Amadeus
There are certainly those who might contend that one of the most risky ventures in cinematic history was to go ahead in 1984 (at arguably the height of the MTV rock music video era) and produce a lavish 3 hour biopic about the life of one of the greatest CLASSICAL composers to ever live and see if it would indeed fly. But with Milos Forman at the helm as director, the winning conceit would become portraying that same composer as being akin to that of being a rock star in his own era of the 1700s, along with all of the fame and glory that came along with it (admittedly not a new idea even then). Forman also made the fateful decision to have all the actors (including the Americans) use their own voices and accents to portray the characters (who really would have been Austrian based and spoken in German at the time) and also to employ an irrelevant, almost casual style of performing that successfully let the air out of almost any real basis of pretentiousness with the proceedings while also still maintaining a deep sense of quality drama within the story itself. The composer in question, of course, was the masterful Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the main gist of the story depicts his relationship with fellow composer and contemporary Antonio Salieri, and as played by Tom Hulce (whose casting many believed was based off his role in Animal House given the nuttier aspects of his performance here) and F. Murray Abraham, itâs really difficult to ascertain which of these two really gives the better performance as while Abraham did win the Best Actor Oscar here (one of 8 Oscars that the movie received) and has since always been thought of as having given one of the most formidable turns in history as Salieri, one cannot underrate the acting work of Hulce as well (also nominated for Best Actor head to head with Abraham) in playing Mozart himself, portraying that of a sad and tragic, yet crazed and brilliant musical superstar of his time but who yet had trouble keeping up with such mundane day to day concerns like paying bills and minding his finances. The story (and dramatic conflict) is based off a supposed real life confession by Salieri at the end of his life when he was confined to an insane asylum where he stated that many years before he had actually âkilledâ Mozart when really the legendary musical genius was said to have died at age 35 from natural causes brought on by both excessive drinking and depression, but whether Salieri was really sincere in this regard or was just a sad raving lunatic by this time is completely up for debate even as this âconfessionâ to a young priest provides the wraparound framework for the movie itself to be told in flashback. Of course many music historians have been known to dismiss the notion presented here that Salieri supposedly âhatedâ Mozart with a passion along with the idea that Salieri himself was really just a âmediocreâ composer in his own right, when in actuality history has shown him from his work to have been a good but not great composer who had the misfortune of living in the same spectrum of time and space as that of one of the all time greats of music, classical or otherwise and thus became completely overshadowed as were his other contempories of that era, with it also being pointed out that in later years Salieri would become a musical mentor to such future notables as Beethovan, Franz Liszt, and even Mozartâs own son and as such he and Mozart were believed to have had a respectful friendship with each other with little to no known actual animosity, albeit as even though Mozart was the unparalleled genius Salieri was actually much, much better at playing the social politics game than he was, moving in amongst circles of high society and royal aristocracy so well that he had been appointed court composer for the Emperor Of Austria (played very well in the movie by Jeffrey Jones). While Salieri lived in a comfortable state of wealth and dĂ©cor while composing exactly what his Emperor wanted him to, Mozart found himself being constantly in debt due to his lack of economic common sense and worse, was always fighting with those who wished to censor his material in order to make it more palatable for public consumption. In this perspective, it makes it seem almost touching in the way that Hulceâs Mozart (who has no idea about Salieriâs jealous feelings towards him) comes to view Salieri as being a trusted friend and confidante whom he can pour out his feelings to since he sees him as being both a colleague and a fellow artist and not as a superior while Abrahamâs Salieri dazzles with his duel sided feelings in return, hating Mozart for his obnoxious personality and what he views as undeserved talent (that he as a fellow musician can appreciate more than anybody) but yet still having such an unbridled love for Mozartâs actual work that it wouldnât be out of line to consider him as being his number one fan. But it becomes obvious that it is within the inner workings of the Salieri character along with the religious repressions that he has imposed on himself where the real sources of his problems lie with Mozart being but a mere innocent victim in all of this and thus a convenient target for his venom as apparently itâs explained early on that Salieri had made a vow with God to practice sexual chastity in exchange for all of the acclaim that only the worldâs greatest composer could receive, only to have the loony, sexually unhibited Mozart steal all of his thunder which leads him to believe that destroying Mozart would constitute his revenge on God for not delivering on the conditions of that vow of self imposed sexual repression which also disturbingly implies that Salieri possibly helping himself to some of the very available women in his own social circles might just have softened his views a bit. Besides the magnificent work done here by Hulce and Abraham, the other notable performance comes from Elizabeth Berridge as Mozartâs sweet and forlorn wife, someone who is just as irresponsible as he is but alas is only too fully aware of it, leading to her agreeing to accept an anonymous gift of a fully paid for live in maid (in actuality a spy for Salieri) and even worse going to Salieri himself to persuade him to help her husband only for Salieri to convince her to offer herself sexually to him before he abruptly remembers his vows and changes his mind even after she had already agreed to go through with it. And it is with that mindset that Salieri does all the little things behind closed doors to try and destroy Mozart once and for all, from limiting the initial performance runs of his operas to spreading the word that Mozart is a lecher that enjoys molesting his female students so that nobody will hire him to teach piano lessons in Vienna which in turn cuts off his main source of income all while always telling Mozart himself in private just how much he loves and appreciates his work more than anybody else he knows and upon learning of the death of Mozartâs imposing father (Roy Dotrice) and seeing the visible effect that it has on him, dressing himself up as a ghostly wraith (easily the biggest gamble that the story takes which doesnât quite work all that well) to commission a so called âDeath Massâ composition which he somehow seems to know will drain the remaining life out of him (with Mozart already suffering from massive alcoholism and obvious lack of sleep) and ultimately achieve his final âvictoryâ, which in his eyes is not over Mozart necessarily, but rather over God Himself for âbetrayingâ him by denying him his true reward of reaching the status of being a great composer in his own right, with the real tragic irony being that Mozart had just started composing shows exclusively for a more lower class venue that could have in the end proven to be both a more comfortable niche environment for him AND a financial salvation. So besides being a great story based on actual events, we also get another parable on the dangers of repression and how it can destroy our own character no matter what kind of justification we try to give it and also how one of the most truly towering creative minds of all time could still wind up being victimized by the social and political class warfare that has poisoned and corrupted almost every so called civilized society that has ever existed since Time ImmortalâŠ
9/10