If you missed my first post where I explain what this is and how I’m scoring things, here you go.
Most of you reading this probably don’t care about me keeping to my schedule, or how quickly I write about the movies I watch. The thing is, I really have been trying to watch and write about one movie per week. This seemed like a manageable goal, given that writing this isn’t my full time occupation, and that there are other things in life that come up and take up my time. Sometimes, sure, I get busy and cannot find the time to either watch or write about whatever the next movie on the AFI Top 100 list is, so it’ll take me a couple weeks to get it done. Other times I’ve been traveling and just giving myself a break from writing.
Neither of those is the case this time.
One of the many great things about film as a medium is that if you see a movie that you aren’t really into, it was only really a waste of a couple hours of your time. Nobody will tell you that “it gets better in the second season” or that “you just have to get like 100 pages in before it gets good.” If a movie never “gets good” that’s fine. Usually when this happens, my dad and I will turn to each other and comment something about “never getting those 2 hours back” and we move on with our lives without really ever thinking about the movie ever again. I love that about films. It’s just so easy to never think about them again if they don’t deserve your thought.
That is, unless you’ve committed to writing about all one hundred movies on a list, then you can’t just go on with your life.
This project has shown me that it’s really easy to write about movies I liked, and probably even easier to write about ones that I hated. The worst sin a movie I have to write about can commit is to make me feel complete indifference about it.
And that’s exactly how I feel towards Amadeus.
I wanted absolutely nothing more than to be able to say at the end of Amadeus, “well, I’ll never get those three hours back,” and to move on with my life, but here I am.
I guess I should give it some scores now:
Entertainment Value- 1/2
If you, like me, were born after 1984, or are just unfamiliar with the concept of this film for other reasons, Amadeus refers to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the 18th century composer. This is a movie about the life of Mozart, told through the eyes of Italian composer Antonio Salieri. Instinct wanted me to refer to this as a biopic, but I’m pretty positive it’s as much fiction as it is a biography of Mozart. Since the story is about Salieri and Mozart’s (fictional) rivalry, through the eyes of Salieri, we have a definite unreliable narrator situation going on, so the character of Mozart is, well, annoying. His laugh is annoying, his behavior is annoying, but neither are annoying enough to make me angry, which would make writing this so much easier. Obviously, Mozart’s music is just a part of our lives now, so hearing it and seeing his process for writing it should’ve been interesting, but it really did nothing for me.
The only funny thing I have to say about this movie is that I fell asleep at one point watching it and when I woke up, rather than rewinding to find where I should start over, I just read the plot synopsis and when I realized I had only slept through one sentence, I just hit play and kept going.
Correctness- 1/2
If there were people of color or women whose purpose was anything other than to provide fuel to the rivalry between the two white guys, I don’t remember them.
Influence- 1/2
This movie was highly praised by Roger Ebert for how it was able to loosely base the plot on reality but still come up with something new and creative, so I guess for that I’ll throw it a point here.
“Rewatchability”- 0/2
No.
Technical Score- 2/2
This movie absolutely dominated at the Academy Awards, winning eight of them, including Best Picture, Best Director for Milos Forman, and Best Actor for F. Murray Abraham’s portrayal of Salieri.
Overall- 5/10
Finally, I can go on with my life. I’ll never get those three hours back.
You can watch Amadeus. It exists.
Hasta luego,
Josh
Up Next: #52 From Here to Eternity