Latest news with #MilošForman
Telegraph
25-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Sexy, ‘mad' and vulgar – Amadeus blows today's timid biopics out the water
Few music biopics these days provoke and prance like Miloš Forman's 1984 classic, Amadeus. Commercially, the genre may be in rude health – but it's not doing nearly so well creatively. It's stuck in a rut of nervous good taste. The problem is how few of these jukebox melodramas swing for the fences: their foremost goal is to be unobjectionable. To be fair, plenty succeed in that – I found Timothée Chalamet's Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, easy to respect, if hard to love. Others fail, but not in an interesting way (take the Freddie Mercury fiasco Bohemian Rhapsody, which is scared, sanitised and as ugly as sin). All of them suffer by comparison with Amadeus, winner of Best Picture, Best Director, and six other Oscars, which turned 40 last year and has just been restored in 4K, ahead of a nationwide re-release. Dazzling and evergreen as Amadeus is, the idea that today's film-makers could learn from Forman's film is a tricky one, because it's in many ways an object lesson in how not to construct a biopic. Take its core premise – that Mozart (Tom Hulce) was driven into his grave by the pathologically jealous court composer Antonio Salieri (F Murray Abraham). This is wildly speculative at best, and at worst, provably untrue. It comes from a rumour of poisoning that circulated after the former's death at 35, which resurfaced only when the senile Salieri caught wind of it while dying in a lunatic asylum. Yes, he made some delirious statements of culpability, but then recanted these when he was lucid. Peter Shaffer, in his celebrated 1979 stage play, wasn't the first to supply a motive of intense envy that was more or less specious, and which he punched up into even greater antagonism when he wrote the film's script. He was inspired by an 1830 poetic drama by Alexander Pushkin called Mozart and Salieri, which had first popularised the idea of their rivalry, only five years after Salieri's death. There was a thin factual basis for this: in the Viennese court of the 1780s, the pair would certainly have vied for attention and acclaim, but most evidence points to them collaborating amicably and becoming close friends as time went by. Salieri even tutored Mozart's son, Franz. The idea that he was a sad, eternal bachelor, who made a vow of celibacy to achieve elusive musical immortality, is wholly false: Salieri was married with eight children and a mistress. 'Over-the-top racket' We don't come to Amadeus for historical accuracy, that's for sure. This is equally true of the heightened, hallucinatory effects achieved by Patrizia von Brandenstein's grand production design, with the doll-house tableaus it creates in drawing rooms; or by Theodor Pištěk's rococo costumes and intentionally creepy masks. And let's not forget the hair – Wolfgang's punk-rock pink wig, above all. This is pure fantasy. The real Mozart didn't like wigs, and avoided wearing them by styling his own hair to look like one. Even by comparison to Shaffer's play, which legitimised the myth of this deadly rivalry, Forman's film could be accused of making an over-the-top racket. It caricatures Mozart, in Hulce's fabulously outré performance, as a giggling, infantile vulgarian, who woos his buxom future wife Constanze Weber (Elizabeth Berridge) using fart jokes. This performance was the film's big risk, and in many ways the whole point. Not only did Shaffer lean into Mozart's absurd clowning for his script – the film is definitely more irreverent than the play, with much more colloquial dialogue – but Hulce claimed that he looked to none other than John McEnroe as a model for the composer's erratic mood swings and man-child essence. Shaffer had set up a civilised tussle between genius and mediocrity on stage (Paul Scofield and Ian McKellen had been the first to play Salieri, with Simon Callow and Tim Curry as their respective Mozarts on the West End and Broadway stages). On film, with Forman's guidance, this escalated into uncouth combat, performed to the hilt. Mediocrity appears to win, but only in the feeble lifetime of this one man, Salieri. Genius or nightmare? In posterity, of course, Mozart's genius has the last laugh. Literally so, in fact. Salieri, who goes mad, becomes a self-styled 'patron saint of mediocrities', being wheeled around his asylum's corridors, while the exasperating giggle of Mozart rings around his head. The play prowled this battleground using Shaffer's more formal rhetoric. But it's the film that ignites, seizing on the chance to play more than ever like an opera, and using the fresh recordings of at least 20 Mozart pieces that Neville Marriner made with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. It's Emperor Joseph II (a droll Jeffrey Jones) who complains to Mozart, in a much-quoted scene, of 'too many notes' at an opera premiere. If anyone was going to make a Mozart biopic with too few notes, it was unlikely to be Forman, who had brought a spirit of Czech rebellion to America with the likes of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and the protest musical Hair (1979). With Amadeus, he clearly wanted us to be bombarded – battered – by the composer's work, unleashing his genius on us in floods until we practically beg for mercy. On screen, Salieri is helpless in this deluge. His own pieces don't stand a chance. And the aggravating personality of the younger man is pushed to a precipice where he (and we) can scarcely handle it. With Shaffer's script doubling down, the film asks: what if Mozart was not only this much of a genius but also this much of a nightmare? Would it not have been tempting to poison him, and try to thwart his legacy? How did Salieri (who we're fairly sure resisted doing so) ever manage to restrain himself? And so make-believe is allowed to trump reality, to serve the theme. Inhabited fearlessly by the Oscar-winning Abraham, who practically brings himself to climax looking at musical notation, Salieri becomes not just a bitter creep on the sidelines, but a strangely profound focus of identification for the audience. He can't help but remain obsessed with his rival's music, relishing the operas privately from his box, even while he has gone behind the scenes to ensure they'll flop. (Even Don Giovanni, which in reality was actually a wild success.) 'Art is divine, God is cruel, none of us are Mozart' The film wants Salieri to sabotage Mozart far more than he ever did in real life. This is the dramatic licence it asks for. And that's all to the good – an accurate account of their relationship would surely have been rather dull. Poor Salieri, who had drifted into obscurity, would never be remembered without Amadeus, in any case. Reflected glory – which is better than zero glory – is all it can bestow upon him, and that has continued to last: a festival devoted to his work is even taking place in Vienna this year. Amadeus itself has weathered phases of disrepute and stood tall. Both Baz Luhrmann (on Elvis) and Sofia Coppola (on Marie Antoinette) have pointed to it as a major influence, in helping them escape the fusty biopic trap. On the other hand, the classical music establishment has often expressed purist disdain towards Forman's film, which seemingly peddled all these myths (wittily distorting reality, in fact) while bringing Mozart to the masses in the CD era. (Marriner's soundtrack was a #1 Billboard bestseller, one of the most popular classical recordings of all time.) For many, it can't be forgiven as the film that gave Mozart his potty mouth and sent him downmarket. And yet the potty mouth was true: he wrote a six-voice canon in 1782 with the German lyrics 'Leck mich im Arsch'. ('Leck' is 'lick', and 'Arsch' means exactly what it sounds like.) The vulgarity, the kitsch, and the inventions of Amadeus are absolutely crucial, or it would have been just another decorous snooze – a Salieri cantata of a film. It could never have committed so wholeheartedly to its statement: art is divine, God is cruel, none of us are Mozart. The film's gaudy ostentation is an attack on good taste – and one to rally behind. Would that everything these days wasn't so terrified of wigging out. The 4K restoration of Amadeus is in cinemas July 25
Associated Press
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito revisit ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' for its 50th anniversary
Jack Nicholson did not want to go to the Oscars. It was 1976 and he was nominated for best actor in 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.' The Miloš Forman film, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a nationwide theatrical re-release on July 13 and July 16, had become a bit of a sensation — the second highest grossing picture of 1975, behind 'Jaws,' and had received nine Oscar nominations. But Nicholson wasn't feeling optimistic. In five years, he'd already been nominated five times. He'd also lost five times. And he told his producer, Michael Douglas, that he couldn't go through it again. 'I remember how hard I had to persuade Jack to come to the ceremony. He was so reluctant, but we got him there,' Douglas said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. 'And then of course we lost the first four awards. Jack was sitting right in front of me and sort of leaned back and said 'Oh, Mikey D, Mikey D, I told you, man.' I just said, 'Hang in there.'' Douglas, of course, was right. 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' would go on to sweep the 'big five' — screenplay, director, actor, actress and picture — the first film to do so in 41 years, ('It Happened One Night,' in 1934) which only 'The Silence of the Lambs' has done since. That night was one of many vindicating moments for a film that no one wanted to make or distribute that has quite literally stood the test of time. 'This is my first 50th anniversary,' Douglas said. 'It's the first movie I ever produced. To have a movie that's so lasting, that people get a lot out of, it's a wonderful feeling. It's bringing back a lot of great memories.' The film adaption of Ken Kesey's countercultural novel was a defining moment for Douglas, a son of Hollywood who was stuck in television and got a lifeline to film when his father, Kirk Douglas, gave him the rights to the book, and many of the then-unknown cast like Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd. DeVito was actually the first person officially cast. Douglas, who'd known him for nearly 10 years, brought Forman to see him play Martini on stage. 'Miloš said, 'Yes! Danny! Perfect! Cast!' Douglas said in his best Czech accent. 'It was a big moment for Danny. But I always knew how talented he was.' A Joyful Shoot Though the film's themes are challenging, unlike many of its New Hollywood contemporaries it wasn't a tortured shoot by any stretch. They had their annoyances (like Forman refusing to show the cast dailies) and more serious trials (they found out halfway through production that William Redfield was dying of leukemia), but for the most part it was fun. 'We were very serious about the work, because Miloš was very serious. And we had the material, Kesey's work, and the reverence for that. We were not frivolous about it. But we did have a ball doing it,' DeVito said, laughing. Part of that is because they filmed on location at a real state hospital in Salem, Oregon. Everyone stayed in the same motel and would board the same bus in the morning to get to set. It would have been hard not to bond and even harder if they hadn't. 'There was full commitment,' Douglas said. 'That comes when you don't go home at night to your own lives. We stopped for lunch on the first day and I saw Jack kind of push his tray away and go outside to get some air. I said, 'Jack, you OK?' He said, 'Who are these guys? Nobody breaks character! It's lunch time and they're all acting the same way!'' Not disproving Nicholson's point, DeVito remembers he and the cast even asked if they could just sleep in the hospital. 'They wouldn't let us,' DeVito said. 'The floor above us had some seriously disturbed people who had committed murder.' A lasting legacy The film will be in theaters again on July 13 and July 16 from Fathom Entertainment. It's a new 4K restoration from the Academy Film Archive and Teatro Della Pace Films with an introduction by Leonard Maltin. 'It's a gorgeous print and reminds me how good the sound was,' Douglas said. DeVito thinks it, 'holds up in a really big way, because Miloš really was paying attention to all great things in the screenplay and the story originally.' Besides the shock of 'holy Toledo, am I that old?' DeVito said that it was a treasure to be part of — and he continues to see his old friends, including Douglas, Lloyd and, of course, Nicholson, who played the protagonist, R.P. McMurphy. One person Douglas thinks hasn't gotten the proper attention for his contributions to 'Cuckoo's Nest' is producer Saul Zaentz, who died in 2014. His music company, Fantasy Records who had Creedence Clearwater Revival, funded the endeavor which started at a $1.6 million budget and ballooned to $4 million by the end. He was a gambler, Douglas said, and it paid off. And whatever sour grapes might have existed between Douglas and his father, who played R.P. McMurphy on Broadway and dreamt of doing so on film, were perhaps over-exaggerated. It was ultimately important for their relationship. 'McMurphy is as good a part as any actor is going to get, and I'm now far enough in my career to understand maybe you have four, maybe five good parts, really great parts. I'm sure for dad that was one of them,' Douglas said. 'To not be able to see it through was probably disappointing on one side. On the other, the fact that his son did it and the picture turned out so good? Thank God the picture turned out. It would have been a disaster if it hadn't.' Douglas added: 'It was a fairy tale from beginning to end. I doubt anything else really came close to it. Even my Oscar for best actor years later didn't really surpass that moment very early in my career.'
The Independent
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito revisit ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' for its 50th anniversary
Jack Nicholson did not want to go to the Oscars. It was 1976 and he was nominated for best actor in 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.' The Miloš Forman film, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a nationwide theatrical re-release on July 13 and July 16, had become a bit of a sensation — the second highest grossing picture of 1975, behind 'Jaws,' and had received nine Oscar nominations. But Nicholson wasn't feeling optimistic. In five years, he'd already been nominated five times. He'd also lost five times. And he told his producer, Michael Douglas, that he couldn't go through it again. 'I remember how hard I had to persuade Jack to come to the ceremony. He was so reluctant, but we got him there,' Douglas said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. 'And then of course we lost the first four awards. Jack was sitting right in front of me and sort of leaned back and said 'Oh, Mikey D, Mikey D, I told you, man.' I just said, 'Hang in there.'' Douglas, of course, was right. 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' would go on to sweep the 'big five' — screenplay, director, actor, actress and picture — the first film to do so in 41 years, ('It Happened One Night,' in 1934) which only 'The Silence of the Lambs' has done since. That night was one of many vindicating moments for a film that no one wanted to make or distribute that has quite literally stood the test of time. 'This is my first 50th anniversary,' Douglas said. 'It's the first movie I ever produced. To have a movie that's so lasting, that people get a lot out of, it's a wonderful feeling. It's bringing back a lot of great memories.' The film adaption of Ken Kesey's countercultural novel was a defining moment for Douglas, a son of Hollywood who was stuck in television and got a lifeline to film when his father, Kirk Douglas, gave him the rights to the book, and many of the then-unknown cast like Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd. DeVito was actually the first person officially cast. Douglas, who'd known him for nearly 10 years, brought Forman to see him play Martini on stage. 'Miloš said, 'Yes! Danny! Perfect! Cast!' Douglas said in his best Czech accent. 'It was a big moment for Danny. But I always knew how talented he was.' A Joyful Shoot Though the film's themes are challenging, unlike many of its New Hollywood contemporaries it wasn't a tortured shoot by any stretch. They had their annoyances (like Forman refusing to show the cast dailies) and more serious trials (they found out halfway through production that William Redfield was dying of leukemia), but for the most part it was fun. 'We were very serious about the work, because Miloš was very serious. And we had the material, Kesey's work, and the reverence for that. We were not frivolous about it. But we did have a ball doing it,' DeVito said, laughing. Part of that is because they filmed on location at a real state hospital in Salem, Oregon. Everyone stayed in the same motel and would board the same bus in the morning to get to set. It would have been hard not to bond and even harder if they hadn't. 'There was full commitment,' Douglas said. 'That comes when you don't go home at night to your own lives. We stopped for lunch on the first day and I saw Jack kind of push his tray away and go outside to get some air. I said, 'Jack, you OK?' He said, 'Who are these guys? Nobody breaks character! It's lunch time and they're all acting the same way!'' Not disproving Nicholson's point, DeVito remembers he and the cast even asked if they could just sleep in the hospital. 'They wouldn't let us,' DeVito said. 'The floor above us had some seriously disturbed people who had committed murder.' A lasting legacy The film will be in theaters again on July 13 and July 16 from Fathom Entertainment. It's a new 4K restoration from the Academy Film Archive and Teatro Della Pace Films with an introduction by Leonard Maltin. 'It's a gorgeous print and reminds me how good the sound was,' Douglas said. DeVito thinks it, 'holds up in a really big way, because Miloš really was paying attention to all great things in the screenplay and the story originally.' Besides the shock of 'holy Toledo, am I that old?' DeVito said that it was a treasure to be part of — and he continues to see his old friends, including Douglas, Lloyd and, of course, Nicholson, who played the protagonist, R.P. McMurphy. One person Douglas thinks hasn't gotten the proper attention for his contributions to 'Cuckoo's Nest' is producer Saul Zaentz, who died in 2014. His music company, Fantasy Records who had Creedence Clearwater Revival, funded the endeavor which started at a $1.6 million budget and ballooned to $4 million by the end. He was a gambler, Douglas said, and it paid off. And whatever sour grapes might have existed between Douglas and his father, who played R.P. McMurphy on Broadway and dreamt of doing so on film, were perhaps over-exaggerated. It was ultimately important for their relationship. 'McMurphy is as good a part as any actor is going to get, and I'm now far enough in my career to understand maybe you have four, maybe five good parts, really great parts. I'm sure for dad that was one of them,' Douglas said. 'To not be able to see it through was probably disappointing on one side. On the other, the fact that his son did it and the picture turned out so good? Thank God the picture turned out. It would have been a disaster if it hadn't." Douglas added: 'It was a fairy tale from beginning to end. I doubt anything else really came close to it. Even my Oscar for best actor years later didn't really surpass that moment very early in my career.'
