10 years of Flick Filosopher: rock me, Amadeus

Ah, sex and wine and classical music. From my review of Amadeus, the Best Picture winner from 1984:

And yet one event demonstrates that it's not just jealousy of Mozart's talent that ires Salieri. It's not until he discovers that Mozart has bedded the beautiful opera singer that Salieri has admired and lusted after but never pursued that his hatred solidifies into a vow to ruin God's incarnation. Salieri's upper-class Vienna is a licentious, sexually liberated world. Revealing clothing is the norm -- men in tight knee breeches, women in cleavage-revealing gowns -- and wigs and makeup accentuate the features of both sexes. It's not just Mozart's undisciplined genius that maddens Salieri, but the younger man's exuberance and joie de vivre sharply contrasting with a passion and longing in Salieri that never transcends the intellectual. The opera singer he wanted was not beyond his reach -- he just never reached for her. And Mozart did.

• review of Amadeus, posted 03.08.99

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