|
By
NICK ZEGARAC
As a lover of great music I feel it my duty to point out that "Amadeus" is a movie about two people, Mozart (Tom Hulce) and Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), who never met in real life.
The plot of this film owes more to the off Broadway fiction of its stage play origins than historical record. Nevertheless, the essence of the film as pure fiction is electrifying. Hulce's performance is underrated. He plays Wolfgang Mozart as a petulant and exasperating child, mean spirited sometimes, wicked prankster, but always with a sense of being the benevolent wunderkind of playful charm, like Puck from
"A Midsummer Night's Dream."
The film charts Mozart's days as court composer for the duke of Austria (Jeffrey Jones) and his stormy marriage to Constanze (Elizabeth Berridge). But Mozart's fate is sealed, so the film explains, when he meets the resident Italian maestro, Salieri who becomes the jealous, vindictive and heartless usurper of Mozart's talent. The film's tag line "Everything you've heard is true," seems a bit awkward, considering that everything herein is pure fiction, but "Amadeus" remains a film of extraordinary beauty and wonderfully poignant performances.
Warner Home Video has done an outstanding job on the remastering of this film. Their original flipper disc left much to be desired. This time around we are given the full director's cut in one uninterrupted play with bold, rich colors, great depth of fine details and astounding resolution. The soundtrack's 5.1 reissue is equally impressive. The music track explodes. Also included on disc two, an informative documentary, some stills and theatrical trailers. A well rounded out supplement to the film. |
