As the San Francisco Symphony prepares to screen the Oscar-winning film, I reminisce...
Amadeus first entered my consciousness back in the early ‘80s, when I worked in the promotion dept. of Fantasy Records (Dave Brubeck, Vince Guaraldi, Creedence Clearwater Revival) in Berkeley, which was owned by Saul Zaentz and his partners, along with several jazz and R&B record labels. A few years earlier, before my time with the company, in the 1970s, Saul had begun producing movies under Fantasy Films, the film production division of the parent company. His second film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), had gone on to win 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and the first of Jack Nicholson’s three Oscars. Saul would continue to make films, and the film division would soon change its name to the Saul Zaentz Company.
In 1979, Milos Forman, who had directed and won an Oscar for Cuckoo’s Nest, saw the first preview production of Amadeus in London and was so impressed that he immediately approached playwright Peter Shaffer’s agent insisting that he had to make a film of it. Forman later got in touch with Saul about Amadeus and Saul would listen. In time there would be buzz swirling through the Fantasy offices that Saul had a new project, that it was a movie based on the Tony-winning Broadway play about Mozart.
I left the company when Amadeus was in the early stages of development, but Saul and the gang remembered me. And so, when in September 1984 the company staged a lavish premiere in San Francisco, I received an invitation.
Back in the day: the Galaxy Theater, San Francisco
The special screening would be held at the Galaxy Theater, a then brand-new fourplex on Sutter St. at Van Ness. San Francisco has been home to many celebrated movie palaces: the Castro (San Francisco Landmark #100), the Alhambra (Landmark #217), the Metro (Landmark #261) and the El Rey (recently awarded landmark status), to name four that are still standing. The Galaxy, a soaring pile of glass building blocks, was a palace of a different sort, the shiny, showy ‘80s kind. Built for United Artists, it boasted multiple screens, certified THX sound, and it had opened just six months before the Amadeus premiere. It was the perfect site for the film’s local debut for a lot of reasons. Aside from the theater’s glitz factor and sound system, it was but a few short blocks from the Great American Music Hall, the historic concert venue where the premiere’s lavish after-party would be held.Elizabeth Berridge with Tom Hulce as Mozart
What I knew of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart before seeing Amadeuswas a few prominent musical works along with the knowledge that he’d been a child prodigy and had died young. I imagined Mozart the (young) man to have a personality that reflected his music: refined and elegant - and perhaps reserved, as I assumed a complex and genteel musical genius might be.The film told me that though he was certainly nothing less than a musical genius, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was also a rather frivolous and louche young fellow. He was also financially destitute, a spendthrift who depended on the largess of patrons and friends. Something I’d never imagined, and central to the plot, was that Mozart may have been poisoned by another much less talented composer, a bitter rival by the name of Antonio Salieri. I later I learned that not all of this was entirely true. License was taken with history to better contrast the irony of a Salieri, portrayed as a dedicated and hardworking craftsman whose work is at best mediocre, against a Mozart, depicted as a childish and freewheeling hedonist whose work is brilliant high art. The film is about the venom of envy, Salieri’s envy of Mozart’s great and, in the lesser composer’s view, undeserved genius. But Salieri's envy is particularly toxic and complicated for, according to Amadeus, he adored Mozart's work.
With its sumptuous set design, baroque-era costuming, magnificent staging of the composer’s celebrated works, Shaffer's screenplay and more than a few fine performances, Amadeus was both opulent and stunning - and the scene that followed at the Great American Music Hall was equally heady.
San Francisco's Great American Music Hall
The hall was decked out in rich rococo finery that could easily have served as a grand banquet set in the film. Two very long candelabra-lit tables were laden with an enormous amount of food. Servers who wore the livery of late 18th century Vienna carved fowl and meat to order – for hours. A string ensemble provided live music, the works of Mozart, of course. All the stars of Amadeus were there, and local stars as well, rock ‘n’ rollers and rock impresarios, most of them partying hard.Early on, as I climbed a broad staircase, I ran into Saul Zaentz coming down. “How did you like it?” he asked with a proud smile. I gushed about the ravishing production design, musical staging and especially F. Murray Abraham’s performance in the role of Antonio Salieri. Saul was pleased, his smile broadened.
F. Murray Abraham as Antonio Salieri
As the party shifted into high gear, with champagne openly flowing and white powder covertly blowing, I noticed one major player who wasn’t playing. In a dark corner, standing by himself, quietly observing, was F. Murray Abraham. I kept an eye on him for a little while. He stayed put and – amazingly - was left alone. He seemed to want to be left alone but I thought he might enjoy an early review and so made my way to his corner, introduced myself and congratulated him on his performance, the dark, brooding core of the film. He was gracious, and we exchanged a few words, his in that resonant and unmistakable baritone.A few months later it was Oscar time and I watched as Amadeuscollected 8 Academy Awards, including another Best Picture for Saul and Best Director for Milos Forman…and a Best Actor for F. Murray Abraham.
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Saul Zaentz would go on to make more films and win more Oscars. A little over 10 years later The English Patient (1996), with Ralph Fiennes, Juliet Binoche, Kristen Scott Thomas and Colin Firth, would win 9 Oscars, including Saul’s third for Best Picture. The New York Times would hail him as “the last of the great independent producers.” He passed away in 2014 at age 92.
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The San Francisco Symphony continues its annual film series with movie-in-concert screenings of Amadeus on Friday, April 6 and Saturday, April 7 at 8pm, and on Monday, April 16 at 7:30 pm. These concerts present the film on a vast HD screen with its score performed live in-sync by the symphony orchestra. The performances will also feature the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, reprising its role in the film’s original soundtrack. Click here for more information.