VIFF Review: In Search of Mozart

In Search of Mozart
October 1, 2007 6:45pm
Granville 7 Theatre 2

Last year was the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. And quite fortuitously director Phil Grabsky had finished his previous film (The Boy Who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan) and was ready to embark on a new project just in time to hit this date.

The documentary chronologically narrates the achievements of Mozart's life. From his birth in Salzburg, his first composition Andante in C for Keyboard, K. 1a when he was five years-old, to his death in Vienna at age 35, and his last incomplete composition Requiem Mass in D minor, K. 626.

The selection of musicians and scholars interviewed is very intentionally international. Languages spoken include English, German, Czech, Italian, and French which are the languages Mozart would have learned in his travels across the courts of Europe.

What may be reassuring to mere mortal musicians is how even as a musical genius, Mozart was really a working musician. His brilliant output was his way of making a living. He wrote on commission, and when he was writing for himself it was for a concert performance with a paying audience.

The film debunks a number of myths about Mozart's life introduced by the 1984 film Amadeus. Although he had a lot of debts, Mozart was not a pauper when he died. The likely cause of death was rheumatic fever—he was not poisoned. No mention is made at all of Salieri although it was acknowledged that Mozart did make enemies of other less talented but more politically savvy court composers.

The film's final image is a graphic illustration of Mozart's prodigious output. A stack of manuscript books seems to go on forever as the camera pans up.

There's almost too much information in this film. At a runtime of 128 minutes it packs a lot of biographic information, interviews, and music into a dense package—too many notes! Even so, this is not the ultimate documentary on Mozart. In the Q&A after the movie, Grabsky mentions that the first cut of the film was over 12 hours long.