Amadeus

Rating:
Summary: Amadeus: Drama With Music, Director's Cut
Review: In 1984, director Milos Forman's film "Amadeus" swept the Oscars winning numerous awards including Best Picture, Director and Actor (F. Murray Abraham as Salieri). Watching this film in its entirety, including additional footage that was cut due to time, we finally understand why this film made such an immense impact. It's fiery psychological drama, a tale of revenge and an engaging historical bio-pic. Also, this is a great film that could get you into classical music and especially Mozart. Every music class ought to show this film to students as part of music appreciation material.

Tom Hulce's Mozart is endearing. The film was taken straight from the Broadway play by Peter Schaffer, and Schaffer was drawing it from the 19th century Russian novelist Pushkin. Pushkin created a fictional story, based on the rumors that Mozart had been killed by a plot of Salieri. This is not true but irregardless, made a big impact on literature and drama. Antonio Salieri was actually the more famous and more respected compose during Mozart's time. It was not until after Mozart's death that his musical contribution was appreciated. In the meantime, Salieri taught Beethoven some of the tricks of the trade, composed religious choral works, operas and instrumental music considered stylish at the time. The only reason why Mozart stood out more was because Mozart refused to be patronized by royal sponsors or to change music to please the aristocracy. Mozart was the first real star in his own right. He was like a rock star. Tom Hulce, with his radical wigs, comical laughter and playful, festive, care-free attitude was true to Mozart's actual nature. The fact that he was an alcoholic party animal is also true. It is this that killed him when he suffered liver complications and rheumatic fever upon his death at the age of 34.

Some of the film is true, some parts are fiction. Of course, the main focus is Salieri's revenge. Purely for the sake of drama, this portrays Salieri as a religious man who wanted more than anything to be a world famous composer. But he felt denied of his talent and instead a less deserving Mozart was the real musical genius. Salieri then renounces his faith in God (the scene in which he burns a cross in the fireplace) and deliberately plots the demise of Mozart, culminating in the commission to write a haunting Requiem Mass for Mozart's father Leopold. The parts of the film in which Leopold's relationship with his son is portrayed is very likely true, since Leopold never approved of his son's lifestyle. Mozart was married to Constanza Webber, who was related to the other famous composer Carl Maria Von Webber, but there is no truth in the affair with the soprano Catherina Cavalieri, who was in fact Salieri's mistress. The film accurately portrays the chronological order of the making of his operas- Le Nozze Di Figaro, Don Giovanni and his final masterpiece, The Magic Flute, composed in December of 1791 about the time Mozart died. Kudos to the great scenery of what is supposed to be Vienna (though it was shot in Prague) and the authentic costumes as well as good performances by all the cast. The featured opera singers were exceptionally talented at the time and some are still singing today- Samuel Ramey in Figaro and June Anderson as The Queen of the Night.

Get this film and surround yourself in the music of Mozart. Look also for the complete soundtrack available here in Amazon.com. The music featured in the film include Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20, Partita Serenade, Piano Concerto No. 22, the finale to the German Opera "Abduction From The Seraglio", finale to "Le Nozze Di Figaro" and The Queen Of the Night's Vengeance Aria from The Magic Flute. It's interesting to note that "Abduction From The Seraglio" and "Magic Flute" scenes are sung in English. It's a good way to get you into the German-sung versions. A great film with great music and great dramatic acting.

Rating:
Summary: The AMADEUS Directors Cut Wins
Review: Its well known to Mozart scholars that he was under-appreciated during his lifetime. Successful to a degree, yes, but still not recognized as the genius he truly was. Salieri, as depicted in this film does his best to gently move the spotlight away from Wolfgang BUT he also is shown to admire and revere Mozarts talent and music. It is known that historically, on his deathbed, Salieri "confessed" to killing Mozart. Perhaps in his ill mind, he felt he helped to crush the life from the young composer. In any case, this story, and indeed the new "Directors Cut" of this film is a masterpiece. If there are flaws, it does not show, nor would it overshadow the majesty and profound beauty of this film. This DVD transfer FINALLY has captured the incredible and delicate color I remember seeing in the theater in 1984. The previous VHS transfers and first DVD release looked brown and dull... this version looks clean, crisp and vibrant in color. The sound is wonderful and the new cut clarifies Constanza's determination to promote her husbands music and the lengths she was willing to go for it with Salieri, a point that was not as clear in the shorter version. As others have said, F. Murray Abraham's performance is amazing, mesmerizing, determined and flawless...... but let's not forget Tom Hulce.... he is also an actor who was brilliant in this difficult and demanding role as the fun-loving, drunken, loveable, spoiled but brilliant genius Mozart was. Bravo!!!

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as Theatrical release
Review: I have to agree with the review by ajofarc, this Director's cut is simply not as good as the Theatrical release that won all those Oscars and deserved critical acclaim. Most new scenes just add unnecessary length to the film, the nude scene is totally unnecessary and changes the tone of the film. The DVD picture quality over the previous flipper hasn't improved much, colour has been corrected but the image is still soft, lacking definition and is grainy. Sound quality is still relatively poor and has less bottom end than the previous release.
Warner, please do this great film justice and release a fully restored theatrical DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Better DVD presentation, but poorer film
Review: I recognized "Amadeus" as a masterpiece when I first saw it in its original theatrical release. When the film came to VHS, I bought it immediately. When I recently began building my DVD library, I was at first excited to see a full-featured widescreen version of the film.

The only drawback to this version is that the "restored footage" (a/k/a deleted scenes) adds nothing to the film; in fact, it slows the film's pace significantly, frankly insults the intelligence of the viewer by assuming we didn't "get it" from the originally presented scenes, and includes a (thankfully brief) gratuitous nude scene.

This is not the first time I have been disappointed in the "director's cut" DVD..."The Last of the Mohicans" was the same way. Chingachgook's final monologue in the original film gets extended far too long and loses all of its potency.

If the creators REALLY wanted to provide viewers with an optimal experience (and this goes for ALL DVDs released with the phrase "Director's Cut"), the ORIGINAL widescreen version of the film should be included on the DVD, along with the director's cut. Just as some DVDs include both the full-screen (yecchhh!) and widescreen versions, why not include an original widescreen with the director's cut?

Otherwise, the "director's cut" label ends up being just an homage to directorial ego.

Rating:
Summary: AMADE
Review: So far as I know, that was actually his name. 'Amadeus' seems to have originated from a letter in which he jokingly Latinised his first names, signing himself 'Wolfgangus Amadeus'.

He died aged 35, and I don't think that despite the copious contemporary material about him anyone really knows what he died of. If I followed this film rightly, it seems to come close to suggesting that he died of drink, or at least that that had a lot to do with it. Whatever -- this film is not a documentary or a scholarly biography but an imaginative reconstruction. It is told in flashbacks by the dying Salieri, official court composer but jealous of his divinely-gifted young rival. There has long been a suspicion that Salieri had some hand in Mozart's early death, and there is even an opera by Rimsky-Korsakov, which alas I do not know despite being a considerable enthusiast for that composer, that has that suspicion as its theme. I have no view of my own regarding the real facts of the matter, because such scholarship as I have read on the subject has been of the worst kind, attempting to settle issues by criticism of the moral attributes and attitudes, real or supposed, of other scholars. I should just take this film's version of the story as creative licence, based on incomplete and uncertain information much as Hamlet is on the historical story of Amled.

The main character is not Mozart himself but Salieri, played, in an imaginative piece of casting, by a Broadway and Shaftesbury Avenue actor F Murray Abraham. He is more or less beyond criticism, which is more likely to focus on the part of Mozart as done by Tom Hulce. Mozart is depicted as a crude little vulgarian with an excruciatingly awful laugh. He is shown as dominated by a possessive father, Leopold, hostile and bullying towards Mozart's wife Constanze. One of the most memorable vignettes in the film comes at a point where these two are at each other's throats and Mozart himself walks slowly out of the room looking as if he has seen a ghost -- the divine inspiration is suddenly on him.

The story of this film does not point any moral, to my great relief. I was brought up on a great deal of sentimental gush about the supposely unspeakable tragedy of a great composer buried in a communal grave -- as if that would have mattered to him by then. One would expect better than such suburbanity from Forman, and in its way this seems to me a really first class piece of imaginative entertainment, helped of course in no small way by some -- shall we say -- rather above-average music. The main setting, in Prague, does not hurt either. One thing we do know about Mozart was that he greatly preferred Prague to Vienna, and who, I wonder, wouldn't? I would not want to give Amadeus anything less than a five-star rating for what it is, while not for one moment trying to suggest that what it is is anything remotely of the class of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest from the same Director.

Rating:
Summary: TO WOLFIE ON HIS 248th BIRTHDAY
Review: Mozart would be 248 today if he were alive. But then he is, isn't he? His music and story are as alive and vibrant today as ever they were ringing through the streets and royal courts of eighteenth century Vienna. And AMADEUS is as appealing today as it was in 1984.

First, I should make it very clear that this review and its attendant five stars are really for and about the original release of the 1984 classic on DVD. I found that offering to be, in my opinion, exactly what the movie should have been, being the same version that was loved and enjoyed by viewers everywhere and the one that took home the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The new Director's Cut does little to add to the original story and adds footage that is not only unnecessary but brings along with it an R rating. We all know that Mozart was a vulgar man but his music was not, as noted so eloquently in the film. No need to add footage here that detracts from the sublime in favor of the sordid. Stick with the original 1984 theatrical release.

AMADEUS is a magical film, choreographing scene set-ups and actor movements perfectly with Mozart's immortal music. It is the only movie of which I am aware where the director staged the soundtrack first and then built the movie around it. But considering Mozart's music it isn't hard to see why.

It's all there: the silly, musical genius and the scheming mediocrity, Antonio Salieri, who is bent on doing anything to supplant Mozart in the court of Joseph II as well as in the eyes of a seemingly unfair God.

Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham are marvelous. It's sad that they could not have been named as co-winners of the Best Actor Oscar that went to Abraham.

Douglas McAllister

Rating:
Summary: Zowie!
Review: Over the top in every way, but it works. This multi-Oscar-winning film dramatizes the rivalry between Salieri, the official royal composer for Austrian Emperor Joseph II, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the child prodigy. Tom Hulce plays Mozart, whose probably affliction with Touret's Syndrome may have been responsible for his wild and uncontrollable brattiness. Poor Salieri: he loathes Mozart, is wickedly jealous of him, but can't help but admire his genius and virtuosity - and is ultimately driven mad by the conflict within himself. The music is sublime, the sets lavish, costuming is incredible - acting wonderful, of course.
A pomp and circumstance of a film that manages to put a very human face on these famous and infamous personalities.

Rating:
Summary: Mozart- Child prodigy, Brilliant as a man
Review: F. Murray Abraham is Antonio Salleri, an Italian composer who is envious of Mozart's talent & music, tells his death bed confession on how he killed Mozart. Brilliant score! Astounding acting!

Rating:
Summary: A Mozart film that's not about Mozart
Review: This is not a straight biography. Mozart's vulgarity and financial difficulties are exaggerated. Haydn never appears. Salieri was a better composer than "Amadeus" suggests (he enjoyed a revival during the 1990s). "Don Giovanni" ran more than five performances, and was not a flop -- and anyway, five performances were a success in an era when the longest running play of all time was the "The Beggar's Opera," with its epic 29 performances.

There are other nits to pick, but they miss the point. Mozart is the title character, but he's not the main character; in fact, he's a Deus Ex Machina for the story of court composer Antonio Salieri's struggle with God. Having sacrificed everything -- country, leisure time and sex -- for music to glorify his Lord, Salieri is wounded to see a young, unhinged genius surpassing all competitors and barely breaking a sweat doing so. Like a spurned lover, he questions God's justice, and determines to rob the deity of his voice on Earth. The film explores the consequences of Salieri's actions -- for himself, for Mozart and for the muse they both served.

This is an ambitious idea that could have easily descended into a simple revenge plot, but all involved keep their eyes on the higher drama. F. Murray Abraham, given the role of his life, captures Salieri's agony beautifully. He's jealous of, and repulsed by, Mozart the man, but is completely in love with the music, and you can see both feelings written on his face as he attends Mozart's operas. Tom Hulce as Mozart is a good counterpoint: He effectively creates a crude Mozart, an intentionally ahistorical representation.

Forman's directing is excellent, and he deserved his best director Oscar. It's a shame, though, that the added scenes in this director's cut intensify the focus on Mozart, which seem to reflect his subsequent films' glorification of outsiders than the artistic choices for this particular masterpiece. In "Amadeus," where Mozart is a supporting character, his gradual alienation from the world serves the main plot beautifully. It also works in "The People Vs. Larry Flynt," despite Forman's efforts to glorify the title character, because Flynt becomes the catalyst for a thoughtful meditation on free speech. But when Forman celebrates eccentrics for the sake of being eccentric -- think "Man on the Moon" -- his films become little more than litanies of deeds, without an explanation of their importance or attempt to connect them to a larger theme.

It's strange to say that the director's cut adds too many scenes with Mozart. But the extra footage gives us too much of the composer's relationship with Vienna, showing his rejection by court society and undermining Salieri's obsession (if Mozart is so unsuccessful, why is Salieri trying to destroy him?). And it distracts us from the fact that "Amadeus" is not about Amadeus. It's about his rival. Mozart's music gives the film beauty; Salieri's agony gives it power. In the end, Salieri matters more.

Rating:
Summary: Musical Genius Versus Musical Mediocrity
Review: =====>

This 160 minute movie (best picture Oscar winner in 1984) chronicles the last ten years of the Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), played by Tom Hulce (who was nominated for an Oscar for this role).

This movie's entire story revolves around the conjectured intense jealous relationship between the mediocre composer Antonio Salieri (1750-1825), played by F. Murray Abraham (who won an Oscar for this role) and the genius composer Mozart. It is theorized that this jealously led Salieri to murder Mozart. (In reality, this is one theory of many as to why Mozart died so young.)

Other relationships to watch are those between Mozart and his wife, Constanze (Elizabeth Berridge); between Mozart and his father, Leopold (Roy Dotrice); and finally between Mozart and Emperor Joseph ll (Jeffery Jones).

What's amazing about this movie is its accuracy (which is surprising for a movie usually takes many "artistic liberties"). Here are some examples. Mozart was a child prodigy. He did suffer financial difficulties after he was dismissed from his paid employment with the Archbishop of Salzburg and moved to Vienna. Mozart married Constanze Weber in Vienna. His father did have a disastrous visit to his newlywed son's home. Mozart made the bulk of his income in Vienna by giving concerts and working freelance. He did delight in dancing, billiards, and crude jokes.

The character most interesting in this movie is Salieri which Abraham portrays with great skill. Salieri is aware of Mozart's musical genius (despite other people who do not understand Mozart's music since they claim it has "too many notes" and it makes "too many demands on the Royal ear"). Thus Salieri becomes very jealous of Mozart's genius but Mozart is unaware of this and even regards Salieri as a friend.

Salieri is portrayed as a person who believes in God. The irony here is that Mozart's middle Latin name of Amadeus means "he who loves God." So Salieri eventually sees God as mocking him through Mozart. This causes Salieri to renounce his belief in God since God did not bless him with the same musical genius as Mozart.

Mozart admits that he is a "vulgar man but his music is not." Hulce as Mozart does a good job portraying this vulgarity. History tells us that Mozart had an odd laugh and Hulce does a great job recreating this laugh throughout the movie.

What's really enjoyable about this movie is Mozart's music. Music flowed from Mozart unceasingly and the movie shows this well. This movie gives a good representative sample of his more than 600 musical compositions especially his opera, piano (his favorite instrument), and symphonic (he wrote more than forty symphonies) music.

Mozart's music is not just used as background music in the movie but is an essential ingredient that adds to each scene. For example, when Mozart dies, his uncompleted choral piece, the Requiem (which he was commissioned to write) is used to heighten the dramatic and emotional impact of his funeral. It's almost as if he intentionally wrote the Requiem for his own death.

Finally, this movie is visually stunning especially with respect to the interior of theatres. I especially remember the large chandeliers. All rooms in homes and palaces seem to be filled with authentic period artifacts (such as paintings and antique furniture).

In conclusion, don't miss this movie!! It gives you a chance to experience the life of a musical genius through the eyes of a mediocre composer who described the music of this genius as the "Voice of God."

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