Amadeus, The Director’s Cut, is the 2002 Special Edition based on Sir Peter Shaffer’s London and Broadway stage hit. The film includes 20 additional minutes of drama, music and sound not included in the 1984 release, all of whch were added with the enthusiastic approval of Milos Forman, Sir Peter and Saul Zaentz.

In 1985 the original theatrical release of Amadeus won 8 Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for F. Murray Abraham, Best Screenplay Adaptation for Peter Shaffer, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Make-up and Best Sound.

Amadeus was directed by Milos Forman and produced by Saul Zaentz, the team that swept the 1976 Academy Awards (winner of the 5 major Oscars) with “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Amadeus was adapted for the screen by its author Sir Peter Shaffer. In the much coveted leading roles, F. Murray Abraham is featured as Antonio Salieri, the jealousy-ridden 18th Century composer, and Tom Hulce plays the hapless victim of his venom, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the man-child genius whose music is heard throughout the film.

The extensive musical score is performed by Sir Neville Marriner conducting the British orchestra, Academy of St Martin in the Fields that Marriner founded and organized 25 years ago. The film of Amadeus is a celebration of Mozart’s timeless music as well as a gripping drama.

Noted choreographer Twyla Tharp staged the ballets used in Mozart’s operas the way they were danced in his day. Filmed almost entirely in Czechoslovakia, director Milos Forman’s native country, the segments from ‘Don Giovanni’ were staged in Prague’s famed Tyl Theatre, where Mozart conducted the premiere in 1787.

Described by Shaffer as “a fantasia based on fact,” Amadeus was inspired by persistent rumors in the early 19th Century that Mozart had been poisoned by his rival Salieri, a successful court composer driven mad by the revelation of his own mediocrity when compared to Mozart’s God-given genius.

Transcending both Salieri and Mozart are the universal themes they represent: the relationship between man and God; the difficulty of serving a God whose ways are often perceived as irrational, perverse and mockingly cruel; the confrontation of genius and mediocrity; and as in the tragic case of Mozart, the sad spectacle of a towering genius poorly rewarded and pushed to destruction by society.

The Saul Zaentz Company presents Sir Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, The Director’s Cut A Milos Forman Film
F. Murray Abraham Tom Hulce Elizabeth Berridge Simon Callow Roy Dotrice Christine Ebersole
Jeffrey Jones Charles Kay Kenneth McMillan Executive Producers Michael Hausman and Bertil Ohlsson
Director of Photography Miroslav Ondricek Music Conducted and Supervised by Sir Neville Marriner
Production Desighner Patrizia Von Brandenstein Choreographer Twyla Tharp
Screenplay and Original Stage Play by Sir Peter Shaffer Produced by Saul Zaentz Directed by Milos Forman