Genius

Rating: 10/10 (15 March 2005)

It is because of this movie that I began listening to Classical music. Up to the age of 20 I wouldn't listen to anything but rock, rap, hip hop, punk. Then I fell in love with Mozart. And because of this epiphany I went on to listen to other styles of music such as country (Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams), Edith Piaf, Al Jolson, and so on. This movie is breathtaking. A knockout and I wish I could see it on the big screen! Tom Hulce was wonderful as Mozart! Elizabeth Berridge who plays his wife Constanza looks eerily like the real Constanza judging from portraits of the great composer's wife.
F. Murray Abraham deservedly won the Oscar for his outstanding turn as Mozart's arch enemy-fellow composer Antonio Salieri who was NOT a 'mediocrity'! He was a brilliant composer in his own right. It is just that there are the fair, the good, the great-and then there are the gifted.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was one of the gifted. When it comes to music even the un-trained ear can tell that God kissed the man right on the lips.
And there was nothing Salieri could do about it. He could train in music for a million years and he still could not come close to the genius that was Mozart-who's "Eine Kleine Nachtmuzik" is recognizable today even to non-classical music fans.