Exquisitely photographed, but empty and often dull

Rating: 5/10 (21 July 2008)

Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) was born with the love of and desire to create music. He is the Court Composer for Austrian Emperor Joseph II (Jeffrey Jones) and lives a relatively contented life, even if his music is less-than-brilliant. But when Salieri encounters Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce), the young, arrogant, vulgar - and brilliant - composer, he realizes just how feeble his attempts at music are. Salieri denounces God and declares a campaign of destruction against Mozart; he is enraptured by Mozart's music while hating the man, and will go to seemingly any length to destroy him.
Based on Peter Schafer's play, Amadeus should be a great film. It has an intriguing story, a marvelous production design, full of glittering and gorgeous period detail, a talented director in Milos Foreman, and a score by Mozart - which, if nothing else, should provide some amount of enjoyment. So what is it about Amadeus that doesn't work? A combination of factors, from a bizarre cast to a weak screenplay with a startling lack of authenticity to an overall feeling of staginess that doesn't translate well to film.
Let's start first with the screenplay. I am unfamiliar with Schafer's play, so I will not bother comparing his screenplay to the stage script. But the screenplay falls prey to something fatal: anachronism. The dialogue and characters are extremely modern to point of being post-modern, only creating an air of inauthenticity which strikes a false note from the get-go. This is a legitimate approach to a subject - it worked well enough in A Man for All Seasons and Becket - and, to be fair, using arcane period language carries its own perils. However, it takes an accomplished writer to pull it off, and if Schaffer is such a writer he doesn't evidence it here. The movie isn't convincing for a second as a period piece set in 18th Century Austria. As with The Lion in Winter, we lose track of the historical context in order to keep up with the witty and anachronistically self-aware dialogue, and the film suffers greatly for it.
The cast is another bizarre aspect. The casting of profoundly American actors in virtually every role produces a disconcerting effect which only exacerbates the problems of script and character. F. Murray Abraham is good as Salieri, but his performance is subtle and understated to the point of being dull. It would have been interesting to see how the original Salieri, Paul Scofield, tackled the role; he was an actor who can be understated without boring the audience. Tom Hulce is an odd choice as Mozart, but Hulce actually handles the part very well, and is at least fun to watch. Elizabeth Berridge on the other hand is absolutely dreadful and out-of-place as Mozart's wife, with a distracting New York accent. Jeffrey Jones and Simon Callow (the original Mozart) are quite good in smaller roles, but they don't have a lot of time to register. The rest of the cast is made up of talented actors - Christine Ebersole, Roy Dotrice, Charles Kay, Barbara Bryne, Cynthia Nixon - with virtually nothing to do.
Most of Amadeus's quality comes from its admittedly lavish production values, but when coupled with the "modern" dialogue and characters and the bizarre cast, they only add another discordant note to the film. The story is rather interesting - the idea of Salieri as a man who can recognize musical genius while lacking all but the most remedial talent - but it's overwhelmed by a plethora of banal plot ideas and character development and trite symbolism (reaching its nadir when Salieri burns a crucifix in protest of God's favoring Mozart), as well as horrendous pacing. Too much time is spent watching operas and musical performances by Mozart and Salieri. Not a bad idea sparingly - we ARE watching a film about a composer - but used repeatedly, they only slow the film's pace to a painful, deadening crawl. At 160 minutes, such sloth is fatal. Oh, the music is brilliant, but we've always known Mozart was a talented composer; we didn't need this film to tell us that.
So, to sum up, Amadeus is a dull if nice-looking slog. To answer the Emperor's question: "Is it modern?" The answer is yes, and it's very much to the film's detriment. "Though the libretto was written by accomplished artists, the plot is that of a third-rate operetta" (Phillip Ziegler).
5/10