I think because of how much I enjoyed the movie, I was very disappointed to find out how historically inaccurate Amadeus was. It's not really Hollywood's fault in this case, as they based it on a play, that itself was based on another play from 1830. I loved F. Murray Abraham's performance, and the structure of the story, so a bit of a let-down that they didn't actually have that kind of relationship.

I don't mind all of this, sometimes, because when the film is well done and enjoyable it doesn't seem that big a deal. There was some b.s. in "Patton," for instance, but the movie was so damn good.
The only thing that bothers me about it is that some people aren't smart enough to realize that it's Hollywood and just enjoy it as entertainment. These movies are where they get their knowledge of history from. So, you can't argue with them about the fact that the U.S. Army Air Corps did NOT send pilots over to England to fight in the RAF because, "I saw it in that movie, Pearl Harbor!"

I can forgive the artistic license taken with "Amadeus" because it is such an amazingly brilliant film.

And besides, we're talking something pretty innocuous here (changing the nature of the relationship between two musical composers). This isn't like a movie filled with inaccuracies about the Vietnam War or WW II which are still very passionate/controversial topics today.

+1


I guess portraying those US pilots as merely private citizens who went to the UK by their own volition and funding makes for much less interesting drama!

I think most people go into a historical movie knowing that it's going to be sensationalized by Hollywood and it's for entertainment and not for documentary purposes. So a movie like U-571 can get away with saying it was "inspired" by a true story. But the one movie that pisses me off is Argo, just because of the lengths that Ben Affleck went to, to say they meticulously researched the subject to make it as accurate as possible. That movie to me is a steaming pile of $&!#. On the other end of the scale is Apollo 13 which I think was really close to the real events.

Wizard

I understand that things need to be adjusted to make a more compelling story, and to fit within the confines of a movie, but making historical figures act in completely different ways than they actually did is taking it a bit far to me. I think it's worse if it's a relatively recent event, and when most of the people involved are still alive and can answer questions. I've heard Apollo 13 was largely accurate, but the astronauts all said that they never went through the blaming of each other, etc. If I were one of those guys, and saw myself being portrayed that way, I'd be pretty annoyed.

On the other end of the spectrum, Gene Kranz never said "Failure is not an option," but liked it so much he used that as a title for a book.

I definitely would be upset if I was one of the astronauts because it would be smearing my reputation. Of course, I totally understand why the script had the astronauts blaming each other.

Reading the "Lost Moon" book you get the quote from Lovell that is the remark that Tom Hanks uses to calm down the blaming scene: "We're not gonna go bouncing off the walls for the next ten minutes, because we're just gonna end up right back here with the same problems!". Lovell used it to describe the test pilot attitude of being too busy going though steps 1 - 1017 to figure out how to get a handle on the situation and get out of it. Wasting time panicking is counterproductive. So I think the script-writers added that scene to get that remark into the movie.