Word: mozarts
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...carefully mannered world of the Viennese court, such treachery is not hard to achieve. By playing off the Italian and German musical factions, Salieri insures that Mozart's operas--such as Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro--are yanked from the stage after only a handful of performances. Without official patronage, Mozart falls into debt and disfavor at the court...
...Salieri cannot drown the haunting elegance of his rival's work. Even though the public prefers his own sing or melodies, Salieri is tormented by the knowledge that Mozart alone possesses true genius. And so the jealous man seizes upon a plan of total destruction. In a voice that carries no hint of remorse, the aged composer reveals to the speechless Priest his decision to commission a requiem from Mozart, and then murder his rival. At the funeral, the cathedral would swell with a stirring mass for the dead musician, written by his devoted friend Antonio Salieri...
...Amadeus is the vindication of Salieri's frustrated quest for immortality. If audiences did not gain any greater impression of his gain any greater impression of his musical talents, Salieri at least became unforgettable in the depth of his jealous passion. But translated to the screen, Amadeus becomes Mozart's own. Shaffer and Forman preserve the intensity of the Salieri-Mozart rivalry, but the film is permeated with the pulse and rhythm of the headstrong child who could compose "as if taking dictation...
...addition to scenes from the operas such as The Magic Flute and Abduction from the Sevaglio--reproduced in pain-staking detail in Czechoslovakia -- soundtracks of Mozart's many shorter works play throughout the film. Greater emphasis falls--upon the forces that shaped Mozart's work: the adoring but somewhat insipid "Stanzie," who can't understand why her husband has no pupils; the domineering and disapproving father Leopold, whose death would prove the terrifying inspiration for Don Giovanni, and Mozart himself, whose violent genius was not tempered by even a hint of modesty or pragmatism...
Against lush backdrops of the Viennese court, Tom Hulce creates an energetic Mozart, frivolous on all concerns save music. As Saleri, F. Murray Abraham creates an ideal counterpart: a composer as measured, reasonable, and altogether average as his rival is extraordinary. Their prickly relationship reaches a moving climax in the film's final minutes, with a scene that mesmerizingly unravels the fabric of admiration and betrayal between...