Amadeus is often portrayed as the lifestory of one of if not the best musical composer in the history of mankind. (Disagree? Go listen to his Requiem while you wait for me to save up for a hitman to snuff out your worthless life.) Which is part of the truth, yeah, but more importantly — it’s Salieri’s tale. The fact that the portrayals of both composers and their lives are quite historically inaccurate is something I choose to disregard, as history is of little interest in this movie. What is interesting is the portrayal of the characters Mozart and Salieri, and especially the latter. The former is there mostly as a foil for the latter — Salieri devoted himself and sacrificed much to God, in what he perceived as an exchenge of devotion for the ability to express the greatness of God through music. Then, along comes Mozart, a “vulgar child”, to quote Salieri, composing music no one but Salieri seems to understand the brilliance of. Salieri comes to see his own work — which he’d, in his own eyes, sacrificed so much for — as nothing but mediocre drivel, and he grows madder and madder in his incomprehension of God’s ways. He sees Mozart’s music as a pinnacle, of God embodied through music, and he prays to his Lord for the talent to compose just one single work of the same sublime quality. Not surprisingly, no such miracle occurs, and Saileri renounces God, becomes even more obsessed with Mozart than he already was, and vows to destroy God’s instrument on Earth.
Add to all this brilliant stuff the fantastic script, acting, costumes, and what have you, and you get a movie that has to be one of the best ones ever made.
10/10.
(Also, a reminder to myself that I need to adjust Lord of War down a notch.)
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Damn you, man! I borrowed this from Obdormio a week ago, and still haven’t gotten around to seeing it, and I was feeling pretty okay about that, in light of my upcoming exams and all. And then this! You! Bah!
12. May 2008 @ 21:22 ( Permalink )
It was a good movie, beyond any doubt, but 10 out of 10? Hardly. The most interesting parts of the movie were in its middle, which doesn’t make for anything resembling perfection in the experience of watching it. Additionally, they foreshadow Mozart’s death so heavily that when it finally occurs, I’m left with the “what? That was it?”-feeling more than anything else. Sallieri was the one thing about this movie I felt could be described as more than a step above mere “good”, and when I say I’d give it a very weak 8,5 he’s probably responsible for 2 of those points alone. Well, the script was also well above “good”, I’ll admit, and my that I mean that the entire way the plot of the movie was built was a very clever way of making the story seem interesting. It fell a little short of really blowing me away, though - probably through the limitations of actual events having to be portrayed, I think.
19. May 2008 @ 12:59 ( Permalink )
“The most interesting parts of the movie were in its middle, which doesn’t make for anything resembling perfection in the experience of watching it.”
So you weren’t blown away by the thrilling scenes with Sallieri helping Mozart compose his Requiem? Or the way he worked his grief over his father into Don Giovanni, or the creative process behind Die Saüberflüte? Your loss, man.
“Additionally, they foreshadow Mozart’s death so heavily that when it finally occurs, I’m left with the “what? That was it?”-feeling more than anything else.”
Actually, they made it so clear that Mozart was gonna die, I didn’t feel it quite had the relative subtlety of a foreshadowing. Also, I found the preceeding composing scenes gripping. So disappointment wasn’t that big with me.
But hey, now at least you’ve seen what is occasionally held to be one of the best movies of the 80s. And a 8.5 isn’t a bad rating when it comes from any of us, but especially not when it’s you.
24. May 2008 @ 14:27 ( Permalink )
The way he worked the grief of his father into his music would have been interesting if the father got about five times as much screentime as he did. As it was, the potentially most interesting character-relationship of the movie got three short scenes and some vague hints to a less-than-perfect childhood. The Don Giovanni-effect of the father’s death got about as much screentime as, if not more than, the relationship with his father did in total. That’s not good moviemaking. If the buildup takes five minutes the payoff can’t take ten. If you want a ten-minute payoff, put the work into a thirty minute buildup. Otherwise you’re stuck with an audience that’s not justifiably interested in the event to care about the payoff in the first place.
His dragged-out death-scene was good, but, they foreshadowed it so heavily that at the time it finally came around the “yay, this scene is good”-feeling was just barely stronger than the “yeah, I get it, in fact I got it thirty minutes of movie ago; he’s going to die from writing the requiem, get on with it will you?”-feeling. Which is less than ideal. But it worked, sure. One of the movie’s better parts.
The only parts of this movie that were truly awesome was those of Salieri’s frame-story. I also liked how the movie made the story into a chessgame between Salieri and God, and how sneakily God won it. Sadly, all that was told almost to my satisfaction in the frame-story - I didn’t really need most of the actual movie.
I’m coming off as very critical, I’m sorry, the movie was clearly good. But I felt it was a solid cry from great, so I’m confused as to what makes people love it so.
Then again I didn’t get “Blade Runner” either. I guess I’m just stupid.
24. May 2008 @ 16:48 ( Permalink )
“I guess I’m just stupid.”
I feel content with that explanation.
By the way, you did watch the Director’s Cut edition, yeah? I assume that you did, as I haven’t really seen the non-director’s cut anywhere, but I’d like to be certain…
24. May 2008 @ 17:03 ( Permalink )
Yup, the DC-cut. I bought it cheaply as an afterthought on a book-order once. I liked it so little that I brought it home and left it with my dad’s DVDs in case he’d like to check it out and haven’t thought twice about it since.
24. May 2008 @ 18:38 ( Permalink )