Academy Awards 1984 -
Best Actor: F. Murray Abraham
Academy Awards 1984 -
Best Adapted Screenplay: Peter Shaffer
Academy Awards 1984 -
Best Art Direction - Set Decoration
Academy Awards 1984 -
Best Costume Design
Academy Awards 1984 -
Best Director: Milos Forman
Academy Awards 1984 -
Best Makeup: Dick Smith
Academy Awards 1984 -
Best Picture
Academy Awards 1984 -
Best Sound
Entertainment Reviews:
Sight and Sound - 03/01/1985
"...An unexpected and strangely moving spectacle..."
New York Times - 09/19/1984
"...[Hulce] gets better and better....[Forman] has preserved the fascinating heart of [the play]....Well done."
Variety - 09/05/1984
"...AMADEUS is loaded with pleasures....[Abraham] is quietly excellent..."
Total Film - 07/01/2000
"...Milos Forman's opulent drama is sheer quality..."
Uncut - 08/01/2000
"A class act."
Product Description:
In a lavish 18th century parlor in Austria, an elderly man is found, by his servant, with his throat slashed. The wound is self-inflicted, and the man is the little-known composer Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), contemporary and adversary of the now-famed, but once reviled, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce). Later, from his cell in an insane asylum, Salieri tells a priest (Herman Meckler) the story of his association with Mozart, confessing that he actually killed the brilliantly gifted but troubled young man. Based on the award-winning play by Peter Shaffer, Milos Forman's riveting, brilliant, Oscar-winning AMADEUS is a fictionalized account of the real-life mysterious death of Mozart. Abraham, in the role that won him the Best Actor Oscar, is the celebrated court composer to Joseph II (Jeffrey Jones)--his confidence and religious dedication shaken when he meets the boorish 26-year-old Mozart as he chases his future wife (Elizabeth Berridge) around a party while making obscene remarks. Furious that this clownish boy can produce such beautiful music, Salieri determines to keep Mozart's talent from lasting recognition and sets himself on a course for Mozart's destruction that leads to his own as well. Mozart continues to mount beautiful, moving operas (incredibly staged in the film), but becomes obsessed with writing a Requiem as his friends, family, health, and resources waste away, Salieri's manipulating presence always there. It is hard to imagine anyone--whether they are knowledgeable about classical music or not--who would not be held captive by this superb feast for the eyes and ears, a film whose excellence can be felt in every detail.
Plot Keywords:
Achievers |
Character Study |
Classic |
Classical Music |
Essential Cinema |
Period Piece |
Recommended |
Rivalry |
Theatrical Release |
Tragedy
Production Notes:
Shot on location in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
AMADEUS is number 53 on the American Film Institute's list of America's 100 Greatest Movies.
The opera sets were designed by Josef Svoboda.
The staging of DON GIOVANNI in the film was shot at the Tyl Theater, the actual site where Mozart conducted the opera's premiere some 200 years earlier.
Film Collectors & Archivists: Alpha Video is actively looking for rare and
unusual pre-1943 motion pictures, in good condition, from Monogram, PRC,
Tiffany, Chesterfield, and other independent studios for release on DVD. We
are also interested in TV shows from the early 1950s. Share your passion
for films with a large audience.
Let us know what you have.
Based on 
![Judgment at Nuremberg (Widescreen) [Thinpak]](http://d3dvedx3sqrauf.cloudfront.net/i/boxart/mid/a-z/lm3d.jpg?v=2 "Judgment at Nuremberg (Widescreen) [Thinpak]")
