‘Amadeus,’ the tale of a glorious war between composers, turns 40

Milos Forman’s 1984 epic was one of the better Best Picture winners of the 1980s.

Forty years ago this week, Amadeus found an irresistible angle in telling the story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by routing it through the bitter jealousy and hatred of his less-talented rival, Antonio Salieri. And it’s all scored by Mozart’s beautiful compositions. 

Yes, it features Mozart’s music and not Salieri’s, and the movie is named after Mozart and not Salieri. And that’s not a coincidence.

The film uses a framing device in which Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) is near death in a mental hospital and confessing his sins to a priest. When Salieri plays his own music for the priest, he doesn’t recognize it, but he instantly recognizes Mozart’s work. 

 Shot in Prague, though set in Vienna, the story then flashes back to the late 18th century, when Salieri and Mozart (Tom Hulce, from Animal House) were both composers in the court of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I (a pre-arrest Jeffrey Jones). 

Hulce plays Mozart as an immature, drunken party boy, a bit of a proto-punk, whom Salieri can’t believe was blessed with such great talent- which soon boils over into massive bitterness. It leads to Mozart’s death at age 35, which the movie hints, but doesn’t quite establish, was by Salieri’s hand.