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The 1984 film Amadeusis interesting to view in light of LDS FC. In the film, Mozart is portrayed as an obnoxious and immature savant who, while annoying everyone, is capable of creating what no one else can. Some great quotes:
Salieri (channeling many of us who have lost faith): All I ever 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?
Salieri (about Mozart): Why would God choose an obscene child to be his instrument? Salieri (about Mozart’s music): Extraordinary! On the page it looked nothing! The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse. Bassoons, basset horns – like a rusty squeezebox. And then, suddenly, high above it, an oboe. A single note, hanging there, unwavering. Until a clarinet took it over, sweetened it into a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was a music I had never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing. It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God. Constanze Mozart: My husband spends far more than he can ever earn. I don’t mean that he’s lazy because he`s not at all, he works all day long. It’s just that he’s not practical. Money simply slips through his fingers. It’s ridiculous. Salieri: What was God up to? Was it possible I was being tested? Was God expecting me to offer forgiveness, in the face of every offense? No matter how painful? Salieri (about Mozart’s compositions): He had simply written down music, already finished in his head. Page after page of it. As if he were just taking dictation. And music… finished as no music is ever finished. Salieri (to God): From now on, we are enemies. You and I. 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… Mozart: I’m a vulgar man. But I assure you, my music is not. interesting, thanks. Wow – It does make one think. Interesting analogy. What make you think of this while watching that movie?
LH, I don’t know… it’s not like I sat down and thought I’d watch it from a FC perspective, but rather, just that there were so many connections.
LookingHard wrote:Wow – It does make one think. Interesting analogy.
What make you think of this while watching that movie?
On Own Now wrote:LH,
I don’t know… it’s not like I sat down and thought I’d watch it from a FC perspective, but rather, just that there were so many connections.
I don’t know about anyone else but when I watched The LEGO Movie for the first time analogies like this jumped out of the screen and smacked me across the face.
Quote:Salieri: What was God up to? Was it possible I was being tested? Was God expecting me to offer forgiveness, in the face of every offense? No matter how painful? I can feel forgiving. I can come to grips with imperfection and actual vulgarity, because I think there
issome. I want that same mercy. What is so far impossible is to do all that in the company, under the jurisdiction of people who say there was nothing wrong. I wish they could know that many will forgive if they would set the stage. The church needs family counseling.
Thanks for the post. Music is powerful even when it’s not playing.
This thread is a very interesting way of looking at a faith crisis. I love music and I enjoyed the movie Amadeus. I’ve wondered how Moroni 7 and the idea that a bitter fountain cannot produce good water (like Mozart). I’ve wondered where are the LDS nobel prizes, world-renowned symphonies, literature, etc. I’ve come to the conclusion that God can communicate through imperfect vessels like Mozart and Wagner which gives me hope.
Roadrunner wrote:…imperfect vessels like … Wagner
+10 for cool topical music reference
+5 bonus points if you pronounced it ‘Vagnuh’ when you typed it out
marty wrote:Roadrunner wrote:…imperfect vessels like … Wagner
+10 for cool topical music reference
+5 bonus points if you pronounced it ‘Vagnuh’ when you typed it out
– 10 points if you hummed “kill the wabbit” when you typed Wagner – which I did.
Funny, I saw the production of Amadeus at the last Utah Shakespeare Festival, and I made the opposite analogy. Salieri is pedantic, methodical, plays by all the rules, cares what others think of him, and he’s not gifted with creativity. Amadeus is vulgar, childish, sort of pathetic, blasphemous, breaks the rules, impolitic, and he’s the one blessed with God’s gift. Salieri’s sin is jealousy (and gluttony played to comedic repulsive effect by David Ivers), and he’s incapable of forgiving God for not rewarding him for checking all the boxes. I saw Salieri like those Mormons who insist on checking the boxes to earn their reward who are angry and frustrated when “sinners” or those they deem less worthy than themselves aren’t punished by God or even outdo them in the blessings department.
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