MovieChat Forums > Amadeus (1984) Discussion > How old was Salieri supposed to be in th...

How old was Salieri supposed to be in this?

posted 10 years ago by AdmiralRaddus
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He said something like "one moment I was a repressed boy, the other I was in Vienna being the court composer for the Emperor". I was under the impression Salieri (based on his looks and general demeanor) was already 40 something with at least 15 years of experience under his belt. Not that this line rules this out, but it makes you think it's all fairly recent.

So was Salieri supposed to be a young man, about as old as Mozart? Or was he indeed as F. Murray Abrahams appearance suggests something like 40/45 in the movie?

Damn you Lindelof!

[–] Degree7 9 years ago

F Murray Abraham was about 44/45 years old when the film was made, and Salieri would have been about 40/41 when Mozart died.

The thing is, Mozart first arrived in Vienna in 1781 and died in 1791. So it seems the movie would take place over a period of ten years, meaning Salieri would be 31 at the start of the film. Of course the story plays loose with facts and timeline, so it could likely all be condensed to a shorter amount of time in movie-verse.

~ I'm a 21st century man and I don't wanna be here.