Amadeus

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Amadeus (6-Sep-1984)

From a play by: Peter Shaffer

Name Occupation Birth Death Known for

F. Murray Abraham Actor 24-Oct-1939 Mozart's antagonist in Amadeus

Kenny Baker Actor 24-Aug-1934 The man inside R2D2

Simon Callow Actor 13-Jun-1949 British theatre actor

Christine Ebersole Actor 21-Feb-1953 Rachel Gunn, RN

Tom Hulce Actor 6-Dec-1953 Animal House

Jeffrey Jones Actor 28-Sep-1946 Ferris Bueller's principal

Kenneth McMillan Actor 2-Jul-1932 8-Jan-1989 Baron Vladimir Harkonnen

Cynthia Nixon Actor 9-Apr-1966 Miranda Hobbes on Sex and the City

Vincent Schiavelli Actor 10-Nov-1948 26-Dec-2005 Character actor and cookbook author

REVIEWS

Review by Dan R. VanLandingham (posted on 22-Apr-2008)

I had heard of this movie some 20 years before but never saw it when it came out in 1984.I found it about ten years b- efore at some flea market or thrift store in either Coos Bay or North Bend,Oregon.A few years ago I was in a flea market just a mile south of where I am currently living and found the "Director's Cut" version.This is the version I kept in my col- lection of VHS videotape. This movie was one of the better music bios I've seen th- ough I did find some discrepancies regarding the relationship of Mozart and Antonio Salieri played by F.Murray Abraham. While in high school,my band director Dick Brown told me that Mozart was indeed poisoned according to a book he had in his collection.The death mask shown in the book was supposed to be "proof" of his death.All of the books I've read in the last 40 years point to typhus as being the actual cause.Shades of Peter Tschaikowsky. While watching this movie,Peter Shaffer introduces the viewer to both Mozart and Salieri.Mozart is supposed to be con ducting one of his compositions.Instead,he is chasing some bu- xom around a room.Unbeknownst to him,Salieri is watching the whole affair.You are alluded to this scene from the first where Salieri is confined to a mental instutution.Why a mental instu- tion?He believes that he alone is responsible for Mozart's dea-th.The cause of death being poisoning not Typhus. Salieri,as a young boy growing up in Italy,wants to be a musician.His father(typical of the times)will not hear of it. Salieri prays.One afternoon the Salieris sit down for a meal. Suddenly,Signore Salieri starts to choke on his food.He dies. To the young Antonio Salieri,God has "answered" his fervant prayers and he gets his schooling in music.In an era where musicians were nothing less than chattel(as far as royalty was concerned),he succeeds and winds up as "Court Composer".Salie- ri,unfortunately,was not the calibre of,say,a Johann Sebastian Bach,a Franz Josef Haydn or even a Mozart.Coming away from th- is first meeting,Salieri begins to believe that God "answered" his prayers to be a musician/composer but gives him a smaller measure of talent.He truly believes that Mozart is "God's Ins- rument" and from that moment on,he is hell bent on seeing that Mozart is destroyed.

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