- Adaptation Displacement: Alexander Pushkin's play Mozart and Salieri (and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's operatic adaptation) is little more than a footnote. Peter Shaffer's play was more fortunate in comparison, but has also taken a backseat to the film in popular culture.
- Alternative Character Interpretation:
- The scene from the director's cut in which Salieri calls his valet in to show out Constanze just as she's undressing for him. Does a crisis of conscience cause him to change his mind before going through with it, or was it an elaborate plan to blackmail her by having someone else witness that Mozart's wife is a whore?note
- Salieri's father. When telling the priest of his childhood, Salieri describes him as an uncultured boor with no understanding of his son's musical ambitions. But when you really think about his response to Salieri's wish to be just like Mozart ("Why? Do you want to be a trained monkey? Would you like me to drag you around Europe doing tricks like a circus freak?") it can easily come across as gruff but loving concern for his son and a desire for him to have a normal childhood. The fact that Salieri interprets his sudden death as a miracle that allowed him to become a sought-after composer and music teacher in Vienna also indicates that his memory of his father is heavily biased by his own ego.
- Is Salieri trying to inflate his role in Mozart's life and death, since accusing himself of killing Mozart is the only way he'll be remembered? In this interpretation, everything happened the way it did in Real Life, and the seeming Artistic License – History could just be Salieri making himself more important in Mozart's story.
- Going on from the two points above...just how reliable a narrator IS Salieri? Both the play and the movie are framed as his remembrance of his own life, recounted to others (the theatrical audience in the play, the young priest in the movie). And he's always portraying himself as the smartest, most aware guy in the room at nearly all times. He seems to have a low-level contempt for nearly everyone, from his own wife (in the play), to his fellow courtiers and musicians, to the Emperor. The only one he acknowledges as being better than him in any way is Mozart, for his talent, which he's insanely jealous of...and Salieri even looks down on him to an extent for his immaturity and vulgarity. The more you notice this superiority complex, the more you wonder just how much of this story is the truth...and how much of it's being filtered through Salieri's ego.
- Aluminum Christmas Trees: Huge, colored powdered wigs were all the rage in Europe, and the bigger and more colorful, the better. Forman was astonished in his research how much they influenced culture, and remarked they were almost "punk" in their use by young adults.
- Awesome Music: Mozart was arguably the greatest composer in history, and Salieri was no slouch himself. Both of their music—but especially Mozart's—is featured throughout the film.
- Common Knowledge: Because of this play/film and its popularization of the myth of the Mozart/Salieri rivalry, many people believe that Amadeus portrays Salieri as jealous because Mozart is more famous and renowned than he is. (This is how it's often portrayed in parodies like the one we saw on The Simpsons.) But this isn't quite the case: as portrayed by Shaffer, Mozart struggled for much of his career (partially due to Salieri's influence) and, except for his childhood and the early years of his career, wasn't all that celebrated as a composer, his fame coming mostly after his death. Salieri's jealousy is mainly due to Mozart's talent; even during Mozart's lifetime when Salieri's work is more famous and celebrated than Mozart's is, Salieri knows in his heart that Mozart's work is better, and it galls him. He has some lines in the play to this effect, describing to us how although he was rich and famous, it all meant nothing to him because it was for work he knew to be inferior, and the approval of the masses meant little to him when said masses couldn't distinguish true genius.
- Cry for the Devil: Antonio Salieri may be a petty, scheming, and murderous individual, but his circumstances evoke pity nonetheless. Imagine if you spent your whole life devoted to music, being seen as the best of your time, and then Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart shows up. Even decades after Mozart's passed, it's clear that Salieri is still suffering, seeing everyone else shower his rival's work with love while forgetting all about him. And that's not getting into his own guilt over plotting Mozart's death.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: Emperor Joseph II is well liked thanks to supplying some of the film's funniest moments, as well as being an affable Reasonable Authority Figure, even if he's a bit foolish. Jeffrey Jones even managed to earn a Golden Globe nomination for his work.
- Fan-Preferred Cut Content: While the Director's Cut is mostly criticized for slowing down the movie with extended or unnecessary scenes, almost everyone who's seen it agrees that one scene that absolutely should've stayed in the theatrical cut is Salieri humiliating Constanze by watching her strip down in preparation for an affair. Not because of the R-rated imagery, but because it offers an explanation for Constanze's utter hatred for Salieri by the end of the movie that is otherwise not entirely explained or elaborated on in the theatrical cut.
- Genius Bonus:
- In the movie, when Mozart calls for different composers to imitate at the keyboard. Mozart's reaction to someone shouting to play it like Gluck ("Bo-ring!") is all the more funny when you know that Salieri was one of C. W. Gluck's most prized pupils.
- Emperor Joseph's quip about the silent ballet: "I don't understand. Is it modern?" John Cage's 4'33" was composed in 1952. It is often cited as an extreme example of "modern" music, as no instruments are played in it.
- When Mozart is challenged to play the piano upside down, a close look shows that his left hand only plays a couple simple chords over and over, allowing him to concentrate entirely on what his right hand is doing.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- In the social media age, Salieri's line "Because you are unfair, unjust, unkind, I will block you" sounds less like he's renouncing his devotion to God so much as unfriending Him.note
- Mark Hamill played Mozart on Broadway and used the laugh he'd developed for the production when he took up the role of the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series.
- Mozart talks about a world where everyone does everything backwards.
- Jerkass Woobie:
- Mozart. He's an obnoxious, vulgar nutjob with an annoying laugh, but you still can't help but feel bad for him. It helps that he has somewhat of a childish innocence about him too, and generally means well.
- Hell, Salieri might even get points here too. A cold, snide, petty murderous bastard he may be but its clear that he absolutely hates himself and is reminded every day that there is someone better (who doesn't even appreciate their talent).
- Most Wonderful Sound: An interesting example with Mozart's Annoying Laugh. It's meant to be irritating, but both the hyena like giggle and the circumstances around it make it so that the viewer will likely be laughing along with him whenever he lets out that cackle.
- Retroactive Recognition:
- Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon plays Lorl, the Mozart family's maid secretly helping Salieri.
- Mozart's father is played by Roy Dotrice, now probably best known as the narrator of the audiobooks for A Song of Ice and Fire, giving him the world record of playing the most characters in a single story.
- Jeffrey Jones plays Emperor Joseph II, but he's probably best known as Dean Rooney.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- The sung arias from Mozart's German-language operas are sung in English, as it was assumed that English-speaking audiences would want to be able to understand the lyrics. Instead, this decision was deemed unnecessary by the vast majority of viewers.
- However, the sung arias from Mozart's Italian-language operas, as well as Salieri's Italian-language opera Axur, re d'Ormus, are still sung in their original Italian.
- Many fans believe the director's cut adds little and hurts the movie's pacing. Making matters much worse is that the director's is the only one available on Blu-ray and streaming, meaning it’s much easier to watch the one deemed inferior than the one that won moviegoers' hearts.
- The sung arias from Mozart's German-language operas are sung in English, as it was assumed that English-speaking audiences would want to be able to understand the lyrics. Instead, this decision was deemed unnecessary by the vast majority of viewers.
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