Is it wrong I sympathized more with Salieri than I did Mozart?
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rbrowne23 — 12 years ago(November 29, 2013 07:43 PM)
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.
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Fluffis — 12 years ago(December 14, 2013 04:13 AM)
Well, 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. -
LeofricsBeloved — 11 years ago(September 10, 2014 01:49 PM)
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. -
fanaticita — 11 years ago(October 23, 2014 08:46 PM)
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.
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NewtonFigg — 11 years ago(October 27, 2014 05:19 PM)
Sen. 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.) -
al666940 — 11 years ago(February 26, 2015 06:45 PM)
In my humble opinion, yes it is wrong.
For several reasons: Salieri as depicted (100% fiction) was:- simply jealous. Plain and simple.
- hypocritical in his "virtue" (meaning he was self righteous and thought himself better than the rest, hence why he utterly despised Mozart for not being as "righteous" as he and yet having far more talent)
- he himself recognizes all this by claiming patronage of mediocracy.
Remember that Salieri was nothing like this in real life. He just turned out to be a far better teacher than musician (Beethoven was amongst his students for Christ's sake). That alone earned him immortality (even if only of late).
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lumosnight — 10 years ago(April 30, 2015 05:21 AM)
Of course it is normal to sympathise with Salieri, because his feelings are all too familiar to us.
Many of us, even when talented in a subject, meet someone who is even better than us. How many times have we all felt insecure and envious of that one person who got better grades or was more talented? People who feel such jealousy are usually talented themselves, but are very insecure because they are reminded that someone is always better than them.
It is even worse when that someone doesn't deserve that talent - that person can be spoilt or arrogant, just like Mozart, and then you feel bitter at this injustice.
Salieri took it too far by becoming obsessed with Mozart's work, that he completely forgot what he had achieved.
Mozart had support from his composer father, who taught him music and toured him around Europe, nurturing his talent and helping him establish his reputation early on.
Salieri had no support from his family whatsoever, he had no reputation, yet managed to quickly progress to being the court composer, become wealthy and know what kind of music to compose which the majority will enjoy listening to. Salieri was talented and intelligent in his own right, not at all a mediocrity, but unfortunately not a genius like Mozart who overshadowed him. -
Cheaper — 9 years ago(December 27, 2016 11:24 PM)
Its not hard to sympathize more with Salieri then with Mozart. Our society celebrates greatness, especially genius. While the majority of us are mediocre, but like to believe that we are geniuses in our own ways.
The thing with Mozart due to his genius, he was light years ahead of Salieri due to him being a child prodigy and son of a composer. What was easy for Mozart, other composers struggled with. A musician who is prolific and an expert in composing music and wins the audience and critics every time, is bound to create jealousy in his fellow musicians.
Salieri who was popular in his time, had to see the competition that was going to remove him the history books and the respect that he worked for as a composer. That couldn't have been easy for him.
In life, we will often meet someone like that, who may not have a genius level talent, but can out do us in one or many fields. And it can cause great pain, jealousy, enviousness, and shame to our soul and psyche. You will question God or nature, why was this person blessed or inherited which such talents? Why did this person come into your life and cause all this acrimony in your thoughts and feelings.
With Salieri, I heavily sympathize with him when he found out his crush Katarina had slept with Mozart. Unfortunately, I similarly dealt with objects of affections, and or females that I dated, who went for the guy who outmatch in the talent department.