think that had
a tremendous amount to do...

...with the way they came across.
It was life.

They lived in these clothes
for as long...

...as it took to complete this scene,
just as they did in the 18th century.

And I think there is a great deal
of authentic life...

...in them and in the clothes.

They were in the clothes long enough
that they were not a costume.

The costumes succeeded
because I had a hard head.

When I didn't like something, I had it
redone again until it was right.

Even the producer couldn't interfere
when it was costing more.

I'd redo it until I'd say,
"That can go in front of a camera."

The worst thing is to compromise.
It compromises the entire production.

It's every woman's fantasy,
I think, for about five minutes...

...to wear something like that...

...and feel like a princess.
And then it gets old.

It's very uncomfortable. It was
literally like being squeezed...

...and coming out
at the top like toothpaste.

Eighteenth-century costumes,
it really...

It really informs how you stand,
how you walk...

...what your posture should be.

Eighteenth-century clothes
have very tight shoulders.

They keep you back.

You keep your shoulders back
and your head erect. That's the pose.

That's what the clothes tell you
they want you to do.

What surprised me was that
because my hair...

...had gotten dyed
a kind of gold color...

...I'd get up in the morning and that image
was so different to me...

...that it actually triggered the part
of me that was more extraverted.

As people would show up
for their sequences in the film...

...I found that I had an urge
to take them out...

...and to be the kind
of social director...

...in a way that isn't
my natural inclination.

He was so much in the head of Mozart.
After the movie was done...

...we shared
a living space together...

...and he's a very different man
than he was.

He was transformed into Mozart.

I hadn't thought about this
in a long time...

...but as Salieri, I was separate
from the rest of the cast...

...for the first 3 1/2 weeks.
I was only doing the old man.

I had decided to be separated from the cast because
that's the kind of man Salieri was.

I'm not that way. I love parties.
I love a good time. I really do.

But I was extremely solitary.
It was me against everyone else.

What I didn't realize was that this was
infecting how others felt about me.

Whenever there were parties...

...I wasn't invited because I wasn't
there. Also, I was always too busy.

If you refused for 3 1/2, four weeks,
people don't invite you anymore.

I began to be like that character.
I didn't like being separate...

...but in a way, that contributed
to the success of the performance.

In some way, I feel like the work
relationship that I had with Murray...

...was supported by the fact
that we didn't...

...become so close that we knew
too much about each other.

Tom and I have great respect
for each other.

But during the film, we were living a
little bit like those two characters.

There was always that element where
we never knew each other so well...

...that we could tell exactly when the
other one was telling the truth or not.

It happens. When you embody
a character as we did...

...it happens that you carry it over.

Crazy, but it's true of any actor
who does a part for a length of time.

And these parts meant so much
to both of us.

It was only right
that we had this antagonism.

It's too soon.

Can I...?

Could I help you?

Would you?

The dictation of the Requiem
by the dying Mozart, seems to me...

...to overturn every piece
of wisdom I was ever told.

The words are, in themselves,
not particularly interesting.

They don't even look
like a movie script.

They look as if they will
never play. They are dull.

C sharp, E flat, bar 14,
this, that, the other.

It's several pages
of musical direction.

One guy's in bed
and the other is writing at the end.

And nobody moves.

It's daring to have a whole sequence...

...of composers dictating music
to each other.

And they had set us up,
before we started filming...

...with Neville Marriner
and his assistant.

They had them do the scene for us...

...to let us see what real musicians
would be like.

And forgive me, Neville, it was awful.

It was awful. They're not actors.

Any film school would tell you
this is not for movie.

- Come, let's begin.
- We ended in F major.

- Yes.
- So now, A minor.

There's one sequence early on
in the scene...

...where Mozart is fairly delirious
and trying to find...

...the phrase that he's looking
for in the dictation.

- A minor.
- Yes.

"Confutatis". A minor.

In reality, what happened
on that day is there's a little...

John Strauss is in the corner pressing
the buttons on a cassette player.

We have little hearing aids
in our ears...

...which are playing
like an AM radio...

...the musical phrase, so that we can
be on tempo and pitch...

...for when all the music gets laid
in afterwards.

And there was some mishap,
so there's a moment where I'm...

Me, the actor is...
I'm genuinely lost.

But because of the kind of trust
and connection that we have...

...the whole sequence is in the film.

A minor.

Start with the voices.

- Basses first. Second beat of the...
- Time?

Common time.
Second beat of the first measure.

There were two cameras set up,
so we didn't overlap.

And most of that is improvisational...

...because he was acting
as though he were very sick.

Consequently, he began to lose
certain things and I would guide him.

It was a real symphony
between the two of us, a duet.

Later on, I don't know if told Murray,
but I would skip information.

First bassoon, tenor trombones,
with the tenors.

I'd leave out information that I knew
he needed to go to the next place.

- You go too fast.
- Do you have it?

- Bassoon to trombone, what?
- The tenors.

So he'd have to stop me and Salieri
would seem not smart enough.

Trumpets and timpani.
Trumpets in D. Listen.

- I don't understand!
- Listen!

You can do that because there
were cameras on both of us...

...and also because of a superb
partnership between two players.

The thing that most amazed me...

...was the artistry...

...of every person in every job
that worked on this film...

...and the extraordinary
storytelling...

...that happened
from every point of view.

I have the deepest gratitude
to that crew...

...because they gave everything,
everything they had.

In most cases, the film would
be a biography of Mozart...

...and it would be what happened
and what happened.

To take the circumstances
of that incredible life...

...and put it in the context...

...of this other man
and his argument...

...with his god, is genius, I think.

I don't really care what it is about...

...because it moves me
and makes me think.

It makes me laugh.

It makes me cry a little.

And whatever you think about,
that's what it is about.

I don't see that the movie has aged.

It's a timeless story, and it's
beautifully told and beautifully shot.

I'm sure you'll hear this
again and again...

...but we were part and parcel...

...of something that was greater
than we were.

I remember the stunned silence...

...of those long, long main titles...

...at the end while the piano concerto
was still playing.

Extraordinarily, people waited
until the end of the main titles.

Then the applause at the end
as if they'd been to a concert.

And then you got the first sense
that perhaps...

...this was going
to be an unusual movie...

...and that perhaps the music had won.

The thing that pleases me
almost more than anything else...

...about the whole enterprise...

...is the number of people,
young people...

...who discover the man I think
is the greatest composer in the world.

So many people were introduced...

...to Mozart as a composer, compared
with just doing it in concert halls.

It'd have taken 100 years to reach
as many people as the film did.