Rating: 
Summary: A Greek Tragedy
Review: This is one of the few films I would watch again and again. Like Shakespeare in Love, I could start the DVD at any point and be entranced.
The structure of the play is pure Aescheus(sp?); one actor's voice, (even Mozart is chorus), one enormous hubris (blocking God), and a simple twist to foil Salieri - Mozart's wife comes home.
Understand, this is a story, not history.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: This movie is honestly the best I have ever seen. I first saw the original version in my history class and I fell in love with it. Now it is unusual for a 15-year-old girl to go crazy over a historical drama, so you know it's not just any movie. The story is timeless. The elements that made it win Oscars (the costumes, makeup, location, and acting) is amazing! Tom Hulce was one of my favorite actors anyway, but he really shines as Mozart. F. Murray Abraham gives the performance of a lifetime. And the music ties it all together. It gave me a new respect for classical music and opera.
Rating: 
Summary: A Gem.
Review: It is hard not to love this movie. I give it an "almost 5," only because I can't help but compare it to "Immortal Beloved," a film that struck me as superior both in tone and subject matter. (I prefer Beethoven to Mozart, and also tend to favor Beethoven's brooding presence and inner demons. I also like Gary Oldman a great deal more than either F. Murray Abraham or Tom Hulce.)But make no mistake. This is a beautiful, rich film that centers on a personal conflict that ought to resonate in most of us--the conflicting admiration and jealously we often feel for those who are both better than us and so naturally gifted that excellence seems effortless to them. Salieri shows the worst of human nature in a perform that is both true and revealing. Hulce's Mozart is an audacious character, and whether it is true to Mozart's persona (a frightening thought, suggesting that silliness, arrogance, and genius go hand in hand) or not, is interesting and engaging. But Abraham is the star here. He is the heart of the movie. And if I had to point out one flaw, it is that the character of Mozart simply isn't sufficiently fleshed out. He ends up being a caricature in many respects, which is disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: I loved everything about this film
Review: This is one of those films that has everything, humor, drama, suspense, and of course, music. Tons of music. I think the acting in the movie would have made it enjoyable, even without as much music as it had. Of course, being that Mozart and his nemesis Salieri are the main characters, music could never be omitted. In the film, F. Murray Abraham portrays Salieri, court conductor and playwrite. A young prodigy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart comes along and steals his thunder with some of the most beautiful, and unusual music written to date. Salieri decides to torpedo Mozart and pretends to befriend him, all the while stabbing him in the back at every turn. The interraction between the two actors is fabulous. This is one of those films that I could watch repeatedly. If you decide to buy it, get the director's cut 2-Disc set. It wasn't available when I bought the movie. This standard version is pretty basic, with not much other than the movie on it. Because I'm a fan of extra features, I'll probably buy it as well.
Rating:
Summary: this is NOT the director's cut...
Review: I've been going to the movies for more than half a century, so I can state with absolute confidence that "Amadeus" is one of the _the_ all-time-great films. It's both wildly entertaining and abstractly "perfect" in a way that transcends verbal description. (The magnificent performances of Mozart's music by Sir Neville and The Academy don't hurt, either.) Is it any surprise that Pauline Kael -- the Antonio Salieri of film critics -- didn't like it? Even snot-nosed young-uns who couldn't be less interested in classical music have told me they were mesmerized by "Amadeus." (And it wasn't the fart scenes that caught them.) Why "Amadeus" wasn't one of the "100 Greatest Films" selected by People magazine is beyond my comprehension. I therefore need to warn viewers that this version IS NOT the director's cut -- the original theatrical version is! The supplemental material for the deluxe laserdisk included most of the scenes that were "restored" to this edition, with the director and producer explaining WHY they were REMOVED!!! The most significant is Salieri's forced seduction of Constanza, which changes the PG rating to an R, and both vulgarizes and makes hash of the story. We are supposed to feel _some_ sympathy for Salieri, a musical hack standing in awe of an infinitely more-talented human being who appears to be the recipient of a very selective divine dispensation -- most of us have experienced that feeling. His promise of help for Mozart in exchange for sex from Constanza destroys whatever sympathy we might have. And it directly contradicts his offer to God to remain chaste in exchange for musical ability. Still a terrific film, but down a (big) notch from five stars. Find the original if you can. Interesting note: The original version is, as far as I know, the only PG-rated film with frontal male nudity.
Rating:
Summary: All good classical fun
Review: Amadeus was one of those films that got way more Oscars than any movie deserves, but it still stands up as high-gloss entertainment. The main problem is and will forever be Peter Shaffer's conception of the story; nothing and nobody will ever persuade me that Antonio Salieri had murderous designs on W.A. Mozart. But that doesn't really matter. View it as a splendid evening's entertainment, and don't delve too deeply into the specious philosophising. Much of the brilliance was in the casting. F. Murray Abraham is perfect as Salieri. Saul Zaentz mischievously suggests, in the accompanying making-of documentary, that this is because Abraham is a bit of a Salieri himself - a hard-working, talented performer who has prevented himself from being really outstanding by his suspicion that he hasn't had enough breaks. Sounds about right to me. Abraham seethes with jealousy throughout, and when he's required to acknowledge Mozart's talent, then and only then does the mask drop and he becomes humble. Tom Hulce's high-energy, giggling Mozart is spot-on, in that Mozart displayed little of his own genius in his personal life. Elizabeth Berridge (as Stanzi) turns out to have been a late replacement for Meg Tilly, who tore a ligament playing football with some Prage street kids. It was a lucky accident. Berridge's enormous eyes, guileless American accent and disarming directness makes her a focus of the movie. Simon Callow, who was the original Mozart on stage, pops up in an early film role as librettist Emmanuel Schikaneder. The real focus is of course Mozart's music. One of the reasons why there are no real stars in the film is because the music is meant to be better than any of them. The Dolby 5.1 sounds fab, although extremely loud. But my personal favourite turn is Jeffrey Jones, showing early evidence of comic genius as the Emperor, a man just about intelligent enough to realise that he's the thickest person in the room, but so much more powerful than anyone else that this seldom bothers him. His recurring vocal tic of "Mmmm...hm", whenever anyone says anything that he disagrees with, is sublime. Real trivia fans watch out: the pasty-faced, red-nosed maidservant of the Mozarts, alternately spying on them for Salieri and sobbing that she doesn't want to work for them anymore, is a very young Cynthia Nixon of "Sex and the City" fame. It's a great night in. And the funny thing is, I don't even like Mozart's music.
Rating:
Summary: Buy the original theatrical release
Review: I love "Amadeus" and consider it one of the best movies of all time. However, the director's cut makes the movie feel too long without adding substantially to the story. Yes, it does "flesh out a couple of small subplots and shed new light on certain key scenes". But this clarity comes at a cost to the overall tempo and feel of the movie. I'm also one who believes that we don't need to know everything (think about the suitcase in "Pulp Fiction"). By giving just a hint rather than fleshing out the details, a filmmaker leaves room for the imagination of the viewer, which can make a film more satisfying in the end.
Rating:
Summary: Amadeus, Amadeus... Oh, Amadeus !
Review: I have to confess that I really, really don't like historical dramas. I usually find them overbearing and tedious. This may sound hypocrite coming from a guy who loves three-hour movies, but when there's nothing engaging in the material, 1.5 hours of dreck can be quite long. Amadeus is not such a movie. It is a historical drama done right. Despite its title, its main character is not Amadeus Mozart, but rather Salieri, contemporary composer and rival who has claimed to have murdered Mozart. The movie is not based on the real facts of the matter (we will probably never know, anyway), but on an interpretation of the facts. Amadeus is historically accurate, as far as it goes, even down to Mozart's annoying laugh, which was described by a contemporary as "metal scraping glass". Here, Salieri sees Mozart as God's incarnation on Earth - and since God has refused to give him the ultimate talent to sing his praises, and instead gave it to that vulgar iconoclast kid, he will do everything in his power, use all his wiles, to defeat and kill him. It is a story of religious delusion, yes, but clearly also about mediocrity. The mediocre always seek to enslave the successful, be it in politics (suffice it to see the success of social programs and socialization of vital institutions) or otherwise. Salieri suffers : he is good enough to know that Mozart is an absolute genius, but cannot be elevated to his level. For sure, the sets are sumptuous, and the acting right on the note. The accents are distracting, the acting can be slightly overbearing, and the music is overwhelming at times. But there is no point in overaccentuating those : this is a masterpiece, deserving of all the praises it got.
Rating:
Summary: Bravo!
Review: A very great movie from whatever point of view. A musical friend of mine denounced it saying the movie only depicted Mozart as a naughty boy. "Yes, but look", I said, "isn't it the truth?..." The use of viewpoint in this movie is a huge success: Mozart was seen from the eye of his jealous fellow royal-court composer who fell on his knees in front of Mozart's genius. But no matter how much respect he had for the works of Mozart's genius, and no matter how hard he himself strived, he remained a mediocrity and a laughing stock of Mozart. Ironically, it was this jealous colleague whom Mozart subsequently had to rely on for his bread and then in an ingenius way this secretive admirer of his sent him to his grave... The fate of Mozart was in fact doomed by his upbringing. His father indulged him on his musical training to the neglect of everything else. As a result Mozart's urge for music was so strong yet his ability to cope with the basics of life was so weak. In a way it was his father who put this genius to an abrupt death. The invisble hand of his father was so subtlely depicted. There he hurried to Vienna to his son on a mission to bring him back to the church, dressed in a dark cloak more like a vampire than a priest. And in the masquerade held in honour of him, the father put on the same cloak again. Later Mozart's jealous colleague deliberately wearing the same cloak knocking upon his door late at night commissioned him to write a "Requiem" of his own, pushing him further when he was already on the verge of death... Mozart's giggles were disturbing but they serve at least two purposes: as a symbol that (i) Mozart was a most spontaneous genius who couldn't withhold his emotions and thoughts and (ii) showing Mozart, in a way, was not well-bred enough. This also triggered the trap which befell him... Nevertheless, one wonders wherefrom Mozart got the uttmost sense of beauty and above all, the immense humanity as shown in his music? Perhaps that is too uninteresting to have it mentioned however briefly. That I suppose is what my friend was objecting to. Yes, the movie is long but one could easily finish it in one breath and it can keep you tight in your seat and you will hardly notice that 160 minutes had passed since. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: "im a vulgar man, but i promise you, my music is not."
Review: the best musical ever. the funniest movie ever. the craziest movie ever. the most moving movie ever. this is amadeus.
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