Visual and aural treat

Rating: Null/10 (11 August 2002)

I first saw "Amadeus" in early 1985, by which time it had already been festooned with 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture. I saw it again in the summer of 2002 when it was re-released as a director's cut, an additional 20 minutes taking the total running time to a full three hours. The extra footage does not make much difference to what was already a stunning work, but the digital remastering can only help the appreciation of a glorious performance.
Peter Schaffer reworked his own play to create the screenplay for this psychological and musicological struggle between the young genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) and his much less well-known contemporary Antonio Salieri (1750-1825), while Czech director MiloÂš Forman returned to his former homeland where Prague provided brilliant settings evocative of 18th century Vienna, including the Tyl Theatre where in fact the premiere of "The Magic Flute" was held. Indeed the film is veritably a visual and aural feast with sumptuous costumes and sets and plenty of Mozart's sublime music.

I still have some difficulty with the casting of American-accented and eternally giggling Tom Hulce as the farting but fabulous Mozart, although he is undeniably impressive. However, it is F Murray Abraham as Salieri - a man consumed by jealous over the other's precocious talent - who gives a breathtaking virtuoso performance. Inevitably, when one revisits a film after so long, one notes the subsequent career of the actors. Tom Hulce seemed to disappear, Abraham never obtained a similarly challenging role, while Cynthia Nixon (who played a maid employed to spy on Mozart) has found fame of sorts in the hit television series "Sex And The City".