Amadeus opens with a rather gruesome scene: An aged Antonio Saliere is locked in his room moaning and crying out, “Mozart! Mozart, forgive your assassin! I confess, I killed you!” Upon opening the door, Salieri’s servants discover him on the floor in a pool of blood. He has attempted to cut his own throat.

Placed in an insane asylum, Saliere is visited by a priest who offers to take his confession, but the wily Saliere instead recounts the struggle of his life to his would-be confessor, and we viewers are treated to the symphony of Salieri’s perceived rivalry with the young and gregarious Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. But more than just chronicling the competition generated by each man’s musical creations and ascension to royal and public favor, this film wrestles with the concept of God-given gifts, their implementation, and their human vessels.

Salieri recounts how he “acquired” his divine talent when a child by making a deal with God: “While my father prayed earnestly to God to protect commerce, I would offer up secretly the proudest prayer a boy could think of: ‘Lord, make me a great composer. Let me celebrate Your glory through music and be celebrated myself. Make me famous through the world, dear God. Make me immortal. After I die, let people speak my name forever with love for what I wrote. In return, I will give You my chastity, my industry, my deepest humility, every hour of my life, Amen.'” Salieri sees his ensuing musical talent as “a miracle,” and admires what he at first believes are the similar musical gifts of the prodigy Mozart–until he meets Mozart and discovers that he is an annoying, arrogant libertine. Mozart’s moral depravity shocks Salieri, who has sacrificed so much for his music and perceives himself to be doing God’s duty on earth. Still, Salieri must admit that Mozart’s compositions and musical abilities are brilliant, and he goes so far as to describe listening to Mozart’s music as “hearing the voice of God.”

Believing he has been duped by God, Salieri descends into the horror of self-doubt and jealousy, wrestling with the fact that God has chosen to speak through an idiotic buffoon and has only permitted Salieri’s music to be “mediocre”: “All I wanted was to sing to God. He gave me that longing…and then made me mute. Why? Tell me that. If He didn’t want me to praise him with music, why implant the desire? Like a lust in my body! And then deny me the talent?” Just as God abandoned him (or so he believes), Salieri abandons God and vows to “hinder and harm [His] creature” and “ruin [His] incarnation.” Subsequently (spoiler alert!), Salieri’s most heartless attack on Mozart is to disguise himself as Mozart’s deceased father and commission the grieving, ailing genius to compose a requiem for a “friend.” Desperate for money, Mozart takes the job, but is haunted by the specter of his demanding parent, eventually collapsing from stress and illness while conducting one of his operas.

The most brilliant scene of Amadeus places the fading Mozart in bed with only Salieri to keep him company. Deceived into believing his requiem must be completed by the morning, Mozart enlists the aid of his rival; and the two men spend a sleepless night composing the masterpiece–only to have it locked away by the newly returned Constanze, Mozart’s wife. Salieri has been thwarted by God again; for while he believes (correctly) that overworking Mozart will kill him, he thinks (incorrectly) that his co-writing of the requiem that would be played at Mozart’s funeral would bring him at last the glory that he seeks. The requiem is never finished, and Mozart is unceremoniously deposited in a communal grave outside the city.

While Salieri at first claims responsibility for killing Mozart, in his conversation in the asylum with the priest, he turns the blame on God: “He destroyed His own beloved, rather than let a mediocrity share in the smallest part of His glory. He killed Mozart and kept me alive to torture!” Salieri’s main rival, then, is really God, not Mozart, a mere man used by God to give the world glorious music. Faced with the reality that he cannot defeat God and what He ordains and believing himself to be mocked by his Creator, Salieri attempts to take his own life–and fails at that as well. In the end, he laughs at God–yet it is notable that he does this from within an abode of the insane–and absolves “mediocrities everywhere”–but again, the only people he sees are his fellow residents in the asylum.

For Me Then…

It is unclear what Salieri deems to be the sin from which the “mediocrities” need to be absolved. Perhaps it is imperfection, or the arrogance of believing God has graced them with His gifts and that they can do something for Him or to please Him. Whatever their supposed crimes, Salieri’s own inability to take his focus off himself is what leads to his misguided views of God–and, ironically, to his devaluation of himself and the usefulness of his life. God isn’t mocking him by giving Mozart greater musical talent. In fact, had Salieri truly understood God’s character and His generous gifts, he would have known that God often chooses “lesser vessels” to use in his works. Mozart’s life is far from the wonderful one Salieri envisions he has. He struggles in all his relationships (familial, marital, social, financial, etc.), and he also exhibits doubt about his abilities. So, in fact, Salieri and Mozart have much in common.

And as the climactic scene of this film brilliantly demonstrates, Salieri and Mozart are more than capable of working together. Truly, the requiem they construct is the most glorious musical piece in the movie–and the only project they share. Furthermore, their unwillingness to part from each other in Mozart’s final hours stems from more than Salieri’s desire to ensure Mozart’s death. There is definitely an element of a bond between the two men brought about by the purpose of putting to use the talents God has given each of them in varying degrees and styles. They do not need to be competitors; they could be partners in a relationship that would resolve many of their individual issues and bring glory to God through music. But though both composers briefly recognize a type of greatness in the other, it is too late. There are regrets on both sides, and a madness ensues for the surviving man. Finally and desperately, in his utter incomprehension of divine will, Salieri laughs at God, but inside he weeps over himself. Tragic.