As big and dramatic as anything Mozart ever came up with

Rating: 9/10 (29 March 2010)

Music, especially that of the classical variety, is capable of both great bombast and startling subtlety. So is "Amadeus." The film has such a grandiose scale that it is surprising to find that director Milos Forman has time to bring out the subtle nuances in the story. It's not quite perfect, and maybe a tad long (at least the director's cut is), but "Amadeus" is a wonderful film.
Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), a pious composer with minimal talent, is a huge fan of the hottest thing in 18th century music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Salieri loves the music, and is eager to meet the new genius...that is, until he meets him. Meeting Mozart is the ultimate slap in the face. Mozart is like the modern day celebrity stereotype: a hard partying, hard drinking, conceited jerk who chases anything in a dress. Salieri is so enraged that a man like this was blessed with so much talent, while he, a man who is making music for God, has so little. So Salieri begins orchestrating Mozart's downfall...
This is not a true story, and it wisely never claims to be. Playwright Peter Schaffer took a rumor whose credibility is, at best, tenuous, and created a whole new story with characters that indeed lived. The filmmakers have taken the mantra, "never let the facts get in the way of a good story" to heart.
The film is splendidly acted. F. Murray Abraham is nothing short of brilliant as the tortured Salieri. Here is a man who has given everything to write music in praise of God, only to have the promised talent go to a man who is so spoiled and crude. That would drive anyone mad. For his part, Tom Hulce makes a cartoonish character into a surprisingly three-dimensional individual, to the point where he becomes...dare I say it? Sympathetic. Elizabeth Berridge is also good as Constanze, Mozart's wife. She loves her husband, although she has a greater intuition about who his friends and enemies are. Jeffrey Jones is surprisingly good as Emperor Joseph II, the idiot king of Austria (he criticizes one of Mozart's operas for "having too many notes").
Director Milos Forman is a terrific director. I liked "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," and based on this, I'm going to forgive him for "Goya's Ghosts." Forman has an eye for period detail, and we are fully transported back into the time of Mozart. It's not just how everything looks, but how people act. Sitting in chairs in the opera house, fire swallowers on the streets, etc. The only flaw is that Mozart's madness is told, but why it happens is not adequately explained.
"Amadeus" is a wonderful film, plain and simple.
My rating: PG for brief nudity.