Amadeus (movie)

First of all, I'm not a native English speaker so I would like to apologize beforehand for the grammatical mistakes. I've always loved Mozart and when I was 11, I decided to watch this movie to see the genius mind behind his sublime music. Ooh boy. Of course the movie is highly inaccurate and the characterization of Mozart and Salieri, while being literarily masterful, is quite exaggerated; because it was not based on real events but Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus instead, which was inspired by Pushkin's play Mozart and Salieri. That being said, I loved Mozart even more and the magical 18th century Vienna sucked me in instantly.

However, even though I still love Mozart, I finally get to understand this movie and its theme much better after watching it a few years later. The movie actually was about a man's fight against God. After God lets the devoted and hard-working, well-behaved Antonio Salieri have the chance to be the court composer, the highest position any composer would yearn for, He finally mocks him choosing the obscene, lustful "creature" Mozart as His instrument, and giving him an insane talent and brilliance as a gift.

"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 as far as I am able. I will ruin Your incarnation."

There are only few things that's worse than a man realizing the mediocrity and pointlessness within his existence and loathing God for it, slowly causing his own fall towards the pit of insanity, darkness and terror. I have never seen a more brutal portrayal of jealousy, defeat, loathing, lust and revolt against God in any movie.

Fantastic performances from F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce. Fantastic directing by Miloš Forman (R.I.P.). This fantastic masterpiece of a film deserves every single Oscar it won.

Father Vogler: It makes no difference. All men are equal in God's eyes.

Antonio Salieri: [leans in mockingly] Are they?

I especially recommend this movie if you've never seen it before. It's an all-time favorite of mine. 8.3 IMDB, 95% Rotten Tomatoes, 93% Metacritic. Directed by Milos Forman, starring Tom Hulce as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and F. Murray Abraham as Antonio Salieri (both were nominated for Best Actor that year for this movie). The movie was nominated for 11 Oscars total, of which it won 8.

It doesn't matter if you don't like or don't listen to classical music. The movie isn't about classical music. In fact, it's not even really about Mozart.

Priest: "All men are equal in God's eyes."

Salieri: "Are they?"

Yeah, I'm sure it has a killer soundtrack and all, but dude, other than that it was purely amazing. I wanted to watch some 3-hour movie during quarantine and I found Amadeus from IMDb's Top 250, I gave myself a chance if it's anything good for me. I've seen music movies like Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star Is Born and Rocketman which were more about musicals that I quite enjoyed, but I felt Amadeus is all about only music, a musical instruments.. and I surprisingly enjoyed it.

F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce were both EXCELLENT actors, and I'm sure Hulce would have won if he was in the best Supporting Actor category. I admire his performance how he acts awkward and nervous. And Abraham absolutely deserved the win. The casting is also great too.

I've seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and I enjoyed it, as I love movies about mental illness, I think Amadeus is far superior and perhaps Milos Forman's best work IMO.

The screenplay is really great! I watched the director's cut that it takes 3 hours and honestly it didn't feel that really long. The story is pretty interesting to follow and the characters are each very well developed honestly.

Watching any films set in the 18th century isn't my cup of the tea (even + it's about music), so I thought Amadeus would bore me, but no, I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. The costumes, sets and cinematography.. are honestly all stunning.

About the ending, I wasn't aware he ended up being in the sanatorium until the end. I was like "What's going on?" in the opening scene when we see the priest entering which it made surprising and unexpected ending for me. I think that's probably a good thing I didn't see it coming lol.

A brilliant and emotional movie!

I'll tell you the Oscar speeches I don't like, and those are ones that tend to go over, like WAYYYY over the allotted time, and the winner is reading from like three pages of names. It means things to the winner and to all the people on that list but as a viewer, it's boring.

Speeches that are heartfelt are ones I like the most. Ones that have a sense of humor, humility, and also some creativity.

And sometimes a speech is just real short and sweet and I just can't help smiling when I hear it again and again.

Here's one:

Just sharing my thoughts

I watched Amadeus again for the first time in a long while. It is such a well written, well paced film. Full of emotion ranging from silly comedy to deep sadness. F. Murray Abraham won the Golden Globe and Oscar for his performance. The scenes of him as an old man in the mental hospital telling his story to the priest are just masterful. Tom Hulce seems a strange choice as Mozart at first but he is perfect for the role of the genius manchild. The story of Salieri and Mozart told in Amadeus is not entirely accurate but as a compelling human story of jealousy, religious doubt and of course the beauty of Mozarts music it succeeds on every level. The director, Milos Forman was an old school filmmaker in the best way. He also directed the musical "Hair" which is wonderful as well, not to mention "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest".

I think both characters - Salieri & Mozart were fantastic because F. Murray Abraham & Tom Hulce's performances were A++++ level. So other than the usual behind-the-scenes Oscar campaigning which got F. Murray the win, who would YOU objectively find a tie-breaker if you granting the award now?

Do you look at acting range within a few scenes, or overall consistency of the performance? Does it boil down to which actor broke your heart just a bit more?

I think F. Murray won it with the scene where he's looking at Mozart's manuscripts and describing the music:

There is a superb scene near the end of the first act when Salieri studies a batch of Mozart's original manuscripts, which, to his horror, look ''like fair copies,'' containing no corrections of any kind. ''It was puzzling -- then suddenly alarming,'' he says. Mozart, he realizes, wasn't composing like anyone else, but ''simply transcribing music completely finished in his head.'' Finally, ''I was staring through the cage of those meticulous ink strokes at -- an Absolute Beauty!''

That's the moment I feel voters went over to F. Murray. But is that fair given the writers gave F. Murray the meatier lines?

Just checked out Amadeus - as a child the poster (featuring the Shakespearean ghost of the "father") had left an impression on me and led me to watch the movie, but I ended up falling asleep halfway.

A few decades later I had the chance to revisit the movie, and what a masterpiece it is. Some of the editing in the first parts of the movie annoyed me (the constant cutting away to old and decrepit Salieri to provide commentary on what is happening on screen, reality TV style), but the third and last acts of the film go to a dark place that is very relatable. But really it is the premise of the movie that is genius - to tell the story of a genius from the pov of a someone who only possesses some talent, to tell the story of Jesus from the perspective of Judas.

The character of Salieri is Dostoyevskian through and through - the most telling moment is probably in the last scene (Mediocrities everywhere, I absolve you all!) , but the feeling is palpable throughout.

While I am not very knowledgeable in the field of classical music, I think the use of Mozart's music throughout the movie had a palpable emotional effect on me. If anything, this movie is testament to the effect of music on emotional tones.

F. Murray Abraham is phenomenal as the face of jealousy/envy in this film. A pity that he has not had main roles in other films.

Another (Russian) addition - the scene where Salieri is trying to commit suicide () is very reminiscent of this painting by Repin (). Perhaps this is a stretch? But there are so many shots of the film that are evocative of classical paintings.

Edit: It's very interesting that there's other ties to Russian literature for fictional descriptions of the relationship between Mozart and Salieri, one being a comedy written by Pushkin (the Russian Shakespeare) himself!