Big, fast, crazy, touching, and gorgeous. And with lots of Mozart. Superb stuff.

Rating: 10/10 (3 March 2012)

Amadeus (1984)
A million reviews have been written about this deserving movie--and the big points are good ones. And debatable.
One, the play was better. Maybe. The play couldn't use cinematic tricks for its effects, but the movie really took it all much further in movie terms. It's a movie, not an adapted play.
Two, it's inaccurate. Yes. Of course. It's a dramatized movie based on an historic figure. The truths are plenty--the boy genius, the patronage, the music scene in general. The fictions are worth noting, mainly that Salieri didn't kill Mozart (there is zero evidence of this, just chatter). Salieri didn't transcribe Mozart's final Requiem at his death bed. And Mozart's wife didn't sound like a ditzy American. Of course.
Three, the operas are staged in contemporary terms, like dry ice effects. The venues are appropriate, and in fact, Mozart's time is not that far from ours, not in the larger picture.
Speaking of venues, the whole city of Vienna looks terrific--because it's actually Prague. Go to Prague now and it'll have the same effect, though without the gray severity. Yes, Mozart was buried in a common grave. Yes he died too young from still uncertain causes (see Wikipedia for a full rundown of likely options). And yes, he was pretty innovative and radical. And if not as silly as Tom Hulce's interpretation, still a renegade socially and musically.
Is it a good movie? Yes, a great movie. Who won't like it? Well, people with an aversion for historical dramas might, but even here, it zooms with such crazy, fun, funny energy, I don't know why it wouldn't just suck people in. Eventually though there are short scenes that are basically straight opera, with some continuing story along the sidelines. If you hate hate opera, you might have to just marvel at the sets and crazy crowds.
There isn't a bad actor here, or a bad moment, really. And the music, the music! It's wonderful. The performances, take note, are by the high water mark of Mozart performances in the 20th Century--Sir Neville Mariner leading his famed orchestra. Likewise, the opera productions are by one of the great talents of the era, Twyla Tharp. The director Milos Forman has a short resume but it's impressive, including "Hair" as a kind of precursor and "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" as proof of some kind of higher ability. (Forman hasn't always been on target, though, notably with his highly polished but pushy and almost abusive "Goya's Ghosts," which has a similar structure to "Amadeus," building a large world around a true rebel artist.)
Anyway, a marvelous movie, a truly lovely experience, beautifully filmed, intensely envisioned, and acted with aplomb (F. Murray Abraham is a wonder as Salieri, young and old). And it is layered with some of the most emphatic and resolved music ever written.