Amadeus is one of those perfect films that keeps getting rediscovered by every new generation; the Mozart-centered biopic won eight Academy Awards and has lost very few fans since, withstanding minor controversies with its depictions and content. Regardless of your take, Amadeus represents the pinnacle of dramatizing music history in film, and its influences extend to nearly every future movie in its genre. Here are some reminders as to why you should revisit Amadeus tonight.
Amadeus Synopsis
Amadeus tells the story of essential Classical-era figurehead Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose innovations in the genres of opera, symphony, and chamber music wrote the blueprint for how to be a standout composer. His odd manner and early death made him the stuff of legends, and his tale manifests through the eyes of Antonio Salieri, a peer composer extremely jealous of Mozart’s effortless genius.
The Fun Take on Musician History in Amadeus
Before Amadeus arrived in theaters in the fall of 1984, it had no precedent; no non-contemporary music biopic contained everything that this instantly engrossing film had (the bizarre 1975 fantasy Lisztomania does not count). Audiences had seen Woody Guthrie, Buddy Holly, and Loretta Lynn (the last far from dead) immortalized over the previous ten years, and many also caught the quick turnaround for Elvis Presley’s life on TV screens as portrayed by Kurt Russell. Despite their perfect timing in revisiting these artists’ stories, none matched the smashing success and quality found in Amadeus.
In the localized category of music history dramas, these films leading to Amadeus had common flaws: each was an exaggerated familiar tale that either over-glamorized the subject’s life or humanized through oversimplification. They were well-received, sure, but audiences of both college-educated and working-class had fun at Amadeus, relishing the drama that director Miloš Forman and playwright Peter Shaffer embedded into every frame and scene. The casting was sublime, with F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce receiving numerous accolades, turning this figure that everyone recognized into a larger-than-life human, not without many flaws but with a story worthy of legend.
Tom Hulce in ‘Amadeus’
History-Based, Not Historical Filmmaking
The ironic part of this scenario is that Amadeus is almost entirely a work of fiction. Based on a 19th-century play adapted into an opera and then finally reworked for the stage by Shaffer, very little historical evidence supports the events of Amadeus, and nearly all but the music history equivalent of conspiracy theorists agree that the story is only a history-based myth. Forman and Shaffer knew this from the get-go, using the fiction as a dramatically entertaining jumping-off point and exploring Mozart’s genius through its inherently paradoxical lens. Why spend so much time mining for realism with no concrete confirmations when you can craft a more significant ethos through artful speculations?
Though some films like Walk the Line, Love & Mercy, and Control found audiences through painfully honest portrayals of their musical subjects, more successful films like Bohemian Rhapsody, Straight Outta Compton, and the recent Chevalier followed the Amadeus method, weaving in dramatic fiction and half-truths to entertain with sometimes frustrating results, regardless of their importance or entertainment value. Fictionalizing the lives of famous people, Amadeus fits most comfortably in a troublesome category that also features The Favourite, Spencer, and Blonde. The recency bias that drove viewers to offense in the last two mentioned films does not touch the first two; these stories are far too old and entertaining for most audiences to care about their misrepresentations of historical figures.
The Immortal Legacy of Mozart and Amadeus
Nearly 40 years old, this top-tier piece of art has its fair share of acclaim as an essential movie of the second half of film history. Forman released the director’s cut after the initial release; it has numerous high-quality physical editions on the market; the National Film Registry preserved it almost five years ago. The game-changing film proved that music history dramas could achieve entertainment value, critical attention, awards, and immortality without reading like a textbook. After all, the myth of Mozart is an invaluable piece of what made him famous, not his pieces alone. Forman’s depiction of Shaffer’s play is far from an appropriating cheap thrill; it is an examination of why we are so obsessed with mythology and storytelling in the first place.
Amadeus is streaming now on Prime Video.