 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
|
|
|
 email this review to a friend
You do not have to be a film student, opera fan, history enthusiast, and/or music lover to find Amadeus (1984) to be a beautifully entertaining and extremely fine film. From the same director who brought us movies like Ragtime (1981), Valmont (1989), and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Milos Forman achieves his best film to date with Amadeus (1984), a movie that is truly a timeless masterpiece. The movie opens as a flashback and is told as a story by the then elderly Antonio Salieri (1750 – 1825) who is an 18 – 19th century Italian composer hospitalized following a suicide attempt. In the asylum, a young Priest (Herman Meckler) comes to visit Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham). Salieri confesses his memoirs to the Priest while discussing those events that brought him to the verge of this suicide attempt, specifically, his deep jealousy, black envy, and lasting hatred for Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart (Tom Hulce). Although he tells the Priest the life story of Mozart, the movie is more about Salieri and his struggles with God. Through Salieri's eyes, God rewards him by taking his father so he may pursue his passion for music. However, Salieri is now confused. He loves and loathes Mozart at the same time and has difficulty understanding why God would bless such wonderful talent on such a vulgar man like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791) while granting him, a devoted God-fearing man, so little. I did find the scene quite amusing when Salieri tries to obtain some form of validation by performing a few notes of his own music for the Priest, but he only succeeds at getting the Priest's attention when he starts playing Mozart's famous Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. The grand epic quality of this film is clearly recognized by the fact that it monopolized the 1984 Academy Awards with eleven nominations and eight Oscar wins (Best Picture, Best Director (Milos Forman), Best Actor (F. Murray Abraham), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costume Design, Best Art Direction, Best Makeup, and Best Sound). The acting among the cast is powerful and wonderful. F. Murray Abraham is deserving of his Oscar performance as Salieri. Tom Hulce portrays Mozart to perfection as the manic-depressive genius with a promiscuous nature and a poor understanding for the lesser talents of other composers, yet at the same time he makes you care about his many trials. Elizabeth Berridge is believably coquettish and lower-class as Constance Mozart; Jeffrey Jones provides much of the comedy as Emperor Joseph II who is cheerfully opaque; and there is a wonderful pack of other characters lurking in the shadows who all seem to get their turn at dancing in the spotlight. The biggest star of this movie, however, is the glorious and beautiful music of Mozart. Although some may think that this movie unfairly maligned Salieri, I think this film ironically made him almost as much of a household name as Mozart. In fact, I would hypothesize that from this movie many will walk away with at least a curiosity to hear the music of Salieri. The movie portrays Salieri driven to despair as his music grows fainter and Mozart's popularity soars by the musical genius flowing from Mozart's mind. While Salieri is depicted as a bitterly jealous old man who professes to be the champion of mediocrity, it should be noted that he made very worthy contributions to 19th century classical music. In fact, he was frequently associated with celebrated composers like Joseph Haydn or Louis Spohr and personally instructed famous composers like Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Franz Liszt, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Franz Schubert, and even Mozart's younger son, Franz Xaver Wolfgang. Salieri's suicide attempt took place in 1823, very soon after his pupil Franz Liszt left for a musical tour of Europe. Even if this movie minimizes the musical contributions of Salieri and betrays several glitches in historical facts, this is still a very moving and entertaining examination of the destructive nature of jealousy in a story that resonates with power, passion and wonderful music. I strongly recommend "The Directors Cut" because it adds several minutes of previously deleted scenes and returns these clips to where they were originally intended. I find this version enhances the story overall and fills in some details that were left vague in the original theatrical release. I will not give away any details, but there is a new scene early in the movie between Constanza Mozart and Salieri that embosses a new perspective of Salieri's twisted and battered psyche. Although it is sad that she is yet to play in another film of this quality, this scene allows you better appreciate the acting abilities of Elizabeth Berridge. The image quality and colors are also superior to the original theatrical version resulting in much more natural flesh tones and sharper visual images as well. email this review to a friend
Comment on this Review:
 Subscribe to MatchFlick Movie Reviews through RSS |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
RSS | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | About MatchFlick® | Press | Contact Us | FAQs
Partnership and Advertising Opportunities | Movie Database | Merchandise ©2004-2008 MatchFlick®. All rights reserved. ©MOVIE IMAGES ARE COPYRIGHT PROTECTED AND THE PROPERTY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS |