There's little subtlety in the actor's filthy take on the genius composer, though that's not the mark of an undisciplined performance. Tom Hulce's Mozart is less impressive than Abraham's Oscar-winning work but he's just as specific and delightful when playing this larger-than-life character. If Salieri's compositions pale in comparison to Mozart's, it's because most works of music can't hold a candle to that man's once-in-a-generation talent. Such ill descriptions come from the man's vision of himself, not from the filmmaker's conspicuous efforts. What's perhaps most interesting is that Amadeus doesn't go out of its way to defame Salieri as the mediocre artist he proclaims himself to be. Watching the two men communicate through music is one of the movie's greatest marvels. The actor punctuates this with some amazing details like the epicurean Nirvana the man feels whenever he tastes a sweet treat or his passionate response to Mozart's creations. Abraham portrays this sorry creature through a meticulous strategy of filigreed gesture and mellifluous oratory. We witness as his spirit is rotted by curdled envy, the forsaking of a cruel God. He's a man drowning in ambition and reflective hatred, imposter syndrome made flesh.
A shattered kaleidoscope of unconvincing lies, smugness, and Machiavellian intent, this Salieri is the self-proclaimed patron saint of all mediocre people, a master of intransigence, a monster of self-flagellation. Murray Abraham's Salieri is among the best depictions of a dissatisfied artist in American cinema. You can get away with that when the execution is this pristine, when the characterizations are this juicy. The real-life figures are meat puppets that confer a sense of dramatic weight to what is, in essence, the character study of a psychologically complex personality. Going back to another artistic titan from past centuries, the attitude Amadeus demonstrates towards history is much of the same displayed by Shakespeare when writing about English monarchy. It's entertainment for the masses that isn't ashamed of that status. Like Mozart's operas, Amadeus is popular art, not a school lesson.
Forman, Shaffer, and Zaentz aren't trying to dramatize history nor are they pretending to do so as many other prestige filmmakers would. Such rivalry is utterly fictional by all historical records, but that's irrelevant when discussing Amadeus. A composer colleague of the Austrian genius, he was also his bitter rival who conspired to bring him to premature death. Rather than being the story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's last decade, this is a confession made from the recollections of Antonio Salieri. In any case, Daniel Walber already went in-depth into the paper opulence of Svoboda's 18th-century stagings, so we should focus on other matters. The Czech artist conceived the numerous stage shows we see throughout the movie, from Mozart's ebullient operas to Salieri's sepulchral piece of Baroque drama to a carnivalesque parody of all the above. So much so that this is one of the few film credits of legendary stage director Josef Svoboda. Peter Shaffer did the job of adapting his 1979 play and the result is a robust re-imagining of the text, seamlessly translated to the screen without denying its ties to theatrical traditional. Nevertheless, I find myself besotted by Milos Forman's 1984 Best Picture winner, its meditations on mediocrity and spiritual discontentment, its celebration of opera, the lushness of its emotions. With a theatrical cut running for nearly three hours, the movie's a behemoth of excess in a decade when the Academy was prone to shower such things with undeserved accolades. It's a musician's biopic, probably my least favorite of prestige subgenres, whose take on history is closer to feverish invention than thoughtful analysis.
#MOVIE AMADEUS MOVIE#
On paper, the movie may sound like the most airless and insufferable of Oscar champions. To celebrate the recent centennial of sound mixer turned movie producer Saul Zaentz, I decided to revisit my favorite of his projects, the glorious marvel that is Amadeus (the second of his three Best Picture winners).