The Music and the Madness but was it really Murder? *SPOILERS*

Rating: 10/10 (19 August 2005)

*SPOILER ALERT* I had never understood why this movie was so coveted until now. I had watched it when I was about 10 years old and at that time it made absolutely no sense at all much as the Godfather was incomprehensible to me. Having watched it again the pieces fall right into place. F. Murray Abrahams is dynamite and just blows you out of the water with his performance and he's not the only one. Tom Hulce is the gasoline that gets the blaze going. The two of them are bigger than the Fourth of July. Before I watched this I knew that Mozart was a genius of music. I didn't realize that he was THE genius of music. There has never been anything like him before or since. He did for music what electricity did for light bulbs. Here are two men that are rivals. Bitter rivals. It is impressed upon you in every scene. Salieri is great, a true living legend. And he hates Mozart, not because he is better than him but because he is a unsophisticated, uncultured, impish childlike boob. He wants him dead. Does everything he can to utterly ruin him and make him fail. But he loves his music and operas completely, unabashedly and without limits. Covets and appreciates his talent like no one ever could and knows without doubt Mozart is the best composer in the world. But he won't let Amadeus succeed. As a result, Mozart sinks deeper and deeper into a pit of alcoholism, sickness and depression. Wife leaves him and he's flat broke. His father's death haunts him like a demon released from purgatory. Salieri hastens if not actually perpetuates his death and what does Mozart tell him on his deathbed? That he thought Salieri didn't like his music and that he respected Salieri more than anyone and begs his forgiveness for being so wrong! That is a biggest slap in the face I've ever seen delivered on screen. It takes the cake for pure cinematic irony. Mozart, in all probability would have died regardless of what happened but Salieri cannot and will not forgive himself for what he has so underhandedly done to Mozart and even more importantly to the world of music. The way this film is told is brilliant and I'm not surprised it won the many coveted awards it did as it certainly deserved them. Best film of 1984.