Goofs for
Amadeus (1984) More at IMDbPro »

• Factual errors: As with most historical biopics, some of the events did not occur exactly as they are portrayed in the film, or may have happened at a different time. Some did not take place at all and are included purely for dramatic purposes.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Mozart is conducting The Marriage of Figaro, the Emperor can be seen yawning in the background. He is shown yawning about two minutes later, and Salieri specifically states that the Emperor only yawned once during the performance.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The dancers in the opera/ballet scene are wearing costumes with zippers clearly visible.
  
  

• Crew or equipment visible: During comic opera, there is a crew member visible when the last of the small horses pops through the side wall. The person is wearing light colored modern day pants and is standing behind the paper wall.
  
  
• Continuity: The candles that Salieri holds when Mozart is laid on his deathbed are shorter than they are when he returns from the door a few moments later.
  
  
• Factual errors: Mozart was left-handed.
  
  
• Continuity: When Mozart is taken to the mass grave, it is raining heavily. However, the powder that is thrown over his body is not wet and fogs through the air. The container it came from is left unsheltered from the rain.
  
  
• Continuity: When Mozart is at the billiard table, the balls change position with each camera shot
  
  
• Factual errors: The first time we see the messenger going to Mozart's house it is winter. The Requiem Mass was commissioned during the mid-summer of 1791.
  
  
• Continuity: Towards the end when Salieri is speaking with Constanza, his hair frequently swaps from hanging back to over his shoulder and back again.
  
  
• Continuity: Before Mozart gives the outdoor concert, several men are seen carrying his piano through the streets. When Lorl lets Salieri into Mozart's apartment during the concert, you can see the piano behind him in the room.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene where Mozart goes into the bedroom late at night to check on his son (and Stanzi awakens and looks at him), the candles on the candelabrum that he's holding are shorter before he goes into the bedroom than when he's in the room.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Schikaneder has Mozart play the party theme in the style of Johann Sebastian Bach, which the Viennese party crowd clearly recognizes. Although the historical Mozart knew of Bach's work through his friendship with the composer's son, Bach's name and music would have been wholly unknown in the Vienna of the 1780s. Bach only became famous when Felix Mendelssohn promoted and popularized his work, nearly forty years after Mozart's death.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Joseph II was actually the Holy Roman Emperor, not Emperor of Austria as Salieri erroneously states.
  
  
• Factual errors: At the time if his death, Mozart had two sons living, Karl and Franz. The Mozarts had seven children total, five had died before Mozart's death.
  
  
• Continuity: At the first meeting of Mozart, Emperor Leopold finishes playing the march for Mozart and as he stands, he picks up the parchment from the piano. As Mozart kneels to kiss the Emporers hand, the parchment is still held by the Emporer. When Mozart stands, the parchment is back on the piano, remaining there until the Emporer turns and steps back to pick it up.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: This film is not a biopic. It is a work of historical fiction. Any "goof" which makes reference to historical events and personalities must be understood with this in mind.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the movie, Salieri offers God his chastity in exchange for immortality. The real Salieri married in 1774 and fathered 8 children.
  
  
• Factual errors: Salieri implies to his confessor that Katerina won the role of Konstanze in "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" by sleeping with Mozart. In fact, there was no romance, and the part was written for her.
  
  
• Factual errors: Salieri swears to his confessor that, although he was in love with Katerina Cavalieri, he never touched her. In fact, she was his mistress.
  
  
• Continuity: When Stanze and Schikaneder argue about when Mozart will be paid to write an opera for Schikaneder, the position of Mozart's arm around Stanze changes from shot to shot.
  
  
• Anachronisms: Several scenes of Mozart's opera productions show dry ice generated fog billowing over the stage. Dry ice was not discovered until 1834 by Charles Thilorier, 43 years after Mozart's death.
  
  

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