Jeff Smith, author of Film Criticism, the Cold War and the Blacklist, told the BBC that Mozart’s fight against the status quo tapped into Forman’s own frustration with Soviet censorship. “The Emperor’s Significant Judgment on Mozart’s Opera” – “Too many notes” – This is just the kind of accusation that was used as a cudgel against avant-garde artists and thinkers to imply that their work was neither pleasing nor enlightening to Soviet ears. Mozart’s furious disbelief in that scene must have reflected Forman’s own long-standing disdain for Soviet stagnation and repression. ”
Amadeus behind the iron curtain
Filming took place in Prague over a six-month period in 1983. In Prague, we had the advantage of seeing cathedrals, palaces, and cobblestone squares that have remained largely unchanged since the late 18th century. However, despite the decline of Soviet power, Czechoslovakia remained part of the Eastern Bloc, and Forman remained persona non grata. transaction The secretary would refrain from meeting with political dissidents, and the administration would allow Forman’s friends to visit with the prodigal son back home.
Forman’s own reminiscences during filming center around the hardships caused by Soviet military interference. His landlord warned him that his phone was being tapped. Informers were lurking in every room. Two unmarked cars followed him everywhere, but this seemed redundant since his own driver was also a secret agent. In his autobiography, Turnaround, Forman declines to say how much themes of Soviet oppression permeated Amadeus. “As was natural in socialist Prague, the spirit of Franz Kafka ruled our production,” he wrote.
Perhaps even more telling is the story he tells about his negotiations with the Czechoslovakian film’s general director Jiří Prusz. As Forman said, he wanted absolute assurance that the Communist Party had nothing to fear. Is there a script they can hang their hat on? ” Foreman’s response is the epitome of plausible deniability and sour sarcasm. “Look, I’m talking about Mozart!”
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F. Murray Abraham felt the strain of forced surveillance while traveling to the United States to film Scarface (1983) while Amadeus was in production in Prague.
Abraham told the BBC: “At the end of every filming day, we had to cross the border to Vienna airport to get back to Hollywood. At the checkpoint, the Czechoslovak police held us at the gate without doing anything. The sense of bullying and intimidation was everywhere, and even when the Czech people responded with subversive humor, we never forgot for a moment that we were under communism. .
Tensions between the American crew and Soviet agents finally came to the fore on July 4. The production filmed scenes from the opera, and the crew arranged for Forman to yell “action” and the American flag to be unfurled and for the national anthem to be played instead of Mozart’s music. Approximately 500 Czech extras performed emotional songs that revealed their sympathies with the West. But not all of them.
Forman recalled. “All but 30 men and women stood up and looked at each other with panic on their faces.” [asking] what should they do? They were a secret police force distributed among the extras. ”
