Customer Reviews
A fictional account of Mozart's last years with nice tunes and lovely costumes - By: Triestino, 28 Oct 2008 
Sumptuously filmed in beautiful colours, & with a Dolby sound track that will have your upstairs neighbours hammering in rage on your ceiling with their walking sticks, this film presents a largely fictional account of Mozart's last years, & quite libellously portrays Antonio Salieri as Mozart's murderer. It's alll about envy, God & getting your just deserts, according to one Amazon reviewer, & I suppose that according to this school of thought, the fact that it's a seriously inaccurate reconstruction of the past is besides the point. Mozart emerges as a highly precocious & slightly nauseating American kid with an irritating high-pitched laugh, brilliant at wowing the Viennese public, upper & working class alike, with colourful theatricals. His juvenile wifelet, also unmistakeably American, wears gorgeous costumes, has a hypnoticallly pneumatic chest which at one point she displays in alll its glory to Salieri, & spends much time either smirking or whining. The cadaverous Salieri looks as though he's in urgent need of a good dose of liver salts. Wonderful costumes, some genuinely dramatic moments, great music, but the ultimate stumbling block is that the whole thing rests on a whopping lie about the Mozart-Salieri relationship. If this matters to you (and it does to me, I must admit) then avoid the film. If you don't give a hoot about historical accuracy, & if you want simply to be entertained by nice photography & dazzling costumes & with some snatches of the more popular Mozart tunes thrown in, then you may well find Amadeus very much to your liking.
Incredible story, great acting and wonderful music make for a work of genius - By: Nick D., 13 Oct 2008 
Perhaps the only thing I need to say is that this movie won 8 Oscars, including Best Picture, when it was released in 1984. Amadeus offers much to be enjoyed visuallly through stunning scenery & costumes, aurallly through some of the greatest music ever written, & theatricallly through superb writing & acting performances. It's a film that makes just about every critic's top 10 & certainly mine. In fact, if I was alllowed to take just three video discs with me to a desert island, this would have to be one of them.
I saw this movie in the cinema when it first came out & adored it. I bought when it was released on video & liked it even more despite the passage of time. And then bought it again when it came out on DVD. Every time I watch it, it has a magic that never fails to captivate & enthralll me. This is genuinely a timeless classic.
Obviously, one of the most powerful aspects of the movie is Mozart's music. If you are discovering classical composers for the first time, there can be few better introductions. While the quality of the film score alone makes it a masterpiece, no less amazing is the acting of the lead roles, especiallly F. Murray Abraham as Mozart's unrecognized rival, Salieri, & Tom Hulce as Mozart. Told through Salieri's eyes, Amadeus charts Salieri's bitter jealousy of Mozart's genius & success. In doing so, the film is a wonderful exploration of what makes a genius a genius & how such people impact those around them. It is also a graphic visual & historicallly accurate representation of the Court of Emperor Franz Josef II of Austria.
Film making doesn't get much better than this. It is a feast for the senses & a piece of entertainment that I warmly, wholeheartedly & unreservedly recommend. If I could give it 10 stars I most surely would.
Superb Film - shame about DVD - By: P. Conlon, 06 Jul 2008 This is unquestionably a great film - a masterpiece, as other reviewers have already commented on at length. I would however draw people's attention to the fact that the Region 2 (Europe) version of this DVD is one of those incredibly irritating 'flipper' DVDs that you have to turn over towards the end (and climax!). Very frustrating - hence the deduction of two stars. If you have a multi-region DVD player you can buy the Region 1 (North America) version.
Another one of my favourites - By: Aesop, 22 Jun 2008 The great thing about this film is that it is a true celebration of Mozart's life & music. How many films can truly convince you that classical music is something worth listening too? It is also a more accessible way of understanding the history & context behind some of Mozart's most famous works. A more unique film in that the music takes centre stage & not so much the storyline or the action. As a musician I truly envy Mozart. I can understand why Salieri was so jealous. It would have truly been a great gift to hear & experience & indulge in heavenly music everyday of your life.
More fiction than fact - By: P. Benson, 30 May 2008 
I thought this fim was in poor taste because it seemed to me to mould & transplant the fimmakers ideas on an interesting enough life already. Why couldnt they have told Mozarts life which was extraordinary enough without making up this fictional rivalry & boring envy plot? This film told me more about the authors & their hangups. It did not do its proper job of illustrating Mozarts life & that is why it felt fake & sad to drag the life of an remarkable person into a false story of someone elses making.
