'80s Movie Montage
Breaking down our favorite decade of flicks. Hosted by Anna Keizer and Derek Dehanke.
'80s Movie Montage
Amadeus
In this episode, Anna and Derek debate what people may know of Salieri's actual legacy, whether this Oscar winner needed to be trimmed up a bit, and much more during their discussion of Milos Forman's Amadeus (1984).
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Anna Keizer and Derek Dehanke are the co-hosts of ‘80s Movie Montage. The idea for the podcast came when they realized just how much they talk – a lot – when watching films from their favorite cinematic era. Their wedding theme was “a light nod to the ‘80s,” so there’s that, too. Both hail from the Midwest but have called Los Angeles home for several years now. Anna is a writer who received her B.A. in Film/Video from Columbia College Chicago and M.A. in Film Studies from Chapman University. Her dark comedy short She Had It Coming was an Official Selection of 25 film festivals with several awards won for it among them. Derek is an attorney who also likes movies. It is a point of pride that most of their podcast episodes are longer than the movies they cover.
Because you choose for your instrument a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy, and give me for reward only the ability to recognize the incarnation. Because you are unjust, unfair, Unkind. I will block
SPEAKER_01:you. Hello and welcome to 80s Movie Montage. This is Derek.
SPEAKER_04:And this is Anna.
SPEAKER_01:And that was F. Murray Abraham as Antonio Salieri blocking God in 1984's Amadeus.
SPEAKER_04:That's right. Yeah. Couldn't block you from all the social what-have-yous of that century. I
SPEAKER_01:think the added touch of tossing the crucifix into the fire as he blocked him... There's no
SPEAKER_04:going back
SPEAKER_01:once you burn a crucifix. I think that's pretty definitive. It was extreme. Although, to be fair, I think what he meant by blocking him was, I'm going to kill Amadeus.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's an interesting... I mean, his whole... The whole story made up in his head about what he thought he was doing for God and what he thought God was doing against him. Yeah. It's kind of funny because he definitely has issues with Amadeus for being so boastful about his talent. Yeah. But in a manner of speaking, he's exactly the same way. He's not as vocal about it, but he too feels he is very high on himself.
SPEAKER_01:That is pride fucking with him.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly that. So, yes, Amadeus. By the time this goes live, the Oscars will have passed, but we decided to do something... A little bit more highbrow, you might want to say. Maybe. Yeah. This was the Best Picture winner, and in fact, it won eight total Oscars.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That's honestly... incredible, particularly when I saw some of the competition.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, it was.
SPEAKER_01:The killing fields.
SPEAKER_04:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:I was kind of surprised that this won best picture over that.
SPEAKER_04:It was a stacked year. It had 11 total nominations. Now, some of the wins and noms will go through because they connect with the people we cover normally. But I'm going to quick give a shout out for the other categories for which it either was nominated or won. In fact, I think all the other categories, they were wins. So as As mentioned, it won Best Picture. It also won Best Art Direction Set Decoration. It won Best Costume Design.
SPEAKER_01:Sure.
SPEAKER_04:Best Sound.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, I think you better get that right. Yeah, you better get it right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And Best Makeup. So those are categories we don't typically cover. So I wanted to give a shout out the fact that it won those.
SPEAKER_01:Best Makeup was deserved. I mean, there were moments where... Old Salieri.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You could see like...
SPEAKER_04:He looked like Gary Oldman from Bram Stoker's Dracula. But I'm not saying that necessarily in a bad way.
SPEAKER_01:No, he very much was like that. Yeah. Yeah. He just was missing the bun.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, exactly. He had his own hairstyle going on. And then also, I do think that they did a really nice job with showing Mozart's being sick towards the end. Yeah. I thought that that looked pretty realistic.
SPEAKER_01:Legit looked like that song was killing him.
SPEAKER_04:Yes. So I think they're all pretty well deserved. Yeah. So 1984, written by... So we have two people credit... Well, two people listed, one person credited. So the person that we're going to... Talk about maybe a little more prominently because his name is prominently shown above the title card. Yeah. I noticed that. I mean, I've seen this film before, but I never clocked that. Very, very unusual for the screenwriter to say– like for it to say Peter Schaffer's Amadeus. But the reason
SPEAKER_01:for
SPEAKER_04:that–
SPEAKER_01:Go for it. Is that he also wrote the play. Correct. Right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So– and that is what his– kind of go-to uh creative outlet was he was a playwright but because he was such an accomplished playwright many of his plays were adapted into films so he did win the best adapted screenplay for this movie. He passed away in 2016. Unfortunately, this is going to be another one of those episodes where a lot of people have passed that we cover, especially behind the scenes.
SPEAKER_01:Strangely, or maybe not strangely, the longer we do this, the more that's going to happen.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. Thankfully, I think most of the cast are still with us, but a lot of the people behind the camera are not. So he passed in 2016. Some of his other credits... There's one that's also very, very... I would say well-known. He had the play credit for The Royal Hunt of the Sun. So they're all films, a couple films I pulled out. So that, not familiar with that work. He also had a play slash screenplay credit for The Public Eye. But then Equus is the one that I think a lot of people know. And he got another– Best Adapted Screenplay nomination. He didn't win for it, but he got a nomination for his involvement as, like, based on his play, and he also wrote the screenplay for that. Okay. What's interesting, I'm not, I don't know to what extent this person really had, I mean, he must have had some involvement for him to even be mentioned on IMDb. He is uncredited. His name is Zdenek Mahler. He passed in 2018. So he is on IMDb as an uncredited screenwriter for this movie. Some of his other credits include The Unfortunate Bridegroom, The Seventh Day, The Eighth Night, and The Butcher of Prague. So a lot of these people behind the scenes were– Like, they were European creatives and technicians, and he is one of them. He did a lot of different Czech projects. So he had a lot of Czech projects under his belt. Of course, I'm not really familiar with Czech entertainment, but we'll kind of see it as a common refrain a little bit with some of these people. Okay, moving on to the director now. Incredibly well-respected. Probably the first and only time we're going to bring him up for the work that he did in the 80s. Milos Forman! Okay, I don't know him. Oh, really? Okay. No, he was an incredible director. I
SPEAKER_01:should, though.
SPEAKER_04:Once we go through the credits, you're like, oh, sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I know. Now that I'm looking at it, I'm like, I definitely know who this is. Yeah, yeah. I know
SPEAKER_04:who he is. So, he won? Yeah. Best director for this film. He also passed in 2018. And yeah, he was incredible. I mean, it's interesting because it's clear that he seemed to enjoy doing films that were like biopics because he has a couple of those under his belt. He came on the scene well before this film. So he is– he might be well-known now. for this film, but I would say if forced, people would probably associate him more so with his other Best Director Oscar win, which was for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. So he got that. Some of his other credits include Hair and Ragtime, and then... as the decades moved on. I remember seeing both these films and I thought they were pretty good. So he directed The People vs. Larry Flint. He got a Best Director Oscar nomination for that film. And then he also did Man on the Moon about Kaufman. So starring Jim Carrey.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I thought... I mean, I saw both of those when they came out. I enjoyed them both. I probably found The People vs. Larry Flint a little more interesting. But I enjoyed them both.
SPEAKER_04:I think... He was an incredible– I mean, look, he was an incredible director. I think if you get two Oscars for your work, I think that– Pretty good. I think that shows you're pretty good. Yeah. I think that he was a real actor's director because I think to get the performance he got out of Holtz, which, look, prior to this film, probably his most well-known– Credit was for Animal House, so that's kind of amazing. Yeah. And then to get the performance he got out of Woody Harrelson, who probably up to that point was most well-known for
SPEAKER_01:Cheers. Yeah, and when I think of some of the other casting possibilities for this character, for Mozart, Mel Gibson... That would have been a completely different movie.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I mean, I know that all those things are listed on IMDb. I'm always like, well, how serious was it that other people were considered for the role?
SPEAKER_01:The name that I saw that I thought was interesting was Tim Curry.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. As Mozart, I could see that. I mean, he definitely has a musical what have you to who he is as a performer. To
SPEAKER_01:the extent that Holsey-
SPEAKER_04:Holtz. Holtz? Holtz? H-U-L-C-E.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Tom. Tom. Tom H. To the extent that he had this manic quality about him, that's what makes me think, well, Curry would have been interesting in that role.
SPEAKER_04:He, I would think, would be the best runner-up.
SPEAKER_01:Certainly, I see that as a much better fit than Mel Gibson where it's suddenly like Braveheart. I'm going to
SPEAKER_04:be honest. It's really hard for me to like speak kindly of Gibson because of his like whatever antics.
SPEAKER_01:No, no. I fully understand. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But I don't think he would have been the right fit anyway. Yeah. Truthfully. No. But yeah, I think Foreman– got incredible... What I distinctly remember about The People vs. Larry Flint was what an incredible performance he got of Courtney Love.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, exactly. He
SPEAKER_04:got a phenomenal performance out of her. And even Man on the Moon, I mean, was that maybe kind of... Well, Truman Show was right around that time, too. Jim
SPEAKER_01:Carrey had done stuff. Yeah,
SPEAKER_04:but got a great performance out of him. I mean, I'd be so curious to hear about what that relationship was like because... I don't know if Kerry kind of did the same thing where he just like, you know, some actors, they just like become that
SPEAKER_01:character. He doesn't. I think so. Yeah. I think that honestly, I think that's part of what didn't like sour me on the movie, but I'm like, OK. I
SPEAKER_04:think even Foreman's kids were named Andrew and James because of that film. Wow. So that I read that. So he had an incredible career. It sounds like. Maybe he was more selective about the work that he did because his filmography isn't very big. But what he did was amazing. And we're really fortunate that he got to be part of this industry. I did read a little bit about his history. He, unfortunately, was orphaned at a very young age because both his parents died in the Holocaust. Oh, my God. So for him to... have just survived that tragedy, that horrific situation, and lose his parents at such a young age. And to be able to go on to have this kind of career is all the more amazing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, very much so. So
SPEAKER_04:I'm not trying to linger on him, but I think that considering that he is not going to come up again for us, likely. And yeah, he was just an incredible director.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't think there's anything else that we... Yeah, no. I mean, maybe ragtime. I don't know.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, maybe. Okay, moving on to cinematography. Miroslav Andrisek is how I'm going to say that.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:And he was like a little bit of a collaborator because there's another film that he did with Foreman. He did get Thank you so much. I think he will come up again for us because he had a pretty loaded 80s. So there are definitely other options.
SPEAKER_01:There's one that I definitely want to. And then there are a few other where I'm like, yeah, we could.
SPEAKER_04:Sure. Yeah. So... Oh, actually, there were two other films that he did with Foreman.
SPEAKER_01:So we... In a couple of different roles between cinematographer and DP, right? Like...
SPEAKER_04:Same job.
SPEAKER_01:Is it really? Why are they listed differently? Why would they do this to me?
SPEAKER_04:So, okay. I... Well, I won't go down the rabbit hole today of like, what if they, they're nowadays used interchangeably.
SPEAKER_01:They are on IMDB as well.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. So I,
SPEAKER_04:it's, I don't know why, why we have two, two names for the same role. Maybe at some point they did define two different roles,
SPEAKER_01:but nowadays. Has this not come up in a single other episode that we've recorded? This seems crazy to me that I'm just now discovering this.
SPEAKER_04:Well, back
SPEAKER_01:then,
SPEAKER_04:yeah. Yeah. Slaughterhouse... Slaughterhouse... Yeah, Slaughter.
SPEAKER_01:Featuring Cindy Galper.
SPEAKER_04:Slaughterhouse-Five. So he pairs up with Foreman on Hair. He also pairs up with Foreman on Ragtime, for which he got another Best Cinematography Oscar nom. Nice. At some point, I think we could do The World According to Garp.
SPEAKER_01:We could, yeah. That's the one where I'm like, that's such an interesting movie. I
SPEAKER_04:mean, it has, I believe... Glenn Close, I think, is in it.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_04:I think John Lithgow is in it. So there's some interesting people we could talk about in there.
SPEAKER_01:There's a lot of interesting stuff. In some ways, there's stuff that would be the opposite of the way that stuff was addressed in She's One of the Guys. Just One of the Guys. She's One
SPEAKER_02:of the Guys.
SPEAKER_01:It's not an inaccurate title.
UNKNOWN:It's not.
SPEAKER_04:You know what you did? Yeah. You did a mashup of she's the man and just one of the guys. That's exactly what I did. She's one of the guys.
SPEAKER_01:All to say, there's a little bit of that in The World According to Garp in a totally different way. Oh,
SPEAKER_04:okay. I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_01:I think Lithgow's character in particular. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, cool. He also, I know you brought this up. I think it was just the last episode. Silkwood.
SPEAKER_01:Feel good. Comedy feel
SPEAKER_04:good. You were like, I don't ever want to do that.
SPEAKER_01:Family favorite, Silkwood.
SPEAKER_04:We'll see. Well, he shot it. Heaven help us. Is Funny Farm the one that you... No,
SPEAKER_01:I still want to do FX.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, I didn't even put that one down. I'm sorry. But okay, well, fair. So yes, you did Funny Farm. And now moving into the 90s, Awakenings. He shot A League of Their Own. Amazing. We love that movie, except for the end. Yeah. The
SPEAKER_01:end. The end bothers you more than it bothers me.
SPEAKER_04:Fair.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:He did The Preacher's Wife and Riding in Cars with Boys. Okay, so here we go. This would normally be the moment where we would bring up the composer on this film. So it's kind of amazing because... You mean Mozart? Yeah, I mean, look, once I was going through the credits and noticed that there was no composer, I was like, oh, well, duh. Because the entirety of the music was either composed by Mozart or... Or Salieri.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Or, interestingly... Just noting, Salieri had a little bit of a renaissance after this came out. His music became much more popular, or at least somewhat so.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean, good for him, especially because what a bad rap this guy gets, because it's kind of just a totally made-up story.
SPEAKER_01:Aside from just having a bit of a rivalry... From what I understand, did not ever get to the extent of what was portrayed in the movie.
SPEAKER_04:No, I mean, I even... Maybe
SPEAKER_01:he blocked God, though. I don't know.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean, it... Maybe he blocked God. It's... The whole film takes a major liberty in terms of structuring the lives of these two individuals in terms of some rivalry that they had with each other. When that was like... Almost certainly not the case.
SPEAKER_01:Well, Schaefer's play is based off of the work of a Russian writer who... kind of created this fiction between the two. Which is
SPEAKER_04:kind of unfair. I don't know what the guy had against Salieri, but... I
SPEAKER_01:don't know. It's just good old-fashioned Russian slander.
SPEAKER_04:Because people who don't maybe know any better, I don't know if they'll take that at face value. And that's kind of a tough thing to attach to somebody's legacy.
SPEAKER_01:What a world we would live in if that happened.
SPEAKER_04:So in any case, also, there's another music credit to Franz Xavier Wolfgang Mozart. And so Look, I get it. It's whatever. Another liberty that's taken with the film is that they only show that Mozart and his wife had one child. That wasn't the case. The person credited is another one of Mozart's children.
SPEAKER_01:Was his nickname Wolfie? Because I want to believe.
SPEAKER_04:Wolfie and Stanzi.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So
SPEAKER_04:cute little nicknames. But to get back to the composer. So while... The composers are those amazing individuals who we see characters of them on screen. The person I'm going to call out for this particular film is John Strauss. So he was credited as the music coordinator.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Yeah. There's like a whole music department.
SPEAKER_04:For sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. My favorite credit in the music department, there's an uncredited credit for a Mr. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
SPEAKER_04:That's funny.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Why would you not just credit him? That's really weird. Strauss also passed away in 2016. And I think that the reason why I'm going with him as far as who I'm going to call out is because he also got a Grammy for his work on the soundtrack for this film. So I feel like there's a That works. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then he, too, worked on Slaughterhouse-Five. He worked with Foreman on Hair. He also worked with him on Ragtime. And he worked on The Blues Brothers. Really? He did. Nice. So go check that one out. We did that ages ago. I don't even know. Season two, probably, is my guess. We did that back then. Ishtar. Oh. Infamously.
SPEAKER_01:What is that? Oh, I don't think I realized we could do that. Ishtar, 1987.
SPEAKER_04:We could do Ishtar. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Do we want to kill the
SPEAKER_04:podcast? And Newsies. So
SPEAKER_01:there we go. I know those are all film, but he also had a credit for Cop Rock. Just wanted to make sure we didn't forget about Cop Rock.
SPEAKER_04:Like it. Okay. Moving on to film editing. So there's kind of an interesting little thing here. So first of all, two people, they got nominations for Not too slander. Oh? This movie comes in at like about two hours and 40 minutes.
SPEAKER_01:Ooh, and it could have been longer.
SPEAKER_04:Sure. It also could have been shorter. I
SPEAKER_01:wish it had been, but yes, it could
SPEAKER_04:have been. I think they could have shaved 40 minutes off this puppy. Although...
SPEAKER_01:Although like getting what felt like just an hour of– hours worth of footage of Abraham just like in ecstasy of music, if you had taken a couple of those out maybe, now we get it down to like two.
SPEAKER_04:So from what I can sense, the reason why the film is length is– These are my words. The reason the film is the length that it is is because they do show extensive sequences of the musical pieces.
SPEAKER_01:They sure do.
SPEAKER_04:And whether it's Salieri or Mozart conducting. And I understand the reverence and the respect that I presume the people involved in this film wanted to show in terms of showing the full pieces. No,
SPEAKER_01:they probably had to. I
SPEAKER_04:think that's maybe where it comes from. Yeah. But it's a lot.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's why Wicked is going to be two movies, right? Exactly. Because they couldn't get it all in one film.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So it's like I get it, but as a filmgoer. They
SPEAKER_01:were never going to have an Amadeus Part One
SPEAKER_04:in 1984. No, but like having sequences that long for me does not move the story along.
SPEAKER_01:No, no. And like a lot of those were kind of like what I just. It's a lot of like us watching it happen. And then you see Salieri's reaction to it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And his reaction was pretty much the same every week. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It's kind of like I mean, look, that's why I don't get we'll get to him momentarily. But that's why Abraham won the Oscar, because he did a phenomenal job of kind of indicating just on facial expression alone. I mean, one small part of why he won. But like in those moments. Yeah. This like mixture of. All for what Mozart can do and also kind of like jealousy, self loathing, like
SPEAKER_01:it was an incredible performance. Yeah. It was really early and I'm like, oh yeah, now I can see why he won because that was amazing.
SPEAKER_04:He read for a smaller part, but Foreman really kind of took to how he read. And then eventually that turned into him taking a much bigger role.
SPEAKER_01:And then he learned how to compose and read music for the role.
SPEAKER_04:Pulse also did a similar kind of...
SPEAKER_01:He learned how to play the piano well enough to get by it. I guess a lot of musical professors have watched the movie and it tracks. So like what you're seeing... He
SPEAKER_04:did the backwards piano playing. He did that.
SPEAKER_01:What you're seeing in terms of like, you know, notes being played matches what you're actually hearing, which isn't always... Sometimes it's just like nonsense, but you're hearing something else.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, and the thing is, is that Foreman didn't necessarily make him do that. He didn't make him... learn the piano to the extent that he did. He thought, well, we'll cheat it.
SPEAKER_01:He spent six hours a day for about six months, I think, to learn it, which, hey, not everyone can do that. But if you're
SPEAKER_04:Well, that's part of being an actor. I mean, like that– I don't begrudge them that they have the ability to take six months
SPEAKER_01:to– No, no. I don't think he has– it's not as much– like he has the ability to learn it because some people you could give them eight hours a day. Oh, I couldn't do
SPEAKER_04:that. I am not a musical person.
SPEAKER_01:I could give you my whole life and I would never be able to pick it up. No
SPEAKER_04:way could I do that.
SPEAKER_01:But he didn't really have the obligation to. He could have gotten by. No, exactly. Which is why I
SPEAKER_04:really respect the commitment to that.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It's interesting if we start really going– pulling at those threads because there are ways that people do that for different roles in terms of whether it's learning music or learning like some kind of like combat sport like for like Wonder Woman and all that they had to learn for like when they were showing– They're not Amazons, right? Yeah. They are? Amazonians? Okay, they are. Yeah. Okay, like showing all those sequences of the women in like combat and fighting. Yeah. So there are ways that actors do that, but then there are things like, you know, Christian Bale losing and gaining a crazy amount of weight for various roles where it's like...
SPEAKER_01:My favorite is Liam Neeson climbing a fence in Taken 3. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, so coming back to the editors. So first, I'm going to bring up the two that were nominated. First is Michael Chandler. And the two that were nominated, they were not an editing duo. They were not a partnership. They just both happened to work on the film.
SPEAKER_01:One of them was always jealous of the other one because of their...
SPEAKER_04:That's pretty funny. So this is hilarious. I mean, he might come up again, Chandler, because there are a couple of films. Although I've brought this up. I probably haven't talked about it in a minute. But he was the editor on Never Cry Wolf. I told you, like, my... So my dad, I would never say that he was, like, a film person. But I have all these, like, crazy memories of watching different movies with him. I don't know why he thought... I think it was like five when I saw Never Cry Wolf. I remember thinking this is the most boring... I don't know why he thought I would want to watch that.
SPEAKER_01:It's like, hey, do you want to go to the theater to watch Nat Geo for three hours? It
SPEAKER_04:was just like... It's just hilarious to me that he's like, yeah, I'm going to show my five-year-old daughter this film. Educational. Educational. So he also cut Howard the Duck.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think... I think... It would be fun to cover that, particularly with Howard's inclusion in the MCU.
SPEAKER_04:Sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:In Guardians of the Galaxy. I'm not against it. It is like a really just insane, like it makes Strange Brew look really normal.
SPEAKER_04:Yosemite. So this sounds like a doc, maybe? Yosemite, The Fate of Heaven. Hmm. Which, side note, support national parks while we still have them. Yeah. He also– this is so interesting to me. He cut Empire Records. Like, total– I don't know if I could say it's a cult movie because I think enough people love it. But it is such a defining film of the 90s, I would say.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah,
SPEAKER_04:yeah. And all the people in it. And then lastly, Stripped for Parts, colon, American journalism on the brink. Oh. Also– PSA support independent journalism. Thank you. Okay. So moving on to the other person nominated, Nina Denevic is the way I'm going to say her last name.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:So not an extensive career. However, I think like Both associated with Foreman. I didn't bring up this film because it's... I don't know how popular Valmont was. I think that was a Foreman film, though. So she worked on that. And then she was also an associate editor on Ragtime.
SPEAKER_01:Just the... And
SPEAKER_04:that's kind of it.
SPEAKER_01:I'm looking at the synopsis for Valmont.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:France before 1789. When a widow hears that her lover is to marry her cousin's daughter, she asks the playboy Valmont to take the girl's virginity. But first, she bets him with her body as prize to seduce a virtuous young married woman.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, it's Dangerous Liaisons, right?
SPEAKER_01:Is it?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's a story. And then, like, what was the one that had Michelle Gellar? Cruel Tensions, yeah. So that's that story. Okay, all right, fair. There you go. So those two... Thank you so much. The Empire Strikes Back.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:And Return of the Jedi. Interesting. He's that guy. That
SPEAKER_01:guy. That does those things.
SPEAKER_04:That guy. He also worked on the TV series The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, a film called Friends and Lovers, and then more recently, sounds like a kid's show, Go Go Corey Carson. It sounds
SPEAKER_01:like it.
SPEAKER_04:So, okay. We're finally at the stars of the film. Starting with...
SPEAKER_01:Who we've mostly been talking about the whole
SPEAKER_04:time. Yeah. But, you know, what are we going to do? F. Murray Abraham. So, he is Antonio Salieri. And even though it's called Amadeus, it is Salieri's story,
SPEAKER_01:kind of. Absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So... So I do think that it is– and even I clocked it when we were like, you know, watching the film for the podcast. He is credited first. It– in a way, it makes me feel bad. They both were up for best actor. And it bums me out that Holtz, sorry, I keep saying it with like a T-ish sound, but that he didn't win because he also put in an incredible performance.
SPEAKER_01:They were like co-leads, right? Yeah. Like neither one of them would have been a supporting actor, really, right? Well,
SPEAKER_04:I was thinking about that.
SPEAKER_01:Can't have Mozart be best supporting actor in a movie about Mozart.
SPEAKER_04:Sure. I mean, he gets... Less screen time, I think, but I don't know the finer details of like how you define lead versus supporting actor.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So, however, now my apologies to whoever won best supporting that year, but I think he would have been a slam dunk if he had been put in that category. I
SPEAKER_01:think so. I think the only thing that would have prevented it from happening would have been pushback on whether he should have been nominated for the role. But if it was just like... But you're going to always– it's like when Thelma and Louise.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. You know, like they both were up for– like it's–
SPEAKER_01:They were both up for the lead and then Brad Pitt wins. It was crazy. It makes me feel
SPEAKER_04:so bad when two people who put an incredible performance on a single project are like pitted against each other. I don't want either one of them to not get the acclaim that they deserve in terms of getting like a lead nomination, but it
SPEAKER_01:just– I wonder how much they– like I'm sure they care, but I wonder how much– it like stays with them.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I think
SPEAKER_01:it stays with them. For something like that, even like you think so? There's a little bit of irony given the context of the movie. Totally. For him to win.
SPEAKER_04:Totally. Yeah. Yeah. No, 100%. Like
SPEAKER_01:Salieri got him in the end. Yeah,
SPEAKER_04:exactly. I just, I don't know. It just makes me feel bad. Maybe I care more than they do. I have no idea, but okay. So still very much working. Amazing. So he has done a ton of TV work, and especially a little bit later on in his career, there were a couple series that he was on for a while. I mean, a lot of the TV work was like one, two offs, that sort of thing. I have mostly films for him. So we brought this up before. There is a film that's called They Might Be Giants.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, the band? So he was in that. Fuck, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_04:Every time. Every time. So we're going to just fly right past that. So... I think that when I brought up the fact that Foreman suddenly was interested in him for a bigger role, which ended up being Salieri, he knew that at that time he was filming Scarface. And so I think he– from what I read, Foreman kind of dragged his feet a little bit on deciding who he wanted because he wanted to make sure there wasn't a scheduling conflict for Abraham. So all to say– Abraham's also in Scarface. The Name of the Rose. Who is he in Last Action Hero?
SPEAKER_01:I'd have to watch it again. Okay. I can't recall.
SPEAKER_04:So Last Action Hero, Mighty Aphrodite, Mimic, Muppets from Space.
SPEAKER_02:Oh,
SPEAKER_04:nice. So the guy's got range. Finding Forrester. I'm going to have to, it's not a good movie, but I'm going to have to rewatch 13 Ghosts.
SPEAKER_01:It's not, but that was like one of the movies that I think of him being in. Oh, you do? Yeah. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know who his character is, but that's fine because I don't know who any of them are, really.
SPEAKER_04:It's just a stupid horror film. Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But it's like turning it a little bit into a comfort horror film. I don't know. It's just on a lot. It is on a lot. Yes. He was inside Llewyn Davis, the Grand Budapest Hotel. And then, again, he's come back to some TV work. Homeland was one of his shows, as well as Mythic Quest. Okay. Okay. Now, moving on to Tom Hulse. He, like I mentioned... got a Best Actor nomination. He plays Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Wolfie. Wolfie. And still working, I think, the last couple years. I don't know if I would say he's retired. It's just I noticed that the filmography is a little bit more sparse in present day. But yes, up to this point, his, I would say, defining role was... in National Lampoon's Animal House. I think it's kind of insane in the best way. He doesn't go directly from Animal House to Amadeus.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he's got a few episodes of St. Elsewhere. Sure. A couple other movies. Well, one other movie.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so he did do other stuff, but I just think that's awesome. I think that's one of the best things about entertainment is just the fluctuations between different projects and what people are a part of. I mean,
SPEAKER_01:it makes sense. I identify this guy as, as Mozart now, which is kind of ridiculous.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. He, like I said, he puts in an incredible performance and. But
SPEAKER_01:I also think of him as kind of like the piece of shit in parenthood. The Steve Martin movie. I
SPEAKER_04:don't know that movie as well. I do with... So he might come up again because I would like to do that film.
SPEAKER_01:He's like a degenerate gambler that like leaves... He's
SPEAKER_04:Steve Martin's brother, right?
SPEAKER_01:I think so. Yeah, because it's like
SPEAKER_04:the adult kids of that family. So he is in that. Thank you. Because that was my next credit for him. Sorry. No, totally okay. He was in Fearless, Frankenstein. I think that might have been the... What's his name?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:The guy who does all the Shakespeare stuff, who is married to Emma Thompson, Kenneth Branagh. That's it. Yeah. So he's in that version. I
SPEAKER_01:was looking at it on the page and I'm like, you're so close. You're going to get it. I know it.
SPEAKER_04:So he was in that version of Frankenstein. Notably, he is the voice of the main character in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Quasimodo. Yeah. So he's in that. Stranger Than Fiction and Jumper. So I... I put down all films for him. But yeah, I just want to take a second because he did so great in this role. Like I'm kind of bummed that it didn't provide more momentum for him to have other roles that kind of show the degree to which he is like a really talented dramatic actor.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:He does a great job, I think, of being exactly the person that that Salieri kind of despises. Like he, he is this like brilliant, brilliant creative, but he also, you know, he's very brash. He's very bold. He doesn't really have a filter. I mean, he's
SPEAKER_01:not necessarily, I don't know. It sounds crazy to say that. I don't know if I would consider him to be arrogant or Is it
SPEAKER_04:arrogant when you can back it up?
SPEAKER_01:That's the thing. He just knows. The fact that he has the entire composition in his head, I just got to get it out on paper, was crazy. But as far as, are we saying Hulse-y? Hulse. Hulse. Hulse. Him as an actor, one of the things that I appreciated was towards the end, when he's dictating to Salieri... He made the decision intentionally to skip lines as he was doing it to make Abraham think that he couldn't keep up.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:To make that whole part really work.
SPEAKER_04:My guess is he probably conferred with Foreman on that. I don't think he would have just completely on his own done that.
SPEAKER_01:I'll just say Abraham was like...
SPEAKER_04:I also think it's like, okay, the guy ended up winning Best Actor. Do you have to... do those little tricks. Yes. Like...
SPEAKER_01:You do. How
SPEAKER_04:about just act? Like...
SPEAKER_01:Is that... Who is that? The Laurence Olivier School of Acting?
SPEAKER_04:And Dustin Hoffman. Yes. Where Hoffman was like up for three days or something. It's like, or you could just act. So it's that kind of thing, which... Very funny that you bring that up because it was Olivier who presented the Best Picture winner.
SPEAKER_01:The way that he presented it, though.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I wish the Oscar... Okay, so we're recording this before the Oscars. So we
SPEAKER_01:don't know what... So we don't know
SPEAKER_04:who's going to get pulled out, but I am... Something's going to happen. I am so tired. Like, look, I want there to be... of older actors who have given so much to this industry. But I think there has to be some real serious talk about how prudent it is to bring them on stage.
SPEAKER_01:To a live event.
SPEAKER_04:To a live event where maybe they're not the right choice for that. And we have seen that play out several times now.
SPEAKER_01:Because Olivier just took the stage... Amadeus! Yes! Like, didn't announce any of the other...
SPEAKER_04:Like, they had to, like, confirm that that was correct. And then, you know, very graciously, the producer who accepted the award called out all the other nominees.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he named out all the others. That's how I saw, like, the reference to the other movies, including The Killing Fields. I'm like, wow.
SPEAKER_04:It's just a bad situation for everybody. It's... It's a bummer for all the people who didn't win, because at least you want to have your moment of being acknowledged for being a nominee. And then also, we're talking about Laurence Olivier. Why
SPEAKER_01:are you going to do them like that? Yes. You're setting them up.
SPEAKER_04:Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:They're setting these people up to have these moments where it's like, you don't have to do it
SPEAKER_04:like this. No, I'm so tired. Probably the closest that we got to there being... Like, it could have been real bad, but it was saved as... Who was it? It was, like, Lady Gaga and Liza Minnelli, I think. Oh. Where she brought her out and they had, like, a little conversation.
SPEAKER_01:Lady Gaga.
SPEAKER_04:She handled that with so much compassion
SPEAKER_01:and grace. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And maybe that's what you do instead of just having them be on their own
SPEAKER_01:and going up there. As backup or to be with them. But
SPEAKER_04:even somebody as backup, like... I give so much respect to Lady Gaga for handling that in the way that she did.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Because even somebody else who's younger wouldn't maybe have the wherewithal to be able to roll with that.
SPEAKER_01:To do it in a way that's compassionate, that preserves the dignity of the person that they're with on stage.
SPEAKER_04:Anyway, so. So
SPEAKER_01:as much as we love
SPEAKER_04:movies,
SPEAKER_01:I don't miss, like if I don't see the Oscars, I don't miss it. It's okay.
SPEAKER_04:Sure. I mean, they repeat it, so we might watch the repeat because it comes on– I think they've even pushed it up an hour. So it's going to start at like 4 o'clock on
SPEAKER_01:Sunday. To be fair, if I've missed it, it's intentional, and their repeat performance is not what I need to see it.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. Well, that's you. That's you. So, all right. Moving on to– is it Constanza? Constanz? I think so, yeah. Mozart, played by Elizabeth Barrage. Yeah. It does sound like somebody else was set to play this role. She had to bow out. Barrage came in. I think she does a great job. You're absolutely right that, like, you know, I think people probably already know that Foreman made a point of telling his actors, don't worry about accents.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, he did, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:We don't– just focus on your performance. And she maybe has the most, like, American kind of– Lack of what have you. Whatever
SPEAKER_01:her natural accent is, that's what you get.
SPEAKER_04:That's what you get. But I think she does a really good job. I think that what that character. I
SPEAKER_01:love that character. That character was awesome.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I mean, she really loved her husband and had to. Yeah. She
SPEAKER_01:became
SPEAKER_04:his manager of a sort. Yeah. where maybe this was for the purposes of, you know, entertainment in the movie, that she leaves him temporarily. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:To go to the spa.
SPEAKER_04:To go to the spa. But then it turns out that that's not really the case, because, like, they cut to her at a dance, obviously with another man.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But she recognizes that it's, like, not cool, and she goes to him. I
SPEAKER_01:mean, seeing how Mozart was, I'm not going to get too... I'm not going to feel much of a way about her taking a break and...
SPEAKER_04:Yes. No, totally. Totally. So... She does a great job. She's been working. I have more TV than film for her, but she's been in a couple of series. So I don't know this, but she was on a TV series called Texas. So a film called Five Corners, more TV work, The Powers That Be, The John Larroquette Show. Okay. And a film called Results.
SPEAKER_01:And she was Annie Oakley in a film starring Viggo Mortensen called Hidalgo.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, cool. Okay. Very cool. Okay, moving on to Roy Doltris. So he plays Leopold Mozart. Oh, his dad? Wolfie's dad. Yeah. He too has passed. He passed in 2017. He had an incredible career. Very busy. I have a pretty fair breakout between film and television. So, so much TV.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But I usually call it the ones where there's like some kind of more recurring role. He, I love this. Early in his career, he was in a film called Lock Up Your Daughters! Exclamation point. Another film, Nicholas and Alexandra. So there was a TV miniseries he was in, Shaka Zulu. He also for a while was on that TV show, Beauty and the Beast.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, the one with, oh my goodness. Ron Perlman. Yes.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And Linda Hamilton.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yep. That's the one. He was, okay, so here's what's funny. He was in the film The Cutting Edge.
SPEAKER_01:The hockey player that turned into an ice skater instead of a– wait. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're absolutely right.
SPEAKER_04:And when we were watching Amadeus, I was like– so for those who– I hope you're familiar with the film or at least maybe generally the history of Mozart. But if you're not, the story is told through an elder Salieri who has already at one time tried to– And his life. He is put into a sanitarium, essentially. Rough place. Rough place. And a priest comes in to hear his confession because he has proclaimed that he killed Mozart. So priest comes in to try to talk to him. And so the whole of the film is essentially a flashback where Salieri is talking about his experience while Mozart was alive.
SPEAKER_01:Longer flashbacks than Bloodsport.
SPEAKER_04:And what's so funny, sorry for this long aside, but the priest looks so much like D.B. Sweeney from The Cutting
SPEAKER_01:Edge. Oh, my God. It all connects now. No. That's a, yeah, that's amazing. So, in any case. That priest probably didn't think, like, priest probably, can I get a meal? He's like, I need to
SPEAKER_02:go to the
SPEAKER_01:bathroom. Because you see in the background, like, he starts and there's like some daylight, then it's dark, and then it's the next morning. Which all
SPEAKER_04:shot with natural light.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Nice. Which is incredibly rare. Anyway, so besides The Cutting Edge, he was also on the TV show Going to Extremes. He was in the film Swimming with Sharks, as well as The Scarlet Letter. I believe with Demi Moore. I think she is Hester Prynne. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. He was on the TV show Picket Fences. This is interesting to me. So prior to the movie, there was a 1986 TV series called Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
SPEAKER_01:Interesting.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. He was also on the TV show Madigan Men, Life Begins, and he had a two-episode stint on Game of Thrones.
SPEAKER_01:I did not know that.
SPEAKER_04:I don't know the character even by name. I mean, well, the character's name is Holland, but I don't know who that would be. But if you look at pictures, it looks like maybe he was like a priest type figure. Because he has like the cap
SPEAKER_01:and the chain. From the sept or something. Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_04:Yep. Okay. So moving on. So here's... Okay.
SPEAKER_02:What?
SPEAKER_04:If I had a problem with this film, it's that they're extremely consistent with... Mm-hmm. That kind of goes away, but they still need money. They still need to live. So he, I guess at some point, becomes friends with this guy who it's not really made explicitly clear, but it seems like he is both a performer and the owner of like a vaudeville
SPEAKER_01:theater. Yeah. Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_04:But to me, it kind of comes into the story haphazardly. It
SPEAKER_01:felt like it was just– To show that now he's working for what is kind of like a lesser position just for the money, just to like keep things moving along while Abraham continues with his plot to quote unquote kill him.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I think that like, look, if they're like, This movie is going to be two hour and 40 minutes no matter what. I think he could have shaved off some, like I said, of the performances and maybe smoothed out a little bit, even these like minor character arcs.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, maybe if they had done that, it would have won some awards or something if they had done
SPEAKER_04:some of this. I know. I'm nitpicking a film that won eight Oscars. I know. I sound absolutely insane. Why not nine? But he just kind of comes out of nowhere is my point. Yeah. So, however, played by– so you mentioned his first name, Emmanuel– And the last name, Shit King.
SPEAKER_05:I
SPEAKER_04:don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, he was Emmanuel Shit King.
SPEAKER_04:Say it. I don't know how you say the character's last name. Chicken Eater. Yeah, thank you. I guess it's better than me, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:We got it out once.
SPEAKER_04:Played by Simon Callow. Yeah. And who's had an incredible career, still very much working to this day. And, I mean, it's an interesting character because it seems like, yes, there's a friendship there. I think he cares for Mozart because when Mozart passes out during one of the performances, he does come to the home later to see how he's doing. But he also very much is like, you could be a moneymaker for me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he's like... More like fiscally aware. He's a
SPEAKER_04:businessman.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So there's an interesting kind of back and forth with that relationship. As far as Callow's other credits, mostly film I have for him. He was in the film The Good Father, A Room with a View, TV series called Chance in a Million. I think that might be British. Yeah. We could do Maurice. That also has Hugh Grant in it. Postcards from the Edge. Oh, another Hugh Grant. Four Weddings and a Funeral. Okay. Jefferson in Paris. Shakespeare in Love. A
SPEAKER_01:lot of period pieces. That won an Academy Award, right?
SPEAKER_04:It sure did. It won Best Picture.
SPEAKER_01:But there probably weren't like other... Oh
SPEAKER_04:my gosh, don't even get me started about all the other films that were nominated that year.
SPEAKER_01:I'm sure it deserved it.
SPEAKER_04:The Phantom of the Opera, the TV show Outlander, and more recently the film Victoria and Abdul. And he's just, he's also done a ton of TV work. He's very busy. Okay, moving on to... Another person who is very prominent at the beginning. And this is also, like I was saying, she's very prominent in the beginning of the film. And you very, because he says as much, get a sense that Salieri, he is in love with this woman. And then she kind of just goes away. I don't know if it's because... He
SPEAKER_01:said that he was in love with her and then, like, suspects that Mozart has... Which,
SPEAKER_04:again, wasn't true.
SPEAKER_01:It was, in fact, the opposite. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So it's... Whatever. The character name, Katarina Cavallari.
SPEAKER_01:Christina Cavallari?
SPEAKER_04:What? Katarina. Katarina. But the character is played by Christine
SPEAKER_02:Ebersole. Okay.
SPEAKER_04:And she has also been super duper busy over the course of her career. So she actually started on Saturday Night Live. Isn't that fun?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:She reminds me, like her face reminded me of like the mom from the Brady Bunch a little bit.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. She was in Tootsie, although I don't know if her role, we probably didn't mention her when we covered that film. Go check that one out with Deanna. She was on the TV show Valerie before it became The Hogan Family.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay. Yeah, so she did that. Wow, deep cuts.
SPEAKER_04:The Cavanaughs, she was in the film Dead Again. Which I believe is both Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson.
SPEAKER_01:Amazing.
SPEAKER_04:The TV show Rachel Gunn, R.N. And she was Rachel Gunn. So she was the lead.
SPEAKER_01:She was the R.N. She was the
SPEAKER_04:R.N. Okay. In that show. She was in the film Richie Rich. More TV work related. She was... I want to say, given when that came out, because she was in Wolf of Wall Street, she must have played... What was his name? Jordan Belfort. I think maybe his mom.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, because she played Leia Belfort.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So I would guess. Okay. The TV series Sullivan and Son, Royal Pains. More recently, the film Licorice Pizza. And then, I mean, she's done a ton of TV work. And then her most recent long stint was on the show Bob Hart's Abishala.
SPEAKER_01:Licorice Pizza is one of those movies where I'm like, yeah, I should see that. And then 20 years from now. I should see that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, exactly. Okay, lastly, we're going to bring up Jeffrey Jones. So he plays Emperor Joseph II. What I do find interesting is that he has a couple throwaway lines where he brings up his sister Antoinette, of course. Marie. Marie Antoinette. Yeah. Who eventually... Okay, this is a whole story, but essentially Marie Antoinette, she was Austrian. She was married to... Louis XVI, I believe. And famously, they were both beheaded during the French Revolution.
SPEAKER_01:What happened during that French Revolution? Was it a big inequity between the wealthy and the haves and the have-nots? It's a big part of it. Interesting. Interesting.
SPEAKER_04:And the truth of it is that... So she was beheaded for treason, and it was... Because she was secretly communicating with her brother, the emperor of Austria, to invade France. And she was caught. They found out about this. So I think at the time that the movie takes place, which I think is like about 10 years before all that goes down, that wasn't happening yet.
SPEAKER_01:They were aware of unrest, though. Yes. Hence the ban on the marriage of Figaro.
SPEAKER_05:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know how that coincided with the ban on ballet. Being incorporated into... Yeah,
SPEAKER_04:I don't know about that. But yeah, so it is kind of interesting. There are things that they took great liberty with and there are things where I'm like, oh yeah, that's historically accurate. But Jeffrey Jones also, I think, was a casting, a recasting. Somebody else, Ian Richardson, I believe, was going to be in the role. Didn't work out. Jeffrey Jones steps in. So we have brought him up. He's another person who has a hugely problematic Very much. But as far as filmography, he was in Easy Money famously, famously, famously. And this comes right, right before Easy Money. Ferris Bueller's Day Off, so where he is, I think, going to forever be known as Ed Rooney. Rooney! So he is famously in that. We did that way back in the day in season one with Julia. Go check that out, please. He, too, is in Howard the Duck. Yes,
SPEAKER_01:yeah,
SPEAKER_04:yeah. So there's that. We also covered Beetlejuice, which he is in. Please go check that one out. I think that was with Connor.
SPEAKER_01:We could cover him again in Valmont.
SPEAKER_04:Sure. So he, I guess, had a friendship with Foreman. Who's Harry Crumb? The Hunt for Red October. Ed Wood. The Crucible. The Devil's Advocate. Sleepy Hollow. He's in Heartbreakers. And I'm like, who is he in Heartbreakers? Because I actually have seen that film a number of times. I don't remember him.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't. I can't remember.
SPEAKER_04:And most recently, the TV show Deadwood.
UNKNOWN:Hmm.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. All right. Film synopsis. What do we got? I mean, I think I know. We've kind of described it, but what do we got?
SPEAKER_04:The life, success, and troubles of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as told by Antonio Salieri, the contemporaneous composer who was deeply jealous of Mozart's talent and claimed to have murdered him. Murder. Murder. Murder. Uh, that's, I mean, that's, uh, that works. It does work. I mean, it's a great film. I just think it's a touch too long. It's, um, I guess I understand why it
SPEAKER_01:is. Cause we, we did like a couple of time checks when we watched it and we're like, let's see how much time is left.
SPEAKER_04:Oh yeah. And look, I, it's a beautiful film. It is so well crafted, beautifully acted. Yeah. It, I just think, and again, I think it's out of reverence. They have these super long sequences, musical sequences, I should specify, but it hinders the pacing of the film. In my humble, humble opinion, what the hell do I know? The film won eight Oscars.
SPEAKER_01:It would be a great series on like a streaming service.
SPEAKER_04:Very much
SPEAKER_01:so. Because you could just, you know, you could stretch the stuff out. You could do whatever you wanted with it.
SPEAKER_04:One thing I failed to mention is, because we didn't really go over his character that much, Yeah. Yeah. And very much used him. Like, look, obviously the kid had the talent. He was a prodigy, hands down. If ever there was a prodigy, it was Mozart. His father monetized the fuck out of that.
SPEAKER_01:It's like parents of child influencers. Yes,
SPEAKER_04:exactly. That's exactly what it was. Like, when we're joking at the top of where he's going to block, that is the most modern equivalent to that situation. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's kind of a bummer because it's like, in his own right, Mozart was a prodigy. He was incredible. He did incredible things at a very young age, which continued with him throughout the entirety of his life. But even so, Mozart's father would lie about his age to make him sound that much more impressive. Like, instead of being six, oh, no, he's four, you know? And then he truly did take him all over Europe to show what a genius he was. And... It was a really interesting relationship between father and son because of that. I mean,
SPEAKER_01:I got the sense that he just didn't have the money as, you know, later in life, which, you know, I guess he was smart enough to try to monetize the hell out of his kid, but then he didn't make good use of that.
SPEAKER_04:He wasn't good at managing that money because he didn't make money off of Mozart. I
SPEAKER_01:feel like he was in the movie long enough to... know what the relationship was like with him as a kid, so that... Salieri? Yeah. So that he could make that distinction between he wasn't just this thing being brought out on stage, he was a genius. So you got that side of it, and then you got enough of him later in life to know that he could use that figure against Mozart.
SPEAKER_04:Which, again, completely fictional. But the part of the film where he goes to Mozart...
SPEAKER_01:Love that mask. Yeah,
SPEAKER_04:the mask is super cool. Under the guise of being...
SPEAKER_01:The ghost of
SPEAKER_04:his father commissioning him to write this death mass, which is like this very roundabout way of like, I'm going to kill him by commissioning this work. It's going to drive him to his death and he is going to effectively be creating his own death mass.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So it's, it's very kind of convoluted.
SPEAKER_01:That part didn't really work for me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, I don't know what the out is, like how you make that a better story when really the entirety of it is made up. Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Um,
SPEAKER_04:It I think that's also I think that also kind of plays a little bit. I don't know if this is the right word, but into the romanticism that we attach to these. These historical figures and the way that they are about their craft and they are about their work. I think that there's like kind of a similar vibe that where people talk about Beethoven and just like
SPEAKER_01:the dog. No.
SPEAKER_04:I'm sorry. And just, you know, they're so committed. They're so passionate. They're so devoted to their craft that it drives them to their grave or, you know, things like that. Beethoven lived a lot longer than Mozart. But, like, I think
SPEAKER_01:that— He traveled through time.
SPEAKER_04:There are stories about these figures. Yeah. So I guess it plays into that. Maybe that's why it sounds kind of believable that he could have done that as far as the purposes of the story in this film.
SPEAKER_01:I was asking several times during the movie, so why is he dying? And you're like, oh, it's the music he's making. And I'm like,
SPEAKER_04:okay. Yeah. I mean, I think that like, it's hard to think of a modern equivalent where people would be driven to their grave by their work, but-
SPEAKER_01:It would have made more sense if he was just trying to break his spirit or something. Yeah. I could have bought that. But for it to actually kill him, I'm like,
SPEAKER_04:okay. And I don't know if we actually have explicitly said this. This takes us right back to... to what we were saying when we opened the episode, where essentially what is happening, Salieri is so mad at God. Yeah, yeah. Because he wants to devote himself to God. But also there is a lot of pretension and pride around this. Salieri is like, I'm going to devote myself to you. I'm going to be celibate. I'm going to- God's like, I never asked that. I'm going to make writing music for you my life's work. I'm going to celebrate you. But also I wouldn't mind if I was celebrated as well. I mean, he very clearly And Mozart
SPEAKER_01:was the opposite of all that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, Mozart– and the thing is that Salieri had to work really, really, really hard to even be proficient at what he did. I think he for sure had talent. I mean he is still remembered to this day even if like the film kind of led to a renaissance of him.
SPEAKER_01:He didn't have the support that Mozart had. His dad like– That's true. Didn't like– Want him.
SPEAKER_04:That's very true. And look, if Mozart hadn't had a supportive dad, who knows how history would have turned out. But I mean, it's so clear that he had, whether you want to call it God-given or not, he had this innate genius about music. So maybe he would have come to that anyway, even if his dad wasn't supportive. Who knows? But Salieri, regardless, is so... Mm-hmm. whatever through. And then he's like, oh, but instead you give it to this asshole who's crass and boastful and childlike. You give him all this talent. So basically, fuck you. I'm going to kill your creation. That's
SPEAKER_01:kind of the
SPEAKER_04:spiel that he gives.
SPEAKER_01:He was a bit of a musical incel.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, very much so. So, yeah. Amadeus. Amadeus. I mean... As somebody who– I know that like you very clearly remembered that there was the scene where Mozart famously– as far as the film was concerned. Yeah. immediately improves upon Salieri's work after just hearing it once.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the emperor offered him the up the pages and he's like, no, I've heard it once. I got it. And he starts playing it and he's like, oh, and the rest is just kind of the same, isn't it? And he's like, this is better, don't you think? He's just like, it's probably my favorite scene in the whole film. That's the scene that I remember. And last night was the first time I've watched the whole thing. So that's what I was curious about
SPEAKER_04:is like, what were your, how did you feel about it all said and done?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I... I enjoyed it. I wasn't really sure what to think, but throughout the process of this podcast, I've now seen so many movies that I'd either never seen or had some awareness, but not really much. So I'm not really surprised anymore when I see something and I like it. So I didn't dislike it. It was long. I think the performances were pretty amazing. I understand why it won Best I don't necessarily understand why it won compared to some of the other films. It was a stacked slate of movies, I guess, that would have been up for the Academy Award. But as far as where I lean, I guess, in terms of the accuracy, I don't know. I don't love that a movie takes historical figures and then just... warps it into something else, particularly when it does it really at the expense of Of those real people?
SPEAKER_04:To my knowledge, in terms of what we have been introduced to for, like, biopics, this might be one of the more egregious examples of liberties being taken.
SPEAKER_01:Like, I don't even know if I can consider it a biopic or if it's just a movie called Amadeus, and it's based on kind of these people. The
SPEAKER_04:most accurate thing you could say is that it showed Mozart's genius.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. You know, so. As long as you are aware, like, if you know that, then at least you can watch it and kind of have that, like, okay, this is, like, the movie, but it's not really real. I wonder how many people watch it and they're like, fuck this guy.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, exactly. It's like, oh, what a shame that people may not realize that this is just completely fictional take on the relationship between these two figures. Believe it or not, because I know sometimes we talk about like when's the first time we've seen a movie. I often don't even ask that anymore because like I think it's all been muddled. Like it's hard for me to like Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. I think this was like older elementary school, so still pretty young. And in retrospect, I'm kind of shocked.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, you saw it in elementary school.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I'm kind of shocked that she showed it to
SPEAKER_01:us
SPEAKER_04:because I went to a religious school and there's a lot of themes that I think, I don't know, are kid appropriate. But I kind of really appreciate that she did that because it is a phenomenal film for all the things that I've like whatever said about it. And I appreciate so much that I got to kind of see something of that caliber at that age. So that was my first memory of this film.
SPEAKER_01:That's super cool. I don't know how I would have reacted in a classroom with that laugh.
SPEAKER_05:I
SPEAKER_04:don't know how we did either.
SPEAKER_01:His character's laugh. I don't know how you make it through that. Yeah. And that's another thing that
SPEAKER_04:nobody can say, oh, that is exactly how Mozart laughed.
SPEAKER_01:No, he just... He made that up. He knew someone that had this really distinctive laugh. And so he just... Went with it.
SPEAKER_04:I think there might be some writing somewhere that Mozart himself had some kind of notable laugh, but nobody can say what that laugh was.
SPEAKER_01:He was just given the direction to do something to make this character his own.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, exactly. Would you see the film again?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I'd break it up a little bit, but sure.
SPEAKER_04:This was, like, a long time coming. That's why I wanted to do this one, because, like, I knew I liked this film. I knew it had been a really long time since I'd seen it. Yeah. And I'm glad that we did, but it definitely is one of those where it's like, I don't think it's going to be a yearly watch, but, you know. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:I enjoyed it. I'd watch it again, for sure.
SPEAKER_04:Well, we would love to hear from you if you would like to reach out. As far as, you know... call to action. And look, I would not fault anyone if they did not know the truth behind the relationship between Salieri and Mozart. I think I would have like almost a two-parter. A, have you ever heard of Salieri before this film? Because that would be really impressive. I
SPEAKER_01:didn't. That's a good question, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And two, did you realize that this was like a fictional take on their relationship? That would be my... My question, I would really want to know how many people, because that to me in a way also shows you the influence of entertainment if people don't do their own research to know the truth behind a lot of this.
SPEAKER_01:My question is whether or not Salieri from a legal perspective is guilty of anything. And I'm going to represent him in this case and say no. No, what happened to Mozart was a tragedy, but my client Salieri is completely innocent of these allegations.
SPEAKER_04:What do you think the priest thinks?
SPEAKER_01:The priest?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Do you think now that he's told this whole story?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I think the priest just wanted to get the fuck out of there. He was like, okay.
SPEAKER_04:I think the priest is appalled by how frank Salieri was being in terms of how he felt about God, how he felt about Mozart.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I think he was shocked by that, but I don't think he thought he killed him. I
SPEAKER_01:think as soon as he heard that he was blocking God, he's probably like, I'm kind of tuning you out for the rest of this.
SPEAKER_04:Your soul cannot be saved.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So please reach out to us. You can connect through Facebook, Instagram, or Blue Sky. It is the same handle for all three. It is at 80s Montage Pod and 80s is 80S.
SPEAKER_01:And you know what? We have heard from people Yeah,
SPEAKER_04:we just got the loveliest message about finding the podcast and it was really touching to hear. So really always appreciate that.
SPEAKER_01:So much better than people reaching out to say we suck. That has not happened, by the way.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I was like, I don't think we've got, I mean, I'm sure we're not everybody's cup of tea, but thankfully I have not gotten any messages like that. So sneak peek.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, do I know what it is? No. Okay.
SPEAKER_04:So this is kind of an interesting one because I do think it's a film we should cover. I have seen it, but I'm curious if I'm going to feel differently about it because it isn't exactly a film that was like, oh, my God, it was a great movie.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, perfect. I'm really looking forward to this one.
SPEAKER_04:So let me think of a clue. Let me think of a clue.
SPEAKER_01:Well. Hmm. Interesting. Interesting. Corporate world. Corporate world. My secret. No, but a really
SPEAKER_04:kind of similar vibe. Okay. It's funny that that's the film you called out because that's like probably way the lesser known film than the one that I'm thinking of. And role reversal. Oh. Gender reversal.
SPEAKER_05:Hmm.
SPEAKER_04:I got nothing. Really? Yeah. Big hair. 80s.
SPEAKER_01:Big hair. Okay. Big hair 80s. We've already done Tootsie. That's big hair.
SPEAKER_04:What if I mentioned like a super minor character? I wonder if you'd get it off that. Junk Cusack is the friend.
SPEAKER_01:Hmm. This is a tough one. This is a tough one. This is going to be like on a pop culture Jeopardy. It also
SPEAKER_04:stars Ripley and Indiana Jones.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, God damn it. Yeah. Not Sabrina. That's not an 80s movie, right? Working Girl?
SPEAKER_04:Good
SPEAKER_01:job! There we go.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:I don't even remember why I didn't really take to the film, but I want to kind of give it another chance.
SPEAKER_01:But you're right. That is like the flip side. Yes. Yeah. Interesting.
SPEAKER_04:Cool. So have you seen it?
SPEAKER_01:No. Okay. No, I
SPEAKER_04:haven't. Oh, I'm sorry. I already like... Kind of clouded. I
SPEAKER_01:already know not to expect much. No, that's not what I'm saying. Anyway.
SPEAKER_04:But yes, Working Girl is going to be our next film. And in the meantime, thank you to everyone for taking the time to listen to us. We really appreciate it. Everybody's busy. Lots of podcasts. So that makes it all the more meaningful that you are choosing to tune in for us. And we will talk to you again in two weeks' time.