Editor’s note: Page to Oscar is a recurring Booked & Screened series exploring Oscar-nominated and winning adapted screenplays—and how those stories make the leap from page to film.

It’s been more than four decades since Peter Shaffer’s play “Amadeus” made the jump from the page to the screen. 

Will Sharpe (“Sherlock”) and Paul Bettany (“Avengers: Infinity War”) are bringing the famous composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri to Starz on May 8. But when Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham played those characters in 1984, it was a somewhat different story.  

Not only did Shaffer write the play in 1979, he also wrote the screenplay for the film that was directed by Miloš Forman. The two spent four months together in a farmhouse in Connecticut to make the story less theatrical and, as Shaffer noted in the preface to the 1999 version of the play, “vastly different.”

Like later rewrites, major changes came in the final meeting between Mozart and Salieri, which serves as the climax to the story. In this version, Mozart, on his deathbed, dictates the notes for his final “Requiem Mass” to Salieri.

“It was a bold but right decision to construct this scene deliberately as the climax, because its central preoccupation is exclusively with sound—and Sound is actually the name of the main character in our story,” Shaffer wrote. 

Shaffer was rewarded for his troubles with the award for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards that year. The film beat out fellow nominees “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes;” “The Killing Fields;” “A Passage to India;” and “A Soldier’s Story.” 

In fact, the film walked away with the most awards that night, eight—Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Abraham, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Best Sound. It also received nods for Best Actor for Hulce, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing. 

Then Shaffer wrote “Amadeus” again in 1998 when he changed the ending of Act Two and made some other small tweaks to the actual play itself. This time, he was motivated by Salieri’s guilt in “this most troublesome scene,” the climax of the play. 

In the original version of the play, Salieri is presented as a true villain, responsible for Mozart’s demise—and ultimate death. He views himself as Mozart’s literal murderer. 

The later rewrite depicts Salieri as guilt-ridden, seeking forgiveness from Mozart and blaming the whole affair on God. Shaffer wrote in the preface that he sought to create a “more complex” character in Salieri, who ultimately gives up and leaves Mozart’s apartment without absolution. 

“It seems to me the play is moved from high melodrama into a more credible area, akin to tragedy,” Shaffer wrote. 

Shaffer, who died in 2016 at the age of 90, was not involved with the adaptation of his play into the upcoming five-episode series. Without giving away any spoilers, it’s my understanding that Joe Barton, who wrote the teleplay to focus more heavily on Mozart’s wife, Constanze (Gabrielle Creevy), departed quite a bit in the ending. Stay tuned for our review. 

About the writer

Danielle Haynes is the co-founder and co-editor of Booked & Screened, covering book-to-screen adaptations, film and TV development.