Review On Film Amadeus - Essay Example

Visual and Film Studies Order No. 750165 The of the film I chose to review is “Amadeus”. The director of the film is Milos Forman and its screenplay writer is Peter Shaffer. The film is adapted from ‘Amadeus’ which was a stage play by Shaffer, which was staged in 1979. The year of initial release of this movie was on 19th September, 1984, in USA. The major stars in this film are Fahrid. Murray Abraham, Tom Edward Hulce and Elizabeth Berridge. The genre of the film is drama. Genius – a cause for bitter revenge!

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a musical genius by all standards, creates music that is both passionate and divine. The brilliance of his music had the capacity to hold its listeners in sheer awe or make them green with envy. Mozart was a revered court composer who worked in the court of the Austrian Emperor Joseph II, who was an ardent patron of the arts. The Emperor commissions Mozart to compose an opera in German and not in the customary Italian. His contemporary, Antonio Salieri, who was not a very good composer in the same court, became green with envy and vowed to take revenge on Mozart.

The unassuming Mozart who was childish, arrogant and brilliant at the same time was gradually trapped by the fiendish Salieri who kept on taunting Mozart with guilt feelings about him being a bad son to his parents. The continuous torture meted out by the jealous Salieri finally became the cause for the downward spiraling of the genius and drove him to ill health and his death. The chief protagonist in the story is Fahrid. Murray Abraham , who plays the part of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the musical genius.

Tom Edward Hulce, plays the part of Antonio Salieri who takes revenge against Mozart, because he deeply desired to attain the musical genius of Mozart but sadly cut a deplorable figure in front of him. The other characters in the story are Constanze who plays the part of Mozart’s wife. Though she shares the juvenile qualities of her husband she is also inclined towards business which is lacking in Mozart. The character of Emperor Joseph II is played by Jeffrey Jones and is portrayed as a very self- centered and superficial ruler.

The primary theme of the film is revenge with Salieri being successful in dragging down the ostentatious figure of Mozart the genius in a tragic drama. One of the most memorable supporting characters in the movie ‘Amadeus’, is Salieri his rival. The function of this character is to narrate the incidents in the life of Mozart and at the same time he is used as the tool of revenge to bring him down. Salieri is in contact with the main character of the movie, Mozart, right through the film and this is the reason why the plot is so closely interwoven between the two.

Both of them work at the same court of Emperor Joseph II, compose music together and also arguing a lot together. The other supporting character is Amadeus wife Constanze who tries to use her body as a tool for seeking favor with Mozart’s arch rival Salieri. This character is in constant contact with the two main characters and is used as a potent tool for the events leading to Mozart’s downfall and death. Since the movie is a serious one, the humor in it is kept to a minimum. However, there are few scenes that highlight Mozart’s liking of scatological, vulgar jokes.

One of the humorous or lighthearted scenes is when Mozart is shown to be laughing obscenely when Salieri expresses that God is exposing his mediocrity as against Mozart’s genius. Whatever the scene, all of the characters in the film ‘Amadeus’, have done a spectacular job of acting. My overall impression of the film is that it is a unsurpassable classic which has one of the best plots and captivating Classical music that is so well interwoven with each other to present its audience good wholesome cinema.

There is no doubt that I would certainly recommend others to see this film for its spectacular genius in all aspects of film making. References Amadeus (1984) www.imdb.com/title/tt0086879/plotsummary