Amadeus Review

Amadeus

6/28/2016

A-
3.83

Composer Salieri is wracked with envy when confronted with the superior talent of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Directed by Milos Foreman
Starring F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce
Initial Review by Shane Setnor

This movie avoids the dreaded normal 80's taint and holds up after 30 years.

It's an easy A.

Please listen below for audio review for a brief discussion on the movie, the pretentiousness of music people and natural talent in regards to being great or near-great. (Example: Michael Jordan is great. Lebron James is near-great.)

Or just comment and tell me I'm an idiot.

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25 Comments

Sean

6/28/2016 02:58:27 pm

Shane's comments on F Murray Abraham's brilliance sound familiar.
I'm copying and pasting my mini FB review because I didn't have 3 hours to reinvest this week.

And now for my promised Amadeus mini-review. Tom Hulce as giggly hyper Mozart annoyed the shit out of me. I liked him much more as tortured dying Mozart. F. Murray Abraham as Antonio Salieri was magnificent. The most well-deserved best actor Oscar ever. His facial expressions alone displaying confusion, admiration, jealousy, guilt, etc. toward Mozart, both as a young man and through the old man make-up retelling his story was amazing. I'd put his performance up against any other actors performance I've ever seen. Of course the music was fantastic, my only knock was I was hoping some Rock Me Amadeus would play during one of the party scenes.
Hulce and the length of the movie dropped me out of A+ but it's for sure an A

Sean

6/28/2016 02:59:17 pm

LeBron is great, you're an idiot. There's more than 1 great basketball player.

Shane

6/28/2016 04:25:13 pm

He's near great.

Other greats:

Bird
Wilt
Russell
Magic
O
Erving
Kareem
Shaq

Near Greats:
Lebron
Hakeem
Duncan
Kobe
Barkley
Pippen
Malone
The Admiral
KG
Maravich
Cousy
Baylor
Mitch fucking RIchmond

Sean Riley

6/28/2016 04:46:18 pm

Lebron is so much greater than Shaq it's absurd. Shaq was freakishly gifted and didn't care enough to be great. I'm sure there is some kind of NBAJam reasoning for how Mitch fucking Richmand got on the near great list.

Shane

6/28/2016 07:08:29 pm

Mitch Fucking Richmond was a god in NBA Live 96.

Shaq changes the way the game was played. They actually made rules to neutralize him. That's nuts.

Shane

6/28/2016 07:12:47 pm

What makes Lebron great? He's super talented, but that's it. Which is enough for near great.

Bryan

6/29/2016 04:26:50 pm

The Lebron v Jordan debate doesn't fit to me. Lebron and Jordan are both Top 10. Salieri is no where close to Mozart and obviously must work so much harder to achieve much less. I don't think you can say that about Lebron.

Shane

6/29/2016 04:41:36 pm

I agree. Salieri is probably more of a Ron Harper.

I think I look at this as a bell curve type thing. You can only have X amount in the very top. Is it 10? 20?

Bryan

6/29/2016 05:26:48 pm

Depends on sample size. I think for athletics you're looking at more of a chi-squared curve. http://philschatz.com/statistics-book/resources/CNX_Stats_Appendix_ART_Figure_14.4.jpg

Lane

6/28/2016 09:52:10 pm

“Amadeus” falls into the category of films that I thought was going to be very boring but which wasn’t at all. At first, I was wondering how I was going to suffer through three hours of it. It seemed to include so many things I don’t like in movies or in life, things like:

- Costumes
- Plays turned into movies
- 1980’s hairstyles that somehow show up in a period piece
- trips to the symphony
- 3 hour movies
- no discernable rationale for why one character has a British accent while another doesn’t
- make-up that tries to make people look old, but that just looks fake.

“Amadeus” has all of these, and yet, I just couldn’t dislike this movie. In fact, at some point in the film, the little quirks and flaws became endearing and the three hours flew by and even left me wanting more. Part of this is due to the incredibly good acting by Hulce and Abraham. Their characters simply fill up the screen and help give consistency to a script that fluctuates between the lazy and trite (too many of Elizabeth Berridge’s lines) to the sublime and wonderful (Salieri describing how a Mozart piece works). Also, the use of Mozart's music in the film made the movie for me. I'm not a classical music fan, but when you combine the soundtrack with the story with the imagery...imagine it! Combining sounds and moving pictures! Think of the possibilities!

But I think the reason I loved this movie so much is because, at its heart, “Amadeus” is an ideas movie. It’s a movie that proposes a theory of humanity—that the bulk of humanity, 99.9999% of us, are basically mediocre people doing mediocre things searching for ways to redeem our mediocrity and give it some semblance of meaning. We construct societies to encourage individualism, and economies to encourage industriousness, and theologies to give us a sense of purpose and belonging, and all of this functions and moves us from cradle to grave pretty nicely until…well, until someone like Mozart comes along and we realize, like Salieri did, that in fact God doesn’t all treat us the same.

“Amadeus” remains relevant as a film, I think, because that particular theory of human/divine interaction is still very much in play. Shane is right in pointing out sports as the main arena where this argument is still made on a very consistent basis. Except we don’t really use the term “God-given” talent anymore; we call it “genetics,” but we’re talking about the same thing—an elevation above mediocrity that we can’t explain but that makes it all too aware of the level of mediocrity we inhabit on a daily basis.

Whether or not you call Michael Jordon or LeBron James good or great or whatever is just semantics; the point is that we tend to talk about them the same way the film portrays Mozart. Yes, we acknowledge that stars like Jordan and James work hard for their titles (just as Mrs. Mozart explained to Salieri when begging for the government post—“he’s not lazy, he’s just not practical!”), but we always talk about this goodness or greatness within a rubric of exceptionalism. For Jordan, the exceptionalism was always mental, or character driven; his physical abilities were extraordinary (the narratives says), but his greatness was achieved by an otherworldly competiveness and drive (which, it turns out, can also be explained by combining extreme narcissism and a pathological fear of failure). The narrative of LeBron’s greatness, to this point, seems to be a “gifted by the gene pool gods” narrative; gods who just happened to see fit to create a 6’8” man with no body fat and extreme levels of total body control. Traits that the rest of us simply do not possess.

Now, whether you believe these narratives is a good topic for debate, but whether we call it God or genetics or whatever, the narrative of genius is largely still a cultural narrative of an enchanted world we don’t really understand but are usually willing to believe in.

Which circles us back to the film…which is not a work of genius, but is definitely good enough to deserve an A.

Shane

6/29/2016 09:46:14 am

I never thought about how we've changed from "God-given" to genetics. That's good stuff.

I think most of us have certain talents that if we foster, we can get out of mediocrity. I like Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour thing, but its limited as you have to have -some- talent at least. We can lead a mediocre life, but also be good or great at something in that life. Acknowledging our limitations and not letting our ego run wild is how to start down a path out of mediocrity.

Bryan

6/29/2016 12:29:57 pm

From the bus in Carmi, IL...

Amadeus was a story of love, sex, politics, music, talent, intrigue, and religion. What more could the viewer want? I really enjoyed Salieri's fights with God, the history of making music, and despite Amadeus' laugh - he was great.

A few qualms, one of which really bugs me.
-Movies which rely on one guy (Salieri) being an asshole and lying wear on me. Thank God this would occasionally let up, especially at the end.
-I'm not an opera guy, so 15+ minutes of this went on too long.
-A few up close face scenes were long.
-Old man Salieri was too Scrooge for me. Also his voice would be old man in one sentence and 40 year old in the next.

I'm at an A- here. BIG shoutout to Newspaper Guy!

Shane

6/29/2016 01:55:17 pm

I know people like him. Just sad, bitter people who can't stand other people's success. Just look at any pop culture rag and you'll see people commenting on trying to bring down successful people. It's a badge of honor in America to tear down people.

Bryan

6/29/2016 04:32:12 pm

I mostly despise pop culture :-)

Bryan

6/29/2016 04:31:33 pm

@Shane. I'm not sure Mozart qualifies as lacking work ethic. He writes and writes and writes. Im going to compare this to my math skills. I could soak in math from K through Calc III. Then when studying is needed in Probability 300 or Regression Analysis, I couldn't do it because I didn't know how to study and I didn't actually practice or improve my skills outside of school hours.

Shane

6/29/2016 04:43:01 pm

I'm not sure I agree. He writes a bunch, but he's also out boozing and getting too drunk to write. He could have been better, but he never had to be better in order to be the best. That can be a curse as he doesn't hit his potential because he never learned how to work in the first place.

Bryan

6/29/2016 05:28:24 pm

He didn't seem to be foregoing work until toward the end of the movie. There were stacks of papers everywhere and the pool table scene especially stands out.

Jon

7/3/2016 02:02:28 am

Like Shane, I don't get music. I can have a conversation about movies and TV, and why I prefer one work to the other, but I don't even have the vocabulary to do the same with music. I know what I like, and don't know why. Prodigies like Mozart are most common in music, so maybe music just works on a more primal level, like a specific wiring or brain chemistry is necessary to so spectacularly thrive. I couldn't say why Mozart is such a well-remembered composer, and I don't leave Amadeus with that knowledge. That's not this film's responsibility anyways. What it is responsible for is to make me understand that he's better than Salieri, and not by a little either. Milos Foreman's film succeeds wildly here, taking the bones of a historical story and finding the universality in it, accuracy be damned. Much like the Social Network, the details are unimportant when the elemental potency of the story is as strong as this one is.

As a specific story of Mozart and Salieri, Amadeus is anchored by two great performances. He's not getting a lot of credit from previous reviewers, but I loved Hulce's mannerisms and eccentricities. His Mozart is a fun guy, the antithesis of what one would think of a classical composer. The rock star of his day, compensated in fame if not actual money, he punctures the aristocratic air around his work. Opera has a reputation of being high art, but Amadeus posits that its gate is made of money and class instead of cultural opacity, a way for the rich and powerful to feel even more superior than society has already designated them. Into that world comes a braying sex-hound, able to synthesize fully-formed masterpieces on any given page. If Hulce can't portray the delight that Mozart takes in his every action, or how his prodigious talent allows him to justifiably skirt the vagaries of politesse, then the character gets too insufferable. I don't think Hulce ever gets anywhere near annoying, as I was rapt whenever he was onscreen.

The other, already praised performance is F. Murray Abraham as Salieri, and it's not like you guys are incorrect. I'm not necessarily as overheated, but yes, he is excellent in the past and present of the film. Playing two versions of the same character at very different times in his life, the younger version is the ideal of nobility while the older is closer to Mozart and finished with all that nonsense. Both versions beautifully communicate the experience of artistic joy, an experience I had a few times watching this film. The storytelling trope of an old man confessing the events of the film isn't ideal or even stuck to, as plenty of scenes that Salieri is not present for are portrayed, but the combination of old Salieri telling while the young Salieri shows still works. A lesser performance would've made the seams stick out, but Abraham is
magnetic no matter how much emotional expositing he's doing.

Both actors are in service of an idea so simple but so hard to do right; there is always someone beter than you. When we were talking about Ferris Bueller, Blair mentioned that his parents had likely raised him in a 'special' milieu, where he was constantly praised and ended up thinking the entire world revolved around him. This kind of thinking is poisonous, and leads to something like Salieri enabling the death of someone who comes as close to earning that level of arrogance as anyone. Someone's going to win the genetic lottery or someone's going to form the exact, irreplicable pattern of neurons necessary to be a true, move-the-goalposts genius, and that person is exceedingly rare. When confronted with that kind of rarity, the range of reactions is captured within Salieri. Awe turns to joy curdles into envy twists into loathing. That feeling of the universe, or god as the case may be, owing an individual something shifts a revelatory experience into a hateful one, but as Shane said, a human one as well. We want to witness greatness, but we also want to pull it down, often in the same thought.

Jon

7/3/2016 02:03:07 am

On a different note, the role of monarchy keeps coming up in our Game of Thrones podcast, and there's certainly more ammo here. Enlightenment icon Rousseau spent a lot of pages in The Social Contract talking about how monarchy has a dulling effect on everyone within the king's circle, and that is certainly apparent here. Jeffrey Jones' emperor isn't the worst tyrant in history, but he's also the most mediocre mediocrity in the whole film. That would be fine on its own, except this unexceptional man of average tastes sets the tone for all of Austrian society, and everyone has to lean down to his level. If Salieri had been pushed to deliver something above the emperor's fickle tastes, he might have made something that lasted into his old age. However, because he's tossing softballs to a dolt, his music-making muscles don't stay as taut as they might have been. Mozart is always on the outs with the emperor, and isn't shackled to the middle-brow, allowing him to swing for the fences but be without the favor that would've allowed him to make any money. Basically, kings are dumb, in more ways than one.

Amadeus has a potently simple theme and it hits it over and over again. If that theme wasn't directly tied into how I view the world, that might get tiresome, but here, I am a willing and receptive choir, ready to be preached to. I understand Tyler Durden was a cult leader who is in a movie about being wary of charisma and confirmation bias, but when he says You Are Not Special, it's like the click that precedes a pair of handcuffs falling off. Humanity is a series of bell curves, and everyone falls somewhere on them. Sometimes you're in the ascending portion, sometimes you're smack in the middle, sometimes you're in the descending portion. No matter what you feel you're good at, remember that there's always someone better, and take that knowledge with good humor. Who cares anyway? There's a pauper's grave waiting for everyone. Just find something you love, and take part in it joyfully, especially if it's made by someone further to the right on the bell curve. It takes a sea of mediocrity to make greatness worthwhile. There's plenty of bad biopics and costume dramas to know that when a masterpiece like Amadeus comes along, it's something to appreciate. A

Bryan

7/3/2016 09:54:09 am

Did you write that last paragraph or borrow it from a movie? It's beautiful.

Jon

7/3/2016 12:56:55 pm

That's all me, baby. I'm going to assume at least 50% of that compliment was because of bell curve talk.

Bryan

7/3/2016 01:43:26 pm

I wrote a long paper in college both for and against the bell curve so no points there, it's a well written paragraph both poetically and analytically.

When I have a class especially full of hubris, I like to give the proportion question... "It's often said that you are '1 in a million'. If that is the case, how many people in this world are just like you?" #MeanOleMathTeacher

Drew

7/3/2016 06:33:36 pm

It is understood the great acclamation this film achieved. I do not what to delineate that but there were two glaring flaws. Mozart was Ferris Bueller and Salieri whined.

Mozart was, undoubtedly, one of the brilliant composers this world had. His music still influences millions of people but the film depicted him as one of those people who require little work to achieve greatness. Those people are, quite frankly, the worst. Their confidence comes across as hubris and they annoy people with their ease of understanding. I almost hated Mozart because of his Bueller - like tendencies but his talent made me overlook it.

Antonio Salieri, whose perspective the film was projected, complained how hard work did nothing for him except achieve mediocrity. He felt God cheated because he worked hard and made several personal sacrifices but did not get far in his career. Yet Mozart did not make the same sacrifices as Salieri and achieved greatness. Salieri's bitterness and jealously was understood but it was too much. It was the entire film and it hurt it.

Now, the film's music, costume, and teleplay were amazing. Those aspects alone immediately put the film at an A-. It could have been an A+ but those aforementioned problems lingered. To be fair, I mentioned a while back how this was an A+ film but forgot about those problems. Had it been any other film, those attributes would not offset those awful faults. Because they did, it speaks to the film's greatness. Amadeus was a tremendous film and could have been another A+ we needed but it faltered. It definitely goes into the field of recommended movies but was not A+ as I remembered.

Grade: A-

Sean

7/8/2016 09:07:13 am

Drew is a hater. Hate Hate Hate

Drew

7/8/2016 10:08:44 am

Hater with an A-!

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