Review of Amadeus (1984) by Nick O — 18 Sep 2010

An articulate opus. The length, performances, the madness shriek interpretation. Director Milos Forman's "Amadeus" is a chronicle of a generation, or what's at least left of it. We're thrown immediately into a rivalry between Wolfgang Mozart and Antoni Salieri, composers out for blood to use as sheet ink. By its third hour "Amadeus" stops being very good and drops the concept of sanity into the mix.

You're not watching life or death on screen, what its runtime would imply, but a mental battle so breaking, yet kept in the dark. "Amadeus" brings its audience to the grave, never becoming a woeful series but an angrily comedic portrayal of a story spoken from our narrator's mouth, and not the eyes he's become slave to see his personal destruction through.