Starring:	Tom Hulce	153min
	F Murray Abraham
	Elizabeth Berridge	1984
Screenplay:	Peter Shaffer	Biopic
Director:	Milos Forman	Colour

Region	2	Studio:	Warner Brothers
Format	Dual Sided, Single Layer	Subtitles	English
	(movie on 2 sides)		English Closed Captions
Aspect ratio	2.35:1		Arabic
Anamorphic	Yes
Soundtracks	Dolby Digital 5.1	Extra Features	Music only soundtrack
			Theatrical trailer
Case type	Carboard gatefold		Production notes
			Biographies

The DVD * * *		The Movie * * * *
Milos Forman's direction is not kind to home video. Shooting in the uncompromising Panavision, he is keen on enormous wide shots, with barely a close up in sight. So it's the devil and the deep blue sea - with pan & scan you lose half the cast, and with widescreen that same cast's faces are reduced to pin-pricks. All the more pity that the widescreen source print used here is less than pristine. It's a bit soft, grainy and prone to gate-weave, but given that, it is of course still light years ahead of the VHS, (which has no chance of resolving anyone in the frame whatsoever). If you're gonna watch it at home at all, this widescreen DVD on a large widescreen telly is the way to do it. Note, incidentally, that none of the blemishes have anything to do with digital compression. The sound meanwhile is very good, mixed (presumably) from the original 70mm 6-track print. One of the film's many Oscars was for Best Sound, and it doesn't disappoint - the music sounds great, the theatrical pyrotechnics go woomph, and overall it's all very natural with a pleasingly subtle use of surrounds. One serious black mark is this being a (boo) flip disc. The turn over point is at around 99 minutes, but at least a thankyou goes out to Warners for putting it in an artistically reasonable place with a tasteful sound fade out - this isn't the nasty jarring crash-to-earth that Disney inflicts. Nevertheless, these days there isn't really a lot of excuse for any flippers at all. The music-only soundtrack is a real bonus here. Lucky MiniDisc owners could record an analogue output, which would automatically index each cue, and then simply chop out the periods of silence - hey presto, one complete musical soundtrack of the movie. Meanwhile, the extras are copious and interesting, and the whole package comes in a really nice gatefold sleeve. I like this trend from Warners - it sure helps the ol' collectability. It's a real shame that a better source print couldn't be found for this quality item, and a dual layer disc used - this really could have been very desirable indeed. But faults aside, this is still an essential purchase for Wolfgang lovers.		Noted composer Salieri is living out his last days in a sanatorium. One day he plays a visiting priest - who professes an interest in music - a few bars of his two best known tunes. The priest looks blankly embarrassed, unable to even remotely recognise them. But on a third attempt, Salieri strikes gold - they (and we) love this one! Great! But... ah. The third piece was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. And so an extremely bitter latex-endowed Salieri (Abraham) spins us the tale of the vulgar, womanising yet genius Mozart (Hulce). For a while its all frilly costumes and wigs from the local joke shop, but as Mozart is marginalised by society and starts to cross the border from genius into madness, the film comes alive - the last hour is good, the last half hour brilliant. Holding it all together are superb performances by Hulce, Abraham and a now inexplicably forgotten Berridge. Director Forman makes full use of the European locations - including the opera house which hosted the original Don Giavani - and the music is stirringly rendered via Sir Neville Marriner's score. Peter Shaffer's adaption of his own stage play is largely good too, with many clever touches, and only the marginally laborious pacing of the film's first half earning black marks. Oliver Stone included, rarely has a cinematic marriage of fact and fiction been so captivating. While the vast embarrassment of Oscars bestowed on this may now seem a tad OTT, this remains a class act through and through.