Here\u2019s yet another movie I haven\u2019t seen in forty years.\u00a0 Although in a sense this is the first time I\u2019m seeing parts of it because it\u2019s the \u201cdirector\u2019s cut\u201d which added twenty additional minutes to a movie that was already 161 minutes long.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll dispense with the idea of plot spoilers.\u00a0 The whole movie is the confession by aged composer Antonio Salieri of his \u201cmurder\u201d thirty-some-odd years before of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a man he openly admits produced music of a divine quality.\u00a0 Basically, Salieri sets out to destroy Mozart as a way of taking revenge on God for giving the gift of producing sublime works of musical art to a man he judges to be obscene and undeserving instead of to himself whom he judges to be pious and deserving.<\/p>\n
Over the course of several years, he does everything imaginable to ensure Mozart cannot make enough money to flourish including using his influence with Emperor Joseph II of Austria to discourage any patronage from the nobility.\u00a0 Eventually he discovers that Mozart has a deep-seated neurosis around his father\u2019s dissatisfaction with the way Mozart lived his life and after his father\u2019s death Salieri impersonates Mozart\u2019s father\u2019s ghost by showing up as a masked figure to commission Mozart to compose a requiem mass.\u00a0 Salieri knows that Mozart will assume the mass is for his father and this will further injure his physical and mental health.<\/p>\n
Finally, because of mental stress, malnutrition, alcoholism and probably tuberculosis Mozart collapses during a performance of one of his operas.\u00a0 Salieri takes advantage of Mozart\u2019s wife Constanze\u2019s absence to persuade Mozart to work through the night to try to complete the mass which Salieri hopes to pass off as his own during Mozart\u2019s own funeral as his final insult to God.\u00a0 But Constanze arrives just in time to take away the manuscript from Salieri and mourn for her husband as he expires.<\/p>\n
All of this story is told as a confession by Salieri to a priest who arrives at Salieri\u2019s room in a mental hospital where he was installed after attempting suicide on account of guilt for killing Mozart.\u00a0 But at the end of the film he is unrepentant, insane and declares himself the patron saint of mediocrities, a man whose works of art are completely forgotten by the world, while Mozart\u2019s music continuously grows more and more popular and celebrated over time.<\/p>\n
Basically, this movie is a tour de force by F. Murray Abraham playing Salieri with Tom Hulce as Mozart coming in a close second.\u00a0 But let\u2019s face it.\u00a0 No one is watching a three-hour period piece about Mozart unless he wants to hear the music.\u00a0 Between the actual recordings of his chamber music and generous chunks from several of his operas this is not just a theatrical presentation.\u00a0 It\u2019s a concert too.<\/p>\n
And for that reason, I don\u2019t think I can recommend this movie to anyone who dislikes classical music.\u00a0 I believe it would be painful to watch that much of something that doesn\u2019t appeal to you.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure if even the theatrical release version of the movie at 161 minutes would be short enough for the non-music lover.\u00a0 But for people who don\u2019t mind a little opera sprinkled on their corn flakes this might be a movie to consider.\u00a0 I thought it was pretty good.<\/p>\n