Amadeus - The Director's Cut

After a failed suicide attempt, the aged and forgotten composer Salieri must see the confessor. Realising the young priest has no idea who he is, that he was once composer to the Emperor Joseph II, but recognises the Mozart piece he plays, Salieri proceeds to tell the priest how he brought about Mozart's downfall in order to spite God.

While Mozart's father encouraged – and exploited – his son's musical genius, Salieri father showed scant interest in his son's musical aspirations.

Interpreting his father's death as divine providence, the young Salieri resolved to devote his life to glorying God through his music.

Hearing divine inspiration in Mozart's music, Salieri questions why the impious Mozart has been rewarded and he – "a good man" – rejected. Then, after Mozart has not only insulted him socially and musically but also taken his mistress, Salieri resolves to destroy the man he regards as God's composer.

Amadeus is a damn fine film. Milos Foreman's direction is assured without being showy, Peter Schaffer's adaptation of his own play for the screen sharply written and fully aware of the possibilities of the medium. The performances vary between the good and the great, with F Murray Abraham utterly brilliant as the cynical, bitter, Iago-like Salieri. The production design and costuming are attractive and full of period detail. Last, but certainly not least, the music is simply sublime.

All these elements come together as spectacular cinema. The effect of placing opera, music, theatre and more under the over-arching roof of cinema is not so much Mozartian as Wagnerian – Amadeus is perhaps the closest popular cinema has got to the unattainable ideal of the "total art work".

The only flaw, as far as I am concerned, is the way Amadeus presents its titular character. He remains unknowable, his genius inexplicable. Perhaps this is the point, but if so it's a somewhat facile one. Elsewhere, Schaffer remarks that Mozart "had a very canny sense of reality". Alas, it doesn't come across on screen. Here Mozart is utterly naive, insensitive and largely devoid of commonsense.

But if one takes the film as a superb piece of cinema in which historical veracity and character psychology are always going to be subordinate to the needs of compelling drama, this doesn't matter.

Warner's Region one DVD is presented in 2.35:1 letterboxed format and is enhanced for widescreen televisions. It looks good, with well-defined, sharp bright colours and solid blacks, fulfilling Foreman's demand of his cinematographers that "black is really black [and] human flesh is human flesh." No scratches or damage are evident.

Audio is, if anything, even better. Presented in a choice of 2.0 and 5.1 Dolby Digital, its clarity is remarkable, letting the full range of the music shine through.

The extras are split across two discs. Disc one contains a full length commentary track, disc two an new hour long documentary.

The commentary from Foreman and Schaffer is interesting and informative. Amusing anecdotes about the trials and tribulations of the production – especially of the difficulties of shooting in Communist-controlled Prague – intermingle with solid insights into the craft of the writer and the director. Schaffer draws attention to the differences between the stage and screen, pointing out sequences that are purely cinematic, while Foreman emphasises the small, near subliminal details that make all the difference.

Both men are also surprisingly critical of the film, highlighting moments that they feel do not work as well as they might or which they would do differently given the chance.

The making of documentary is good, as these things go. The problem is there is too much overlap with Foreman and Schaffer's commentary: We hear of run-ins with the authorities; problems with the weather; the actress originally cast as Constanze sustaining an injury and having to drop out of the production days before shooting commenced, and more.

On the plus side there are also contributions from F Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Jeffrey Jones and others.

Other extras include the original theatrical trailer, filmographies of Foreman, Schaffer, Abraham, Hulce and producer Zaenetz – the brevity of which feels somewhat desultory given the obvious effort that has gone into the rest of the package – and a long listing of the various awards Amadeus scooped.

All in all, Amadeus looks and sounds great and is nicely rounded out by some quality extras. Recommended.