Salieri in Amadeus

[abaris]

Any perception of Salieri as incompetent is expressive of his own sense of inadequacy in the face of Mozart's innate genius, his "God given" talents provoke not just jealousy but a full existential crisis in Salieri, he witnesses Mozart's genius and sees God's contempt for him, he adores Mozart's work so that it fills him with resentment for his own perceived inadequacies. The sense that Salieri is a failure or an incompetent is put forth by Salieri himself, the one telling the story.

Yet there's no idication of Salieri really having felt that way. Miloš Forman just built on the rumors, in the same way as From Hell built on outdated rumors surrounding the Ripper story.