Amadeus remolded by Forman

Rating: 8/10 (23 September 2002)

Was Amadeus a hippie, a hedonist, a proto rock-star, a rebel, or is Forman just portraying him as such to fit the patterns of his continuing cinematic exegesis of historical figures? Forman was raised under two dire dictatorships, the Nazi and then later the Stalinist. No doubt that such a background fostered in his heart a dislike for all formal authority, for legalistic structures, and inspired in his mind a love for that archetypical rebel figure, the one who does not so much fight authority, because he despises it, but through virtue of higher alligence, to his own personal vision or inspiration, simply comports his life as though authority did not exist.
Mozart as presented by Forman fits this mold, and is a spiritual brother to Andy Kaufman, Larry Flint, and Randle Mc Murphy in Man on the Moon, the People vs. Larry Flint, and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest respectively. He is giving us the same character over and over again, and telling us the same story at different times and places throughout the ages. This is fair enough if Forman sees this as the essential struggle occurring within the confines of the cosmos, but does his vision also encompass the masses or is he giving us the anti- Tolstoy an view that history is driven only by the actions of a few isolated great men, visionaries and revolutionaries? Yes, I like this movie, but it does not give us the sweep and grandeur that would properly reflect the music of it's subject. Ultimately it tells us more about it's author then it does about its main character. Is this a case of the cannibalism of history in order to support a director's personal vision, or simple appropriation of powerful `symbolic' personalities in order to present a Manichean view of the universe? I cannot pretend to know.
I know this, the film is energetic and amusing, like all of Forman's work that I have seen, and leaves the audience with a stronger feeling of connection with the misunderstood individualist visionary then it does with the gray world which is bent on crushing him, here represented by rival composer Salieri. The best thing it can do is inspire an audience member to take the first few tottering steps out of hypnotic TV created reality and try to create a world of his own. Why Forman hasn't gotten around to filming the life of Vincent Van Gogh is a mystery that remains unsolved.
8/10