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From: sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Amadeus -- the movie
Message-ID: <954@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 24-Sep-84 00:03:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: bbncca.954
Posted: Mon Sep 24 00:03:59 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Sep-84 05:28:48 EDT
Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 39

I went to Amadeus expecting a lot, having read the early critical reviews.
What a disappointment!

This is a movie infused with the petit bourgeois concept of "high art", but
truly anti-art in its execution.  It is a movie for people who would rather
talk about music than listen to it.  It gives us Mozart's life in a
disjointed series of sitcom-style vignettes, separated by the aged
Salieri's narration, and wonderful musical excerpts.  The trouble is, the
movie gathers no momentum.  The writing is often banal, and the "schtick",
namely Salieri's "mediocrity" in the face of Mozart's "divine genius" is
rehashed over and over, without much amplification of our understanding of
either character.  Only when Mozart's music is performed (in luscious Dolby
stereo) does the movie pick up, but it's over all too soon, and it's back
to the sitcom again.  The movie plods forward up to Mozart's death, and
after 2 1/2 hours, I was glad he didn't live to a ripe old age.

The acting is generally OK, within the limits of the cardboard
characterizations provided by the script.  Neither Mozart nor Salieri are
given much depth: they are caricatures.  Two characterizations are worth
noting: Mozart's wife is played as if she were an American housewife from
the Valley.  This seemed bizarre at first, but it ultimately works: it's an
interesting attempt to find a modern metaphor for her well-known frugality
and domesticity.  Finally, the Emperor is a gem.  The actor looks like he
walked out of a painting of the Hapsburgs, and his mannerisms are wonderful
and sublimely subtle: a not-too-smart, semi-talented statesman who must
suffer the company of his fawning court.  Neither of these are worth the
price of admission, however.

I guess what really bothers me with "Amadeus" is the terrible imbalance
I see: this is an EXPENSIVE movie.  So very much money was spent on
location shots, sets, costumes, music, and photography.  In every sense,
all of these are first rate.  So much so that they expose the true
artistic mediocrity of screenwriter Peter Shaffer and director Milos
Forman: there's very little here which can carry its own in such
rarefied company.
-- 
/Steve Dyer
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