Amadeus (Director's Cut)
Release Date:
April 5, 2002
Limited release
Back in 1985, a movie about music and madness captured Oscar glory as it won eight of the 11 awards for which it was nominated, including Best Picture. For a long time after the film's original 1984 release, producer Saul Zaentz and Academy Award-winning director Milos Forman kept returning to discussions about a number of key scenes they reluctantly left on the cutting-room floor. Working with veteran film editor Tom Christopher and original re-recording mixers Todd Boekelheide and Mark Berger, they put together a new version of the film that opened to enthusiastic reviews at the 2001 Telluride Film Festival. Now the film will premiere in Germany in late February of 2002, followed by a US opening in New York and Los Angeles.
The Oscar-winning screenplay was based on Peter Shaffer's play and tells Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's story in flashback form via Antonio Salieri (played by F. Murray Abraham in a well-deserved Academy Award-winning performance). Salieri is in an insane asylum as the result of his association with Amadeus, as his complete ambivalence toward the prodigy has driven him mad. His puzzlement and disgust arise from the fact that this almost-divine music is created by such a crude, vulgar and bratty young man. The two men compete in the court of the Emperor, and while Salieri's music is never anything more than mediocre, the hedonistic young Mozart (played by Oscar nominee Tom Hulce) is able to compose masterpieces with only a modicum of effort. Both men descend into madness as Salieri determines he must take revenge on God by destroying his rival.
This lavish production would be well worth revisiting on the big screen even without the prospect of new footage, but with the lush new sound and the gentle love and attention given by the editors and director Forman, Amadeus is certainly a film to watch for at your local art house. (Kim Hollis/BOP)
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