Amadeus -- Director's Cut 2-Disc Special Edition [DVD] [1985]

"Amadeus", was a great success on stage prior to becoming a film that garnered 8 Academy Awards, together with dozens of other international honors. This director's cut version of the film not only adds 20 minutes to bring this exceptional film to 3 hours, it also has created a spectacular new digital transfer, and most interestingly a new film.

Many special editions and director's cut offerings are little more than the addition of scenes that were dumped prior to the film's original release, and rarely have any fundamental impact on the story that is told. Fully one third of all the chapters in this film have new footage, and the changes have a very real impact on the film. Most of the new exposition is about Salieri and it makes him a much darker character, this Salieri is much more than a jealous admirer of Mozart. This man makes demands of persons and actively intervenes much more in the professional destruction of Mozart in Vienna.

One of the film's mysteries for me was why Mozart's wife held such hatred for Salieri at the close of the film. This question is answered, and it again makes for a major change in how you will view Constanze. And of course more insight is given to Mozart as well. If you are a devotee of the original film you may have trouble warming to this version, you may even be well advised to avoid it. For once you see this film you will never be able to watch the shorter version and confine your thoughts to what they were prior to seeing the additional 20 minutes of film.

There is a second disc that includes extended interviews with Milos Forman, Peter Shaffer, and many of the main characters. An interesting aspect that is shared is that this entire film was shot behind the Iron Curtain of the USSR when it was still the nemesis of The United States. The difficulties in filming in Prague were countless, and even fascinating, as the director, Milos Forman was returning to his homeland as a self-described traitor who had previously left.

I have always felt, "Amadeus", is one of the finest films ever produced, and at first I did not care for some of the additional expository material. Now that I have seen it and thought about it a bit, this version really is the complete film, and even if I were to watch the original, I believe I would enjoy it as much, or possibly even more.

This film is definitely one of my favourites films. The fact it won 8 oscars underlines just how amazing the film is - the story,the acting, the editing and the music are extraordinary.

However I gave this 3 stars (and not 6!) simply because the video quality struck me as very lucklustre very quickly. I currently own the directors's cut DVD and to me the difference in quality throughout the film was only marginal. The majority of the transfer definitely showed a deeper range of colour and less signs of video compression. However it just isn't enough to warrant a release on blu ray. Indeed some scenes looked pretty much the same as my DVD, particularly the opening scene. And I'm in the group of people trying to persuade others how good blu ray is.

I mean if you look at how they have restored the Bond films from the 60s, this "upgrade" might well be seen as a rip off. I remember some of the scenes in Dr. No looked spectacular - as if they had been filmed yesterday with bitrates often above 30Mbps in visually rich scenes. Amadeus is certainly not short of visually rich scenes with all the costumes, palaces, salons and stages but nothing was made of it. The VC-1 transfer seemed to hover at around 15Mbps for the majority of the film sometimes climbing to the twenties (and rarely to 30) and sometimes dropping to 6Mbps.

So... if you own the film already on DVD, make sure you really love this film enough to buy it on blu ray. It is better quality - but with the smallest justifiable margin.

If you have not seen the film, buy it already - this film IS brilliant and this is still the best quailty in which you can view it.

EDIT: Some useful comments have been made below regarding the use of excessive Digital Noise Reduction. Plus the Audio Quality does deserve a mention - it is brilliant and is a better upgrade than that of the video quality.

A morality play about how genius is God-given and all wanting and yearning in the world won't bring it to your own door.

Mozart may have been the biggest musical genius in the history of the world, but paradoxically he remained enigmatic, strange and quite possibly very common and vulgar. Not the "class act" that many would presume.

Given that so little is known about him (as is the case of most 18th Century figures outside of kings and queens) that virtually everything should be filed under fiction and hearsay - bar the music.

This film is not really about Mozart (read the synopsis) and is presented to me as non lover of classical music (although I love music), but is nevertheless is so well made and is so entertaining I was totally won over. The directors cut explains more - but makes the backside ache too much for one sitting, it should really have been represented as a three part mini-series (like the Godfather) rather than as an elongated film.

The blu-ray works in many key scenes (ballroom and street) - in others the image looks almost like upscaled DVD. The sound is wonderful (even through TV speakers) and the extras are entertaining if not absolutely essential.

This film is art - so if you think the whole world is Kill Bill and Die Hard stay well clear.