Amadeus (1984)
Starring
F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce
Director
Milos Forman
Awards
Academy Awards
Best Director - Milos Forman
Best Actor - F. Murray Abraham
Best Screenplay - Peter Shaffer
Best Picture
Academy Award Nominations
Best Actor - Tom Hulce
Plot Synopsis
A film biography of the Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart. The story is seen through the eyes of rival court composer Antonio Salieri on the
eve of Salieri's suicide. He is at once fiercely jealous of and totally awestruck by the
young Mozart, whose genius as a composer undeniably exceeds that of any other writer
Salieri has heard, including himself. Salieri's unbridled jealousy of Mozart's soaring
reputation, even as his own wanes, leads him to try to drive Mozart to his death by
anonymously commissioning Mozart's final Requiem Mass. Paradoxically, however, it is the
obsessed and resentful Salieri who can most truly appreciate the brilliance of Mozart's
revolutionary music.
Film Notes
"The satirical sensibilities of writer Peter Shaffer and
director Milos Forman (One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest) were ideally matched in
this Oscar-winning movie adaptation of Shaffer's hit play about the rivalry between two
composers in the court of Austrian Emperor Joseph II, official royal composer Antonio
Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), and the younger but superior prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(Tom Hulce). The conceit is absolutely delicious: Salieri secretly loathes Mozart's crude
and bratty personality, but is astounded by the beauty of his music. That's the heart of
Salieri's torment, although he's in a unique position to recognize and cultivate both
Mozart's talent and career, he's also consumed with envy and insecurity in the face of
such genius. That such magnificent music should come from such a vulgar little creature
strikes Salieri as one of God's cruelest jokes, and it drives him insane. Amadeus
creates peculiar and delightful contrasts between the impeccably re-created details of its
lavish period setting and the jarring (but humorously refreshing and unstuffy) modern tone
of its dialogue and performances - all of which serve to remind us that these were people
before they became enshrined in historical and artistic legend. Jeffrey Jones, best-known
as Ferris Bueller's principal, is particularly wonderful as the bumbling emperor (with the
voice of a modern midlevel businessman)." (Jim Emerson,
Amazon.com)
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