Here we look at a film that was all the rage in ’84, sweeping up Academy Awards—one both with all the opulence Viennese palaces and seas of powdered wigs can bring, and one all about the emotions stirred by art itself, good and ill. It’s also got enough scenery chewing from Tom Hulce to ravage an entire opera house. So, forty years on, does Milos Forman’s Amadeus still rock me like Falco, or do we indeed look at a patron saint of mediocrity?
Our focus is F. Murray Abraham as composer Antonio Salieri, recounting the supposed story of his envy and relationship with our titular Wolfgang Mozart as a confession—right off the bat, facts are being played with fast and loose here, with no evidence in historicity of such a jealousy (and of course, this film incepted a resurgence in interest for his work—ironic given how it ends). Of course, what if it was so, posits the film—and that’s a question a good as any to kick off our suitably dramatic proceedings.
Despite that there is enough connected to the reality of 17th-century Austro-Hungarian high society, and what part Mozart played in it—as a young prodigy crashing onto the scene with vulgarities and what was indeed in actuality a very annoying laugh. Tom Hulce indeed nails what’s given to him—as someone who’s overflowing with passion, who’s simultaneously annoying, but so confident in his ability, rightfully so, that you can’t help but overlook that.
And it helps that what he’s up against feels familiar enough—surrounding Jeffrey Jones’ well-meaning if somewhat clueless Emperor Joseph are the bitter old advisors who see nothing more than to hem the young composer into what they’ve already predetermined. Art being jostled around to please the fickle and entrenched? Somehow I feel as if a lot of people in the studio system can instantly feel what’s going on there. In this age where it feels to many as if same ground is being retread in fear of what may be new but daring? They may not even be the only ones.
The cast is thankfully solid all around, which is what helps sell it—the other highlight is of course Elizabeth Berridge as Mozart’s wife Constanze, herself caught in the middle between the scheming of what soon becomes entirely Salieri’s jealous mania and her husband’s own obsessions. Everything’s ever so slightly over the top, but it’s all so fitting when it’s segued by segments of opera where emotions are declared with full orchestra.
Now, the version you’re most likely to find is the director’s cut—which some have criticized for maybe padding things out a bit too much to almost three hours, but there’s certainly some very memorable scenes that make there own punctuation within. We see just how far Constanze is ready to go for her Wolfgang as well as what boundary Salieri may have in his deranged quest to bring down his oblivious rival—but perhaps a few somewhat redundant moments that do feel like they could’ve been snipped, like one involving a dog-fixated noble. There’s something to be said either way.
Every artist has an aspiration, and aspiration has consumed many an artist in turn—well, that’s something painted with all the theatricality that the classics can offer here, as shown for both our two main characters in their own ways. Some might find the version that generally shows now a little overindulgent, which is something to bear in mind, but otherwise, for the most part it held my attention—exalted it was, because flair it had indeed.
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