The life, success and troubles of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as told by Antonio Salieri, the contemporary composer who was insanely jealous of Mozart's talent and claimed to have murdered him.
Director: Milos Forman
Stars: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Christine Ebersole, Jeffrey Jones.
Neville Marriner ... conductor / music supervisor
Twyla Tharp ... choreography / opera staging by
41 songs in the Soundtracks; 5 not by Mozart, of which 2 are by Salieri.
One of 11 American Music/als to win Best Picture: 1)The Broadway Melody (1929), 2)The Great Ziegfeld (1936), 3)Going My Way (1944), 4)An American in Paris (1951), 5)Gigi (1958), 6)West Side Story (1961), 7)My Fair Lady (1964), 8)The Sound of Music (1965), 9)Oliver! (1968), 10)Amadeus (1984), 11)Chicago (2002).
Also won these Oscars: Best Actor in a Leading Role (F. Murray Abraham), Best Director, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, Best Sound, Best Makeup. Tom Hulce was also nominated in Abraham's category; Cinematography and Editing were also both nom'd.
The disc includes a 1hr Making Of doc'y, and a full c.track with the writer and the director (they don't introduce themselves). I wasn't charmed by either.
I wish the disc included a music-only track. It has 7 audio tracks (4 non-English), and 17 subtitle tracks.
The film is good. I rated it 7 on 2015-03-30; didn't buy a copy until this year (1'18), and might have resisted longer if not for this quest. I don't feel warmly about the film, and don't have much to say. The music is great, but with so many in the Soundtracks, you can imagine each is only briefly represented. Twyla Tharp did the choreography, but we only get moments of dancing. Sets and costumes did look great. Some of the women's wigs were enormous and looked awfully heavy (I wondered what they were made of back in those days.)
In the c.track, Forman says he chose FMA for Salieri because he had the same bitter attitude toward his own career as did the character. Maybe I don't love it because the film is so good at projecting that bitterness.
The IMDb rating is 8.3 with 322k+ votes.
distr. Orion, dir. Forman; 7
