Amadeus is one of the most entertaining biographies put on screen, and possibly the best one about a musician ever. It is also the most effective transplanting of a stage play to screen (in the pantheon with Grease or Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) It's about Mozart (Tom Hulce), but he's actually a very substantial
supporting player to murderously jealous forgotten composer Antonio Salieri -the actual lead role (deserving best Actor Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham), Eclectic director Milos Forman deftly handles the intimate and emotional scenes as well as the big sweeping, sumptuous epic Viennese scenes. The supporting performances are all wonderful, memorable and indelible, and I've seen this movie many times. Many viewers have complained about the American accents, especially those of Mozart, his spunky wife Costanze (the underrated Elizabeth Berridge, who acts her heart and soul in this role, flat American accent aside), Emperor Franz Josef (the stellar character actor Jeffery Jones), Mozart's grumpy controlling dad Leopold (Ray Dotrice) and Abraham himself. I say poppycock (I never actually say poppycock), why should original German speaking characters only speak with British accents? Perhaps more of an issue is that there is a weird mix of American and British accents among Viennese people. The art direction and wardrobe is both lush and believably grungy, and Vienna, (Prague on location) feels like a real place where people live, both nobles and peasants. From a production point of view, this is as good as it gets. I recommend the director's cut, there are huge story holes in the original studio version. Numerous story points are vague and unexplained in the official release, especially the coercive sexual relationship between Salieri and Costanze, which is only vaguely hinted at in the shorter version. Both versions are long, and the director's cut is longer, but you've got more than three hours to burn, right? The director's cut also has even more of Wolfgang's music, which is the only soundtrack, and the cues are expertly chosen and conducted by Sir Neville Marriner. On the down side, the film is not historically accurate at all, and it's unlikely that Salieri 'killed' Mozart out of envy, though apparently he boasted of it in his confused senile final days. Playwright Peter Shaffer had some burning point to make about art, jealousy and desire, and the randomness of god in choosing his 'servant' but these points are more the driving force behind the play than the movie. It feels like he's setting up a 'straw man' in Salieri to make his thesis. To me, the theme is not that important. The character study in the movie is richer and stronger than the play. Some of the scheming of Salieri doesn't really make much sense, and Mozart seems too smart to be such a sap in reacting to the scheming. It's also really long. That aside, pop it in your Blu Ray player and crank up the symphonic delights on your surround sound.
February 23, 2012
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