Everything Salieri said about Mozart, I agreed with him. In the end I didn't really feel that bad for Mozart. Or was the point of the movie that Mozart isn't the best person?
"You want me to roll 6,000 of these!? What? Should I quit my job!?" George Costanza, Seinfeld
Generally speaking, it's natural to sympathize with the person who's the primary focus of the story, not the better person necessarily.
It is bad to drink Jobu's rum. Very bad.share
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I agree. Salieri was like the majority of us in the world: striving to be noticed, recognized or even just remembered. He devoted his life to music and composition only to be remembered by very few. Then, you have Mozart (in the movie), who was born into a musical upbringing, getting all the perks in life and squandering it.
I equate it to those kids in high school who had mommy and daddy pay for everything, wanting for nothing. The rest of us had to work hard, at the expense of our childhood. It was difficult not to be jealous of those kids who would talk about their new clothes, cars and vacations while we could only talk about what we would be one day (hopefully). Years later, you see those same, spoiled kids and some are losers. They were given all the breaks in life yet threw them away, feeling sorry for themselves. How many times have you said to yourself, "If I had just half of what they had...". :)
Vanessa
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"Yes, women DO play Metal Gear." - Me
he rest of us had to work hard, at the expense of our childhood. It was difficult not to be jealous of those kids who would talk about their new clothes, cars and vacations while we could only talk about what we would be one day (hopefully). Years later, you see those same, spoiled kids and some are losers.
Amen to this statement. Mozart mever did anything malicious toward Salieri. Salieri was just jealous plain and simple and like most psychopaths, he wished to covet what he could not get for himself.
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Salieri strove to be as 'deep' as Mozart (or rather Mozart's music) that it literally drove him insane. Mozart in the film did not squander his God-given talent - he just didn't seem to be as determined / focused to write his compositions, or rather the film wanted to show how easy for a genius like Mozart to create music that is so wondrously heavenly. Furthermore, the movie made him more childish than he probably really was.
You're supposed to relate more to Salieri because most of us are mediocrities, and not true geniuses.
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You're supposed to relate more to Salieri because most of us are mediocrities, and not true geniuses.
No, I understand why. Mozart was gifted and although he seemed to work hard, so did Salieri but he couldn't match up. I can understand being jealous and doing the things he did, but I felt bad for Mozart because he'd begun to think Salieri was a friend and he was anything but- in the movie anyway.
shareWell, yes.
You are a horrible person.
Everything inside you is SICK AND FILTHY!
YOU ARE-...
Hang on...
*pops a couple of pills*
No, of course not. He is, as he says, the patron saint of mediocrity. It is, of course, not the case. However, he is sort of the patron saint of us all. He is a person performing well, but working in the shadows of genius. No matter what we may think of ourselves, most of us are like that. We do things well, and we make a living out of it, but there are always people out there who do the same things better.
Salieri shows us what can happen if we become obsessed with trying to be better than people with true genius, instead of just trying to be better than ourselves - improving what we do, without focusing on others.
He is "us" and also a cautionary tale. So it is completely natural to sympathize with him.
Quidquid Latinae dictum sit, altum viditur.
Thanks for the replies. I agree with all of you.
"You want me to roll 6,000 of these!? What? Should I quit my job!?" George Costanza, Seinfeld
What a wonderful discussion here!
I agree with the poster who said that most of us can relate deeply to Salieri because most of us aren't geniuses. Yet, Salieri was highly gifted and accomplished himself who was not only a composer, but also a great teacher, and lent a lot of his power to help other musicians (except Mozart of course). The poignant part is that Salieri couldn't appreciate what he was able to contribute and longed to be a genius like Mozart, something that 99.9% of humanity wouldn't be able to reach. It is an extremely sophisticated psychological study of what jealousy, the love of art, and the longing to be recognized can do to a person. This film is so brilliant that most of us do empathize with Salieri because it's so well-told convincingly. Salieri was also a very cunning and politically savvy courtier who attained wealth. Salieri had just as many qualities that Mozart, had he been as greedy, would have found lacking in himself. Salieri was unnecessarily hard on himself - his accomplishments and abilities show that he was far from being a mediocrity. In comparison to a genius like Mozart, perhaps he was mediocre, but he was still far more capable as a musician, courtier, and even mastermind than most people would ever be. In the end, Mozart was an innocent who died unaware (at least in this film) of Salieri's machinations.
Yes, Mozart was a true musical gifted genius. Salieri was talented and worked hard as a musician. He could not accept that he would never be as great as Mozart. Few people were as great. Instead of realizing how fortunate he was to be living in the time of Mozart, instead of asking for further instruction or advice, he did everything he could to put obstacles in Mozart's way. He was a jealous and insecure musician who made life miserable for himself as well. He was so obsessed it drove him to madness, unfortunately.
shareSen. Roman Hruska is best remembered in American political history for a 1970 speech he made to the Senate urging them to confirm the nomination of G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court. Responding to criticism that Carswell had been a mediocre judge, Hruska claimed that:
"Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance? We can't have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos."
(Carswell did bot get the nomination.)
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