Amadeus deservedly dominated the Oscars in 1984 (winning eight) and thrust Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart into the consciousness of the American public, making it hip to love classical music for a few years. Articles about raising intelligence by listening to Mozart made their way into pop culture and teen headbangers actually began purchasing classical music (as long as Mozart numbers from Amadeus were included). Such is the power of the greatest film about classical music ever made. Although the music forms the central core, director Milos Forman humanizes Mozart's genius, portraying him as a vulgar skirt chaser with an infectious high-pitched giggle.

The film contrasts genius with the more ordinary Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), whose major gift is a supreme love of music and the ability to recognize musical greatness, even when it doesn't come from within. And that's the rub: Most of us can relate to Salieri, who claims to be the patron saint of mediocrity. We've all loved baseball or some other avocation and longed to participate as a professional, yet most of us are eternally relegated to company softball leagues. I've played tournament chess (another area well known for child prodigies) and can recognize the beauty and power that chess geniuses like Kasparov and Karpov display, but could no more play at their level than compose an opera. In a sense, therefore, most of us are "Salieri."

Salieri goes beyond mere appreciation and normal jealousy by actively campaigning against Mozart (Tom Hulce), and he holds a position in Vienna (the city of composers) that makes his plotting rpossible. He's the court composer, one who has the ear of Emperor Joseph II (Jeffrey Jones), another music lover who hasn't a much real talent. Musical innovations exhaust his royal ear, and Mozart's ingenious compositions simply have "too many notes" to hold his attention for an entire evening.

Milos Forman has re-cut his original masterpiece and fashioned a Director's Cut, now beginning to appear in theaters and soon available on DVD. Some will feel that the original version was perfect and that the new version has "too many notes," while others will enthusiastically praise the additional twenty minutes. The truth lies in between; additional scenes that demonstrate Salieri's treachery contribute greatly to the drama—Constanze Mozart (Elizabeth Berridge) baring her bosom after-hours and Salieri confiding false lechery rumors to the Emperor to void Mozart's chances of getting students. Other scenes, like the dressing room encounter with opera diva Katerina Cavalieri (Christine Ebersole) and Mozart's two scenes with the rich dog-loving patrons are superfluous, better suited for deleted scenes on the upcoming DVD. One doesn't even use the same film stock, and appears more like a rehearsal take, since Mozart appears with reddish brown hair for the only time in the film.

Overall, however, the added scenes add substance to the film, explaining Mozart's inability to find employment in Vienna, Constanze's extreme contempt for Salieri, and emphasizing Salieri's sworn allegiance to chastity in exchange for musical gifts. Thus, sexual frustrations add to the theme; Salieri has given up earthly pleasures in exchange for spiritual and creative powers that he will never be granted. Instead, he will see his temporary status as the most popular musical composer in Vienna diminish during his lifetime, until his music becomes virtually extinct—just as Mozart's music rises in prominence after his death. Adding to Salieri's torture is his obsessive conviction that he is responsible for Mozart's death. As he swears in his conversation with God before burning a crucifix:

From now on we are enemies, you and I. Because you choose for your instrument a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy and give me only the ability to recognize the incarnation. Because you are unjust, unfair, unkind I will block you, I swear it. I will hinder and harm your creature on Earth as far as I am able. I will ruin your incarnation.