The pure gorgeous villainy of F Murray Abraham once again floods the screen, as saturnine and sulphurous as ever, in this new rerelease of Amadeus in its original 1984 theatrical cut. It was adapted by Peter Shaffer from his stage-play about the two real-life composers, one a genius, one a nonentity, and directed by the great Czech film-maker Miloš Forman – his English-language masterpiece, or maybe his masterpiece full stop.
Abraham was in his mid-40s when he played this Oscar-winning role; when I first saw it, I thought he would surely dominate the movies for decades to come, no doubt in classical adaptations in which he would be a superlative Iago or Faustus. For some reason, he never again got a starring role to match this, but he did have a terrific scene-stealer in season two of TV’s The White Lotus, in which he did not seem one day older than in this film.
Abraham’s Antonio Salieri is the court composer of middling saccharine tunes in 18th-century Vienna whose leisured classes gobble his facile work like the chocolate treats he serves to people he wants to seduce. His career and terrible fate are recounted to a solemn priest by the aged Salieri in flashback; he was initially complacently content to regard his success as a reward from God for his bland religious conformity. But Salieri is an envious, malicious mediocrity and hypocritical time-server, corrosively obsessed by the obvious superiority of the gloriously gifted but ill-mannered newcomer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, played here with many a nitrogen giggle by Tom Hulce.
The word “mesmeric” is overused, largely by virtue of being a notorious critics’ euphemism for arthouse films they secretly find dull – but Amadeus really is mesmeric (as well as deliciously exciting) and watching it again I went into exactly the trance I experienced the first time. Abraham’s Salieri, for all his loathing and rage, is Mozart’s sincerest admirer, electrified and dismayed by the brilliance which has effaced his own forgettable efforts. His face is a picture of elaborate courtesy and evil cunning as he pretends to be Mozart’s friend at court.
There are so many superb set-pieces in Amadeus that picking out any individually is almost impossible, but for me the best is Mozart’s first maladroit and nervous arrival in the emperor’s presence. Drama school students should study Abraham’s lizardly contempt which pours out of every frame.
