My favorite film

Rating: 10/10 (18 December 2010)

I remember seeing this film when I was 17. I had purchased the DVD in Chicago as a gift to my dad, thinking a winner of 8 Oscars was sure to be entertaining to him. I came home one night afterwords and decided to watch it by myself. From the very beginning, with the music, dialog, and action on screen, I felt as though I was taking my first sips of a fine wine. By the end, I was intoxicated. Amadeus is, in my humble opinion, the greatest film ever made. The performances by F. Murray Abraham as Salieri and Tom Hulce as Mozart are among the greatest of all time, and both were rightfully nominated for Best Actor. Abraham won, and it seems fitting that he as Salieri would triumph where the character himself could not. Amadeus also has some of the greatest music ever put into a film, not just because of the music itself, but because of how it seems to carry us through all of the jealousy, madness, frivolity, and perfection of the film. It resonates like no other score I've heard in a film, perhaps because it is Mozart's, and it acts like a tribute to his own greatness while at the same time looming over Salieri as a reminder of his futile mediocrity. And then the story itself. To be sure, this is pure legend, but glorious legend all the same. It is an exaggeration of a man's jealousy over someone who was simply better, and who he felt did not deserve to be. The theme is one most, if not all of us can relate to on some level. I watch many films many times over, but this is one I take in only every so often, because I still feel almost drunk with delight every time I watch it. It is one of the few films that I truly see as a pleasure to watch. It is beyond mere entertainment. It is cinema at it's pinnacle. It is, for me, the most perfect film.