Amadeus

Here's a movie I ended up liking a lot more than I thought I would. (Love when that happens.) "Amadeus" was Wolfgang Mozart's middle name, but also translates to "gift from God." In the latter sense, it's an apt title for this film. I'm sure everyone reading this is aware that Mozart was an extremely talented composer from the later half of the 18th century. He was a child prodigy and indisputably a musical super-genius. He could look at a keyboard and just improvise amazing compositions. When writing music, he rarely ever had to scratch anything out of his rough drafts before they were finalized. The movie paints him as somewhat flamboyant and arrogant, but always in an innocent way. Mozart doesn't take pride in being better than every other composer; he just knows that he's better than the rest and refuses to take advice from anyone else. When told to change his music in any way, he shoots down the constructive criticism. "Why change something perfect?" is his rhetorically interrogative logic. It's easy to see how such a talented composer could be both envied and adored by virtually all other composers. And this movie isn't even so much about Mozart himself as it is about one of the other composers of the time and place - Salieri - and his obsession/rivalry/relationship with Mozart. Salieri is a very religious man. When Mozart shows him up in front of the king and all over town, Salieri interprets it as God mocking him for his musical mediocrity. I've always been a fan of good biopics, and even though this one takes place in the lavish and stuffy settings of 18th century music halls where everyone is in a powdered wig, there's a very modern feel to the characters' actions and dialogue that makes this film a lot easier to get through than I initially thought it would be. Here's a three-minute YouTube clip from early on in the film that serves as a great introduction to the entire movie. You see the very orderly Salieri composing a piece, and then giving that piece to the king (yep, the dean from Ferris Bueller) to play. A flamboyant Mozart enters, having never met Salieri or heard the song before, and immediately plays back the song while offering commentary on what parts work and what parts don't, ultimately rewriting the thing right in front of both Salieri and the king, smug as hell but forgivably so due to his apparent immaturity. The rest of the film is more or less the fallout from that crucial first meeting. I enjoyed it, and think you might too.