Amadeus 1984

The Film:

It's our second Milos Forman film - and the first one (Cuckoo's Nest) is such a triumph that this is going to find it hard to match up to it. Thankfully, it is a very different film - set in a different time, filmed in a different way and with a very different focus (from what I remember - it's been a while since I saw it!)

I am looking forward to seeing it again after all this time. There's very little that I remember about it, except the music (obviously) and the general feel of the film. One of Andy's often-uttered quotes is "don't trust him, he killed Mozart" - which apparently is from Last Action Hero! - and he does seem to have a bit of a thing about F Murray Abraham as Salieri, so I'm intrigued to see that again.

But I know I'm going to get slightly disappointed when, even though our hero is sporting a suitably punk-y wig, he doesn't end up rapping in German!

The Ceremony:

March 25th 1985 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Hosted by Jack Lemmon and running slightly shorter than last year, at 3 hours and 10 minutes. There is much of note in terms of who actually won the awards - see below. In terms of the ceremony itself, probably the most notable thing is a (relatively slight) gaffe in announcing the winner. Sir Laurence Olivier got a bit ahead of himself and tore open the envelope to declare the winner without mentioning the nominees. Winning producer Saul Zaentz showed what a class act he is by making sure he mentioned every other nominee in his speech! Here's the opening of the ceremony:

Other Notable Winners That Night:

They liked her - right then, they liked her!

Most of the awards went to Amadeus, including Best Actor for F Murray Abraham (although Tom Hulce was also nominated in the same category). The Best Actress winner, Sally Field, delivered one of the most famous acceptance speeches with the line "this time I feel it and I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now you like me!"

The Best Supporting Actor was Haing S Ngor, a Cambodian surgeon, who won for The Killing Fields, despite not being a professional actor (only the second to do so, after Harold Russell). Best Supporting Actress was Peggy Ashcroft for A Passage to India - at 77, the oldest winner in that category.

It was also the first time that more than one Black performer would win an Oscar in the same year. Prince won Best Song Score and Stevie Wonder won Best Song.

Best Documentary Feature went to one of my favourite documentaries - The Times of Harvey Milk. The story of Harvey Milk has since been made into an Oscar-winning film in itself. Both films are excellent - but this one is more impressive, partly because of the timing of its release, only six years after Milk's death and at a time when LGBT-themed stories were far more controversial than they are today.



Best Song:

For the first time in Oscar history, every one of the Best Song nominees went to Number One in the US Charts. The other four were - Against All Odds, Footloose, Let's Hear It For The Boy and Ghostbusters. But it was Stevie Wonder's year to win an Oscar (to go with his 25 Grammys!) for possibly his least impressive song (imho) "I Just Called To Say I Love You". I love Stevie more than all the other four artists put together, but I'd have given it to Phil Collins this time (I was obsessed with that song!)

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Mrs Moore! Mrs Moore! Mrs Moore!

The other nominees were all big, serious, sweeping dramas - A Soldier's Story and Places in the Heart (neither of which I've seen), The Killing Fields (impressive, admirable but not enjoyable) and A Passage to India.

I loved A Passage to India when I saw it. It's been a while and I need to see it again. It was David Lean's last film and I think it's one of his best. Very serious subject matter, but with lovely humour. I think I'd rather be watching this than Amadeus - but it's very close between the two.

Our Verdict:

"Now, remember, pizzicato - oh, oh, oh, A-MA-DE-US"

It's a really odd film, this one. I like it a lot and appreciate it objectively even more than I like it. It is a very good film and deserved its accolades. But it is also very odd - which makes it surprising that it did so well with a relatively large and diverse audience.

After nearly three hours of it,
I can practically hear this picture!

The story includes many familiar elements. On one level it is a bio-pic of Amadeus himself, following him from his early days in court through to his death. On a slightly deeper level, it's actually not the life story of Amadeus at all, but rather that of his rival Salieri who is narrating the story from his deathbed. Ultimately, it is the story of the rivalry between the two (most of which is of Salieri's making) and the jealousy that drove Salieri to different levels of madness and evil-doing.

The first half hour or so really worried me. Amadeus is shown being uncouth and bawdy in the palaces of Vienna and his hideous signature laugh (which I did grow to love, sort of!), coupled with random belching, made me put up all my "not-my-sort-of-thing" barriers. It started to play out like parts of Tom Jones (which is still very high up on my "worst winners" list) and I was struggling to work out what I had liked about this film first time round.

More brocade and breeches than you can shake a stick at!

However, that soon faded as the story kicked in and completely won me over. One of the best things about the film is the slightly quirky nature of the characters and settings - including Amadeus himself, giggling fright-wigs and all. One one hand it is very much a classic costume drama. The sets and costumes are lavish and sumptuous and - as far as I am aware - fairly accurate. There are bewigged gentlemen dripping with brocade all over the place - but they don't speak in cut-glass RP and the women don't say "indeed" all the time. It's far more earthy than that - and all the better for it. You can tell that Milos Forman is taking everything incredibly seriously, including the importance of not portraying everyone too seriously (if that's not a contradiction...). It's unusual, but compelling - and it works. (At the time of writing I've not yet seen this year's awards tip "The Favourite" - but reviews and discussions with others give me the sense that it owes a fair bit to comic side of Amadeus).

Don't trust him......

Ultimately, this film is a drama rather than a comedy - and the main reason it succeeds so well is the performance of the two leads. They are two very different characters and both actors act their socks off in very different ways. It's a shame that neither of them could have been sold to the Oscars as a supporting character. They are both leading performances, so only one of them could win. (It would have been brilliant if there had been a tie this year!). Tom Hulce is great in a part that could so easily have been over- or under-acted. He strikes the balance between manic and tragic really well - as with the whole film, it's odd but it works. The Oscar went to F Murray Abraham as Salieri who is brilliantly villainous. He manages to be both subtle and subtle-as-a-brick, sympathetic and completely unsympathetic, incredibly measured and completely unhinged - and sometimes all at the same time. One of the greatest characters we've seen so far in this challenge, and one of the greatest performances as well.