“I will ruin your incarnation”

Encountering Envy at the Movies

When thinking about depictions of Envy in popular culture, and particularly Envy as a deadly sin, it’s hard to find a better illustration than the relationship between composers Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart depicted in Amadeus, the 1984 film adaptation of Peter Shaffer’s play of the same name. The play and the film imagine a rivalry between the two composers, based on (disproven) historical rumors that Salieri poisoned Mozart, who died at age 35.¹

In this version of the story, Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) is a relatively successful composer in Vienna with a coveted (if creatively unfulfilling) royal appointment. His creative ambitions are thrown into turmoil by the arrival of the celebrated young genius Mozart (Tom Hulce). The pious Salieri sees the vulgar, indulgent and infinitely more talented Mozart as a divine joke at his own expense. Why would the God Salieri has given his life to in exchange for musical success reward his devotion by channeling astounding talent not only into someone else, but someone so seemingly undeserving?

The Envy that takes root in Salieri’s heart eventually blackens into hatred to the point that Salieri rejects God completely. Salieri recounts this rejection to a priest, years after the fact: “From now on, we are enemies - you and I. Because you choose for your instrument a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy and give me for reward only the ability to recognize the incarnation. Because you are unjust, unfair, unkind, I will block you, I swear it. I will hinder and harm your creature as far as I am able. I will ruin your incarnation.”²

As Salieri says these words in the present, we see him in flashback as he removes a crucifix from the wall of his apartment and burns it. This is not garden-variety resentment of another’s success. Salieri’s envy is dark, soul-rotting and all-consuming. It’s the kind that, when he sees beauty he can’t have, would rather destroy it than appreciate it at a distance.

This is such an effective encapsulation not only because of how it shows what Envy can do to a person who lets it grow unchecked, but because it shows us how Envy differs from covetousness or jealousy, distinct concepts that we often use interchangeably. Envy in its truest form is more than these, and perhaps even more dangerous.

A Working Definition of Envy

Michael Mangis, psychologist and professor at Wheaton College, points out that when Pope Gregory I conceived of the list of deadly sins, Envy was conceived as a spiritual sin directed toward existential concerns rather than material ownership. In his book Signature Sins, Mangis writes, “Envy is dissatisfaction with who God has made me to be. It is also suspicion that God is withholding what I deserve and giving it to someone else.”³

That understanding of Envy is present at the very beginning of the Bible — it’s what causes Cain to slay his brother Abel in Genesis 4, after God looks with favor on Abel’s offerings and overlooks Cain’s. Surely, Cain thinks, if the favored brother is gone, all he has, including God’s divine favor, will pass to Cain. But God knows what Cain has done, and curses him for it almost immediately: “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”⁴

We get reflections of this story later in Genesis, through the experience of Joseph and his brothers. Joseph is the youngest son of Jacob, and his father’s favorite. Joseph’s brothers resent this, even more so when Jacob recounts prophetic dreams which seem to foretell that he will one day rule over them. Joseph’s brothers decide to get him out of the way by selling him into slavery. Despite his hardship, Joseph eventually thrives in the court of the Pharaoh, and is given authority that allows him to help his family survive during a famine. Joseph’s brothers, meanwhile, feel guilt over what they’ve done. Rather than helping them, removing Joseph from the equation has made their existence harder; when Joseph re-enters their lives, they seek his forgiveness.

This, the Bible tells us, is how Envy works. We desire the favor someone else has received — whether it’s good looks, professional success, social status, or any infinite combination of desirable traits and what we think those traits can get us. But rather than live gratefully with the gifts we have, or look inwardly to see how we might use that desire as an opportunity to grow and find personal and spiritual fulfillment on our own terms, Envy festers until it eventually boils over in destructive fashion. That’s bad enough, but to make it worse, we don’t attain the favor or relief we think will be ours when we get rid of our rivals. At best, what we get comes with significant strings attached: inescapable guilt, paranoia at being discovered, the loss of one’s soul. At worst, it’s followed by swift retribution.

A Survey of Cinematic Envy

This is certainly the trajectory we see illustrated in Amadeus; after Mozart’s death, Salieri slowly loses his mind. The film’s establishing framework is the elderly Salieri, confined to a mental institution, confessing his sins to an increasingly appalled priest. But this is also not the only cinematic example of Envy as a consuming force. In many films that tackle the topic, a character’s Envy curdles into violence, and often confuses the motives of the enviers. From the outside, it’s hard for a viewer to tell — does the perpetrator want what the person they envy has? Do they desire that person? Do they want to be that person? As we can see in the following examples, the true motivation is even hard for the characters themselves to identify.

Think, for example, of Matt Damon’s Tom Ripley in Anthony Minghella’s 1999 adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley and his relationship with Jude Law’s rich, spoiled playboy, Dickie Greenleaf. Tom’s envy of Dickie seems to reflect all three of these feelings at once. Tom is initially sent to Italy by Dickie’s wealthy father to encourage his wayward son to return home. When Tom befriends Dickie and sees how he lives, Tom’s objectives quickly change.

Tom, a sociopath who struggles to make genuine connections with others, is won over by Dickie’s natural charm and the life it’s brought him. He wants that for himself. More than that, he seems to want Dickie for himself. When Dickie starts suspecting Tom is not who he says he is, and calls him out on his strange behavior, Tom feels the new life he’s enjoying is in danger, so he murders Dickie during a boat trip. Immediately following the killing, Minghella transitions to a shot of Damon’s Tom lying in the bottom of the boat, holding Dickie’s body like a lover.

After Dickie’s murder, Tom assumes the dead man’s identity and uses Dickie’s family’s connections and money to live the life of wealth and luxury Tom so desperately wanted. Obviously, it’s hard to keep the ruse going for very long, as some of Dickie’s friends quickly sense something is up. Tom’s attempts to keep up appearances require a complex web of lies to cover up his crimes, and additional murders when the lies start to fail. The implication by the end is that Tom will never get free of the lies he’s spun, can never be truly happy.

In Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2016 horror film The Neon Demon, that blurry line between desire, identity, and violence goes even further to include physical consumption. When ingénue Jesse (Elle Fanning) arrives in L.A. to become a model, she quickly becomes a magnetic object of desire for everyone who meets her. She commands attention from photographers, agents, and designers, all of whom see her as a pure, perfect, blank canvas on which to paint their desires.

For makeup artist Ruby (Jena Malone) and slightly older models Gigi (Bella Heathcote) and Sarah (Abbey Lee), the naturally gorgeous Jesse is a reminder of their own contentious relationships with their bodies, and their precarious positions in a fickle industry. In the film’s climax, Ruby, Gigi, and Sarah take their obsession with Jesse to a grisly end by murdering the younger girl and eating her, eventually bathing in her blood.

No amount of plastic surgery can make these women age backwards. Nothing can give them the natural quality Jesse was born with — a magical genetic combination of unblemished ivory skin, wavy, naturally blonde hair, even a nose so perfect Gigi can’t believe it’s real. In these women’s minds, it’s not enough to get rid of Jesse. She can’t just be removed. They want the quality she carries so badly that Jesse has to be absorbed.

Each of these examples bring to mind Salieri’s words in Amadeus when he angrily forsakes his relationship with God, believing his devotion to his creator has been rejected, the glory he believes is his by right given to someone undeserving of it. “I will hinder and harm your creature as far as I am able. I will ruin your incarnation.” If we believe God is withholding what we deserve and giving it to someone else, Envy dictates that, rather than rethink our approach or reconsider our purpose, we destroy the person who has taken what we think should be ours.

Escaping Envy

The Bible’s depiction of Cain’s murderous envy of Abel also contains the key to overcoming it. While God disapproves of Cain’s sacrifice, God does not disapprove of Cain. Rather, he tells him, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”⁵

Based on the actions that follow God’s words, Cain seems to read this as dismissal; he will never be as good as his brother, therefore he must kill his brother in order to gain favor by default. But that’s not what this is. God’s words to Cain are an invitation, a valuable opportunity to grow in spiritual formation. The true sin of Envy, it seems, is not wanting what someone else has, but an unwillingness to look inward and consider why we want it, and why what we’ve been given is not enough.

Salieri, for example, in his earliest prayers to God to bless his endeavors as a composer, says “Let me celebrate your glory through music, and let me be celebrated, too.” In his position as court composer for Emperor Joseph II, he claims “The man had no ear at all, but what did it matter? He liked my music.” Salieri envies Mozart not just because of his gifts, but because of the success those gifts have brought him. Though he died a pauper, Mozart’s groundbreaking works are remembered. Salieri knows his “mediocre” work will fade into obscurity. The need for praise is what drives his decision to destroy the other man.

In The Neon Demon, the pursuit of attention and success and the need to be desired has made the characters hate their bodies. “Everyone hates the way they look,”⁶ Gigi, who’s had so many plastic surgeries that her doctor refers to her as “the bionic woman,” tells her friends in the bathroom at a party. Later, when Gigi and Jesse are getting drinks with a designer they both work with, the designer states that true beauty — the kind Jesse has — can’t be manufactured. “If you aren’t born beautiful, you never will be,” he says, pointedly looking at Gigi, who’s beautiful by any stretch of the imagination, but whose beauty was attained, not given naturally.

In Signature Sins, Mangis writes that envy is based on a fear of scarcity. “Envy leads us to become upset at another’s success or happiness because envy believes life is a zero-sum game. If someone else gets something good, there will be less good available for me.”⁷ Of course, it doesn’t help that life in a capitalist society reinforces exactly this worldview. There is no such thing as “enough,” only feast or famine.

But that’s not how God’s economy works. Loving your neighbor as yourself means there is no room for scarcity. There will be enough if each person takes only what they need. We get an illustration of that economy in the feeding of the 5000 in Matthew 14, when Jesus takes five loaves and two fish and miraculously makes enough to feed a massive crowd. God always has enough, and in fact more than enough, for everyone. It’s we humans, with our earthbound imaginations, that see limits, and turn anyone who represents those limits into threats.

Cinematic illustrations of Envy are cautionary tales. They remind us of what can happen when we pursue what we think we want, not out of love, but for self-gain. That way leads to violence, broken relationships and empty achievement, not fulfillment, and certainly not joy. Biblical illustrations of it point out that we always have a choice. God gives us the opportunity to grow and learn from disappointment, to celebrate others’ accomplishments and recognize how a rising tide can lift all boats. Like Cain, if we do what is right, we will be accepted, but we have to remember that sin is always crouching at the door, waiting for us to let it in.

Abby Olcese is a writer on film, popular culture, and faith. Her work has appeared at Think Christian, Sojourners, Paste, RogerEbert.com, and /Film. She is also the film editor for The Pitch, a website and magazine serving the greater Kansas City, Missouri, area. Check out her new book, Films for All Seasons.

1. Otto Erich Deutsch (1965), Mozart: A Documentary Biography, trans. Peter Branscombe, Eric Blom, and Jeremy Noble (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), 522, 524.

2. Amadeus, directed by Miloš Forman. Los Angeles, CA: Orion Pictures, 1984.

3. Michael Mangis, Signature Sins: Taming Our Wayward Hearts (Lisle, IL, InterVarsity Press, 2008), 32-33.

4. Genesis 4.9-12.

5. Genesis 4.6.

6. The Neon Demon, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Los Angeles, CA: Broad Green Pictures, 2016.

7. Mangis, 33.