Amadeus (1984, Forman)
My story with Amadeus began, as I'm sure it often does, with my grandfather. My grandpa always liked movies, but demonstrated a particular inclination following my grandma's death: he would invite me over to watch classics like The Godfather and Gladiator or catch new releases that still yielded value for octogenarians like 42 and Les Miserables[1]. Amadeus was among these classics, and I fell in love; it's the rare movie that makes its audience both feel smarter and have fun. We get to traipse around a decadently rendered Vienna, listen to an all killer no filler soundtrack, and revel in a delicious rivalry between two richly drawn characters. It's not unlike a sports movie, it's so propulsive.
We watched it on the widely-circulated Director's Cut DVD, and at the time I most gravitated toward the cartoon box art and Salieri's pronouncement of absolution at its very end: "I'm the patron saint of mediocrity. I absolve you, I absolve you!" Just electric, albeit kneecapped by the DC's brutal length. It opened me up to an appreciation of classical music and Forman as a director--I would not long after enjoy, and be extraordinarily influenced by, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest with my other grandpa--but other than feeling a vague residual warmth toward it, I more or less dropped it as I moved on to more elevated fare. All the while, the overlong director's cut remained the only version of the movie available on home video.
Many years and many mutations later, the soundtrack was all I really carried with me (although I did hold it dear). Film Forum hosted a retrospective of Forman's work, and a dear friend invited me to join him for a showing of Amadeus. We were treated to a one-time only screening of Amadeus on a beat-to-shit 35mm film print of the theatrical cut, luminous in spite of its egregious physical state. Paul Zaentz[2] gave a wide-ranging introduction, of which I remember very little outside of his enthusiasm for both the film and Forman's method. He applauded Forman's Czech approach to directing--ornate yet no-nonsense. (The Czech Republic is a Central European country, after all.) He regaled us with colorful anecdotes which ultimately faded in the shadow of the enormous movie we were about to watch. And I left perfectly satisfied, if slightly cold by the unwarranted and unfair comparison to Barry Lyndon I drew in my head. I realize now that there are aesthetic parallels, yes, but also that they aren't really playing the same game.* Barry Lyndon* is about the cosmic joke of class, and Amadeus is about a competition between two artists. It was my problem, not the movie's.
I do remember one thing, vividly, from Zaentz's intro: the restoration of the theatrical cut was coming, and soon. He insisted it would be done in time for the film's 40th anniversary[2:1], and a subsequent home video release would follow, relegating the superfluous Director's Cut to its rightful place in the refuse bin of time.
He was right. It's 2024, and here it is, emerging in a precarious moment for film restoration; a moment in which movies may be unjustly put under the knife of machine-learning manipulation. I can enthusiastically report, thank God, that our restoration artists succeeded at the one job they had to do--make the movie look and sound like the original theatrical release. No bells and whistles, no bullshit, just a nice clean-up of a well-deserving picture.
And but so, how is the movie? How does it hold up? Mighty well. I had a fantasy walking out of it: what if Amadeus does so spectacularly well in its limited re-release that it has to start playing multiplexes, and even there, with six showings a day, it's all sold out, and it plays in IMAX, and Amadeus fever sweeps the nation, and we have a major reckoning with the state of the art of motion pictures?
Alas, I'll happily take a 9PM screening at the IFC Center with my beloved. The music and editing are as seductive as ever; the costumes and production design as flamboyant; the performances as layered and witty; and, at 161 minutes, svelte compared to its lumbering counterpart. There is one scene, however--the first at the vaudeville--which goes on for way too long and totally kills the momentum of the movie. I'm shocked such a withering digression remained in the theatrical cut. For a movie hellbent on making this kind of thing entertaining, it's ruthlessly boring. Maybe there's something it's saying about entertainment outside of the courts of power--aside from its obvious vulgarity--but I believe it was just a misstep.
I found one major surprise on this viewing, one that will remain with me through every subsequent one: Mozart is not Salieri's antagonist, God is. The movie actually makes this very obvious, going as far as having Salieri throw a crucifix in a fire, but I ignored it until now. This invites a new reading for me: during a period in American history which emphasized Christian values--Reagan was about to be re-elected in a total landslide--the movie that would go on to win Best Picture spits in God's face. Noteworthy, too, that Forman's motherland of (then-called) Czechoslovakia was a Communist country, and as such defiantly atheistic.
Amadeus is a great film, one that makes accessible the seemingly airless and remote worlds of classical music and 18th century history. I consider it essential, and this new restoration will cement its legacy. I'm sorry my grandpa won't get a chance to see it, but I'm forever grateful he opened the door for me to share it with loved ones of my own.
