SOURCE: "Amadeus on Stage and Screen," in Postscript: Essays in Film and the Humanities, Vol. 9, Nos. 1-2, Fall, 1989-Winter 1990, pp. 25-37.

In the essay below, Conroy assesses the effect of the changes Shaffer made to Amadeus in adapting it to film.

The transposition of any literary work to the movie screen is an undertaking fraught with danger. This is true even when the literary work in question is a play, that is to say a work that has already been created in the visual and dialogic modes that film shares with drama. Peter Shaffer's Amadeus offers a perfect illustration of these difficulties and of how the "same" work can change as it passes from stage to screen. In reformulating his story for the screen Shaffer has rearticulated Salieri's conflict with God, making it more problematic than it was in the play; furthermore, this transposition creates a reflexive text...