CZECH REPUBLIC: FILM DIRECTOR MILOS FORMAN CELEBRATES THE RELEASE OF HIS DIRECTORS CUT OF THE FILM AMADEUS AT PRAGUE'S STVOVSKE THEATRE.

Record ID: 393030

  • Title: CZECH REPUBLIC: FILM DIRECTOR MILOS FORMAN CELEBRATES THE RELEASE OF HIS DIRECTORS CUT OF THE FILM AMADEUS AT PRAGUE'S STVOVSKE THEATRE.
  • Date: 28th September 2002
  • Summary: VARIOUS: MILOS FORMAN RECEIVES A STANDING OVATION.(2 SHOTS) SV/ZOOM IN: MILOS FORMAN IN CZECH - "I would like to express my thanks and admiration to all members of the Czech staff who helped us shoot the film."
  • Embargoed: 13th October 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
  • Country: Czech Republic
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA8B4PZUSFBH4EQ0ZY97TYFAGSA
  • Story Text: Eighteen years after the first run of Milos Forman's Oscar-laden film Amadeus, Milos Forman has released a director's cut - complete with 20 minutes' of new material - that is to be released on DVD. The new release was celebrated at Prague's Stvovske Theatre (formerly Tyl Theatre) where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart conducted the world premiere of his opera Don Giovanni in 1787. Sean Connery, who is currently in Prague shooting The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in Prague, attended the celebrations.
    Amadeus won eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor (for F. Murray Abraham as Salieri), when it was released in 1984.
    It propelled Czech director Milos Forman to the A-league and greenlit Prague as a key European base for Hollywood.
    Eighteen years later Forman has returned to Prague, along with the writer of the original stageplay and screenplay Sir Peter Shaffer and Producer Saul Zaentz, to celebrate the release of a longer Amadeus - the Director's Cut - now available on DVD.
    Forman's original cut was in fact three hours but he said he did not have the nerve in the '80s to release such a long feature. "We panicked, 'how can we ask people to sit for 3 hours and watch a film of classical composers?' in the moment that MTV brought music clips on the little screen at home, for young people, rock and roll and pop music. So I just cut everything which in my opinion was not pushing the plot directly forward - was 30 minutes."
    The new cut deepens relationships between characters and gives writer Sir Peter Shaffer the joy of resurrecting his characters. Mozart's wife, Constanze, gets a bigger role this time round.
    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.
    Considered by Shaffer as the third character, the extensive musical score is performed by Sir Neville Marriner conducting the British orchestra, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.
    Amadeus was inspired by persistent rumours in the early 19th century that Mozart had been poisoned by his rival Salieri, a successful court composer driven mad by the knowledge of his own mediocrity when compared to Mozart's God-given genius.
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