As Good a Film as Mozart was a Composer

Rating: 10/10 (15 September 2015)

This is a film that tells its story so well that there is no need for another version of it. After seeing this film, I have no desire to see another Mozart film. This one gave me everything I wanted. Such is not to say that another great, original Mozart film could not be made. I have too much trust of the creativity of the human race to not believe that. There is just no purpose in doing so. There does not need to be more LOTR films, there do not need to be more adaptions of To Kill a Mockingbird, and there do not need to be more movies about Mr. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
If Forman's other great movie, OFOTCN, is a gloriously humanistic and smartly rebellious, if more than slightly manipulative, knife of a movie, this one is an over-the-top, stylistic, creatively- flourishing, operatic broadsword of an epic. This is the kind of movie that is not just made by a the mind of a director but by his very soul. OFOTCN is 'directed by Milos Forman.' Amadeus is a 'Milos Forman film.'
The film mostly takes place in late eighteen century Vienna. It centers around the lives of two men; the eponymous Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, played expertly and to an Academy Award nomination by Tom Hulce, and Antonio Salieri, played expertly and to an Academy Award win by F. Murray Abraham. The former is depicted as a boorish brat and playboy who can nonetheless compose some of the finest music ever heard by human ears, the later as his opposite: a dedicated musician who is nonetheless consigned to be 'the patron saint of mediocrity.' We follow Salieri and go through his eternal misery of being one of the few people in the world who can fully appreciate Mozart's talent yet being completely unable to replicate it.
Yes, if you check actual historical accounts, Salieri was not as antagonistic towards Mozart as he is in the movie. But that's not the point of cinema, something that a lot of so-called 'movie fans' don't seem to understand. Yes, I respect and am a fan of Schindler's List and the like. But realism and staying true to actual events is about as essential to a successful film as massive car chases.
Film is about feel. Film is about emotion. Film is about style. Film is about characters. And in all these respects, this film soars. Watching this film is like being an opera at one of the old opera houses of the Old World. The watcher is taken into a world of magic. Not Harry Potter-style magic; there are no magicians casting spells. And not abstract, surreal magic either; there are no volcanoes erupting out of nowhere and covering the world in stylistic lava.
No; this is high-quality stage magic. When I watch this film, I feel like it has gone up to me and said it was going to entertain me like I had never been entertained before and that I had agreed, giving it my time and my imagination, letting it do with them what it pleased.
And it never disappoints. You start trusting the film, building a relationship with it. It starts to become that rich, adventurous friend we all wish we had, one who would take you with him on his trips around the world. And though this film is by no means a 'perfect movie' (I hate that term, by the way), it never fails you so egregiously that the trust you have formed with the film is broken.
Every part of this film succeeds all the way through, from the acting to the cinematography to the plot to the near-entirely Mozart- composed soundtrack. Like many of Mozart's compositions, it flows so smoothly yet gloriously that you are both dreamily carried along and strikingly aware of the greatness you are witnessing.
My favorite of these aspects is the character of Salieri. Though there is no doubt that he is a villain protagonist, he is also one of the most tragic and unique figures of film. His struggle manages to be both operatically grand and deeply personal. I, for one, was impacted by it on a level that most films cannot even comprehend. I think that in a way, we all feel that way about the geniuses we encounter in our lives.
And while I chastise movies for fulfilling simple fantasies, I applaud them for creating characters like this, who are in ways personifications of some of our deepest feelings. Though he knows how idiotic the king is for declaring that Mozart uses 'too many notes' (one of my favorite quotes, by the way), he is still wanting the young prodigy to be taken down a peg. He knows that if he had been born with Mozart's gifts, he would have been as famous, if not more famous than his nemesis. But alas, he is not.
There is a scene in which an elderly Salieri play some of his compositions and asks if the priest who has come to hear his 'confession' has ever heard of them. He shakes his head 'no.' Then Salieri plays one of Mozart's pieces and the priest instantly recognizes it. Whether you have seen this film or not, there is no doubt that Mozart was on a different level. So, too, is this film.