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The incredible story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, told in flashback mode by Antonio Salieri - now confined to an insane asylum.
F. Murray Abraham: Antonio Salieri
Tom Hulce: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Amadeus(1984) is a masterpiece of music and a haunting tragic story of Mozart with a complex duality to his character.
Simply beautiful, musical and a genius study of two men. One hell bent on destroying the other in a haze of jealousy.
F. Murray Abraham as Antonio Salieri is fascinating as the man who idolizes Mozart, who burns with jealousy at him, at a talent and creativity he can never possess or muster. We first see him in his old age in a squalid state of madness and memory, in the confines of an asylum.
His pain is wonderfully conveyed, there's a blur between who you feel for, the jealousy burning in his eyes, I love it!
He refers to Mozart as a creature, a plague upon the world and his life, a misery with his talent he inflicts, his talent that should of been Antonio Salieris, but is denied by the obnoxious yet inspirational faceted Mozart.
Antonio Salieri is the mirror reflection of Mozart twisted in the shadows, unlike Mozart's crazy unpractical way Antonio is humble, craving the very thing Mozart possesses, what he takes for granted and uses for his own benefit.
He admires him from afar and later helps him to write when he falls ill. Them writing a masterpiece is a wonder to behold.
Father Vogler: Oh, that's charming! I'm sorry, I didn't know you wrote that.
Salieri: I didn't. That was Mozart.
Tom Hulce as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a wonder to behold, a genius in music but his character, his laugh, his mannerisms are a vast contrast to his intellectual artistic musical vision. He has controversial ideas that he successfully executes much to the disgust of Antonio Salieri.
Arrogant, childish and very rash in his way, which wasn't my image of Mozart yet shows a talent for musical genius isn't everything.
Tom Hulce I've seen in other films before but this is the best ever performance I've seen him achieve yet.
It is not clear if Salieri the anti-God actually killed Mozart or if it was the natural order of things, but Salieri gets his comeuppance, his own Confutatis maledictis that is helped along by the more savvy Constanze, who knows what sort of man Salieri really is. The scene where Salieri and Mozart hammer out the Mass is one of the most exciting scenes of cinema in the 1980s -- with one man sitting at a desk and the other lying in a bed!
In real life, Antonio Salieri was an accomplished musician, many of whose works remain in print. His stuff fell out of favor -- but Vivaldi predated Mozart and Salieri, and his music was barely heard after his death until the 20th century! Musical tastes change with the times; How many discotheques are open in the 21st century? Not as many as in the 1970s, I warrant. There are ample implications in the historical record that Salieri and Mozart got along quite well. So the story inside the beautiful decor is a libelous fiction -- in fact, it's a lot of spin and inventive storytelling. But when have novels or films cared for historical fact over a cracking good story? And it's probably more correct to call it a parable.
Mozart and Salieri aren't really meant to be embodiments of their real-life counterparts. Salieri is an archetype.
All the performances are wonderful, especially in the Emperor's court. Charles Kay is superb, Jonathan Moore is the epitome of sincerity, and Jeffrey Jones expresses more by his extreme underplaying than many more notable actors do in several movies of bluster. Sometimes you wonder if someone ought to take Jones' pulse, but you're always aware of what the Emperor is thinking.
The costumes perfect, the beautiful ornate locations shown in all their splendor, all effortlessly combined in a dazzling array of bewitchment and enlightenment.
We the audience begin to formulate what will happen and how plotting from madness and hatred begins to surface. When the souls of the music leap forth from the pages, when genius turns to betrayal and madness you know you have a masterpiece of grandeur and wonderment.
Amadeus is a legendary masterpiece of epic proportions.
10/10
