Amadeus

Amadeus is a must for any music lover, any film lover, or anyone who reveres excellence.

Arguably the best motion picture ever made about the process of creation and the creator.

One of the finest qualities of Amadeus is that it reminds us of those rare occasions when an Oscar sweep is actually merited.

Loaded with pleasures, the greatest of which derive from the on location filming in Prague, the most 18th century of all European cities.

Except for the Mozart music and Tharp movements around the edges, Amadeus plays like a monument to mediocrity. The movie belongs to Salieri.

There is enough enchantment in this big, generous, flawed movie for most everybody. [24 Sep 1984, p.85]

This movie Mozart seems little more than a wild and crazy music-maker, whose biggest problem was that his compositions had "too many notes." And that, as Forman's Mozart might say, ain't much. [20 Sep 1984, p.C1]

The unseen story of composer in words of his rival, Antonio Saliera, who describes him as egotistical, immature and maniac. Hard to watch it without being compelled by the score and the opera plays, and the performances.

This movie looks gorgeous, the acting is great and the set pieces are amazing. But after watching it I felt something was wrong. The central conceit of the movie - that Mozart was an enemy of Salieri is just not true and not borne out by historical record at all. They had their differences but ultimately Salieri was a fan of Mozart and actually promoted his work. I understand that they were not aiming to make a documentary and I understand that artistic license is often necessary to create drama, but when your whole central thesis is based on a lie then it starts to fall apart. I felt cheated. The filmmakers created this fake drama that didn't exist in real life at all. If you wanted to create a drama about a story like this go for it. But to create a representation of Mozart that is nothing like the man is fraudulent and does a massive disservice to him and it feels like the drama was shoehorned in just to make a story more conflict laden. Why? To sell more tickets?

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I was quite keen to watch this film but the over top and ridiculous American accent of Tom Hulce detracted from what could have otherwise been an enjoyable historical drama. Does it not matter what country the movie is set it? I'm sick of hearing **** American regardless of the setting.