Amadeus, Milos Forman (U.S., 1984)
- When
- Sat Apr 5, 2014
- Where
- Pacific Film Archive (PFA) Theater
- Time
- 5:00 PM
- Cost
- $5.50 - $9.50
- Tags
- Movies, Film Screenings
Description
BAM/PFA Collection PrintDirector ’s Cut!
Academy awards for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Screenplay, and Sound Design
Introduction/Paul Zaentz
Paul Zaentz, Saul Zaentz’s nephew, is a film producer
Peter Shaffer rewrote history in his “black opera” Amadeus, then rewrote the play for Forman’s color extravaganza. It takes the form of a confession, thirty-two years after Mozart’s death, by his supposed murderer, Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), a mediocre composer who alone perceived the sublime genius of Mozart’s music. Seen through Salieri’s eyes, Tom Hulce’s Mozart never veers from a cartoon portrayal of the “obscene child”; he is indeed an unlikely if not unworthy vessel of divine inspiration, yet paradoxically, one whose talent could only be explained by divine intervention. Forman returned to his native Czechoslovakia to film Amadeus amid the still glorious eighteenth-century architecture of Prague.
—Steve Seid
• Written by Peter Shaffer, based on his play. Photographed by Miroslav Ondricek. With F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Simon Callow. (180 mins, Color, ’Scope, 35mm, BAM/PFA Collection)
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