Over & Overs: Amadeus (1984)
Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 1:30PM ;)
To celebrate the recent centennial of sound mixer turned movie producer Saul Zaentz, I decided to revisit my favorite of his projects, the glorious marvel that is Amadeus (the second of his three Best Picture winners). On paper, the movie may sound like the most airless and insufferable of Oscar champions. It's a musician's biopic, probably my least favorite of prestige subgenres, whose take on history is closer to feverish invention than thoughtful analysis. With a theatrical cut running for nearly three hours, the movie's a behemoth of excess in a decade when the Academy was prone to shower such things with undeserved accolades. Nevertheless, I find myself besotted by Milos Forman's 1984 Best Picture winner, its meditations on mediocrity and spiritual discontentment, its celebration of opera, the lushness of its emotions...