Mozart through the eyes of Salieri

Rating: 8/10 (10 January 2013)

The life story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart told retrospectively from the perspective of his contemporary and rival, the imperial composer Antonio Salieri, who at the end of his life is confessing to a priest in a believe that he is responsible for Mozarts death. Most of the story shows last years of Mozarts life, his character, his career, his personal life and his death. The technical part is done well, especially the scenery that makes a visual impression fantastic. Mozart's music is blended into the content of the film and is a great foundation for consistently strong atmosphere. It's a shame that some potentially great scenes were somewhat ruined with very bad camera work although Forman generally did very good job. Besides the historical inaccuracies that pervade the entire film, bad reactions were provoked by the choice of Tom Hulce as Mozart. Tom did great job, he gave his best and probably did all that was asked of him but he's just not suited for the role. Shaffer and Forman vision of Mozart is maybe correct, but it certainly is different from vision of biggest par of the audience. F. Murray Abraham is brilliant in the lead role of Antonio Salieri and was rewarded for it with Oscar and a Golden Globe. The movie won 8 Oscars and it's shares that number with movies like Gandhi and Gone With the Wind. The screenplay is very good in almost every aspect besides historical inaccuracies. The characters are wonderfully developed, the dialogues are strong and most importantly the story keeps viewers to the screen for the entire 160 minutes. This is one of the titles that absolutely no one should miss, but either before or after viewing, it may be good to read historically accurate story.