Beloved of God

Rating: 10/10 (29 May 2008)

To be born with the love of music and with great ambition and yet have a mediocre talent; to hate passionately one with clearly a heavenly gift - that is the story of Amadeus. Directed by Milos Forman and starring F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Roy Dotrice, Elizabeth Berridge, Jeffrey Jones and Christine Ebersole, this 1984 film is sumptuously produced and made in Prague, certainly one of the most glorious cities in the world.
Amadeus is based on a play by Peter Shaeffer and gets its roots from a Rimsky-Korsakov opera. It is the highly fictionalized story of Wolfgang Mozart and another composer of the time, Salieri, who was jealous of Mozart's talent and vowed to bring him down. In reality, the two men were colleagues, and the story is really a what-if. However, as a friend of mine returning from a concert where Salieri's music was performed said, "By the way, I can believe Salieri killed Mozart, if this was the best he could come up with." It certainly would be amazing if other composers alive during that period were not aware of the child prodigy and his prolific compositions. It would be more amazing if they weren't just a little jealous.
The story is told by the institutionalized Salieri (Abraham) to a priest, and we see Mozart (Tom Hulce) from his point of view: as an eccentric, lascivious, ill-behaved young man whose behavior belies his great talent. Salieri attempts to ruin Mozart, even using the influence Mozart's own late father had over him by disguising himself in a huge black cloak as Mozart Sr. wore and commissioning Mozart to write a Requiem.
The performances are exquisite, and one can really feel Salieri's pain as exhibited brilliantly by F. Murray Abraham. One empathizes with his anger toward, jealousy of and contradictory admiration for Mozart. Mozart himself is depicted as an idiot on whom musical talent was randomly bestowed. Tom Hulce's laugh as Mozart is unforgettable, as is his chasing Constanze, who became his wife, under a piano. As the film goes on, much of this wild behavior grows less, and the audience is permitted to see Mozart the genius, with a million notes in his head, dictating from his sick bed, and soberly conducting his music.
The real star of Amadeus is the music, lushly performed, the vocal music ranging from his simple Caro Mio Bene to Abduction from the Seraglio, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute and the orchestral from symphonies, concertos, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and, of course, his Requiem.
Amadeus is a feast for the eyes and a thrill for the ears. It is a thought-provoking film about genius, mediocrity and immortality.