Amadeus

Amadeus follows loosely the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but despite the title the movie is really about Antonio Salieri. Salieri's viewpoint, motivations, and story are really the focus, and are interestingly entwined with the life of the famous composer.

The movie starts at the end, where we see Salieri attempt suicide and watch as he is carried to the insane asylum. There he meets with a young priest who has come to take his confession. Salieri's complicated life is shown in flashbacks, with the older Salieri providing insight in his feelings and motivations. This is a great technique for this particular story because his motivations about serving God and giving of his life and talents are much more historical accurate to the time period of the film than they are to 1984.

Salieri has been anxious to meet Mozart, whose music and talent he has admired from afar. When he meets the young Wolfgang, he is amazed and unhappy at the foolish, small-minded young man. Thus begins a mostly one-sided rivalry. Tom Hulce does an amazing job with the character of Mozart, but the acting by F. Murray Abraham (Antonio Salieri) was the highlight for me. Scenes which showed the younger Salieri showed a composed, serious, and dignified man. When the older Salieri was shown, the changes to his character were obvious. Here he was beyond caring for appearances, and had lost his great composure and restraint. It was almost difficult at first to relate the younger man with the transformed end-of-life man, which is an amazing feat for an actor.

His dramatic change from religious man to enemy of God (and of Mozart) is moving. When he discovers that Mozart has had an affair with a woman he has admired from afar, he speaks the following to a crucifix: "From now on we are enemies, You and I. Because You choose for Your instrument a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy and give me for reward only the ability to recognize the incarnation. Because You are unjust, unfair, unkind, I will block You, I swear it. I will hinder and harm Your creature on earth as far as I am able." This marks his transformation in motivation and character that propels the rest of the movie.

Set design and mise en scene are incredibly well done. The time period was portrayed well through costume, and in the interactions between the characters. The deference to royalty was evident, and other elements of life in the 1790s were interesting to see. The actual burial of Mozart is historically unclear, but the representation of it in the movie was certainly historically accurate for many burials of the time.

Amadeus is long, (nearly three hours) but worth the time.