Sound Match and Onscreen/Offscreen Symmetry in Amadeus

The soundscape of Amadeus (1984) is jarring in many respects -- and not just because of the bizarre hyena-like laugh that Tom Hulce's Mozart produces repeatedly throughout. The musical performances are almost always too loud for the physical settings and are too obviously in contemporary concert and stage performance styles. (The occasional period instrument or two cannot disguise the 1980s' modes of performance--and sound recording--in both concert and operatic scenes.)

Nevertheless, the film abounds in interesting details of the intermingling of sound, image, and music. I wrote about one of those yesterday ("nondiegetic-offscreen"). Here are two additional examples of the treatment of sound early in the film.

The long scene in which Mozart is introduced to the Emperor (and embarrasses Salieri for the first time) runs from about 00:26:00 to 00:36:34. At the end of this, making the cut at the end of the scene, director Milos Forman manages a simple but very effective match that juxtaposes Mozart in medium closeup, looking left and uttering his hyena-laugh, with Salieri, also in medium closeup, looking right, silent, and bitterly angry. A bit less than three minutes later, a female student is vocalizing as Salieri plays, then cut to the stage with the student singing the same figure as part of an aria in Mozart's opera Abduction from the Seraglio (with Mozart conducting). The sound match is as direct as could be and would make an excellent first example for the sound match as applied to music.

Almost immediately thereafter, a neatly symmetrical pairing illustrates onscreen/offscreen sound. The elderly Salieri talks (still to the priest) about how Mozart's triumph (and apparent stealing away of the soprano's affections) upsets him. At about 00:39:35, Salieri is speaking but the stage music continues offscreen (at a reduced volume). Then (or at about 00:39:40) the reverse happens: we see the stage (and hear music) but Salieri is heard speaking at normal volume in voiceover narration. The aria ends at 00:40:40.

Amadeus and Nondiegetic-Onscreen Sound

Of the four possible combinations of the terms "diegetic," "nondiegetic," "onscreen," and "offscreen," the most difficult one to grasp (and certainly the rarest) is "nondiegetic-onscreen." We discuss the other categories at length in HtM, Ch. 3, but give only a brief mention to "nondiegetic-onscreen." The strictest case (for which I know no example) would be a superimposed image positioned in, say, one quarter of the frame, from which speech or music is heard that is not part of the physical world of the film (a choir of angels, perhaps). Alternatively, a person onscreen might be recalling a speech or musical performance, and the sound track carries that speech or music rather than the usual diegetic-onscreen sound. In such a case, the "nondiegetic-onscreen" is really a variety of point-of-view sound (also discussed in HtM, Ch. 3).

If so, then sound in connection with flashbacks induced by a character's recalling a past event would also be considered "nondiegetic-onscreen." Obviously, this is easier to grasp--and more useful--in shorter segments (not, for example, in Million Dollar Baby, where the entire film is a flashback).

In the earlier sequences of Amadeus (1984), short flashbacks are used several times. In almost all cases, the effect of memory, the nondiegetic as the past, is enhanced by sound advances and sound lags. At 00:13:00, for example, the elderly Salieri is talking to the priest (offscreen). At 00:13:14, we hear the sound of a small fortepiano-spinet, then shortly after we see the Austrian Emperor playing with a more youthful Salieri at his side, coaching him. At the end of this short flashback, cut back to the elderly Salieri talking but the music persists for another 2-3 seconds, a sound lag.

The same device is used for another flashback shortly after (beginning at 00:14:00), and also elsewhere in the film.