SOURCE: Benson, Sheila. “The Music of Mozart, the Magic of the Film Maker—That's Amadeus.” Los Angeles Times (19 September 1984): 1, 6.

In the following review, Benson compliments Forman's casting choices and attention to historical details in Amadeus.

To be able to perceive genius, to luxuriate in its example, all the while knowing that one's own work would have to strain, to reach mediocrity is a pretty good working definition of hell on earth.

In Amadeus, Peter Shaffer's play, which he and director Milos Forman have turned into an enthralling film, [Amadeus,] the genius is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the “mediocrity” is Antonio Salieri—reigning success of the court of Emperor Joseph II of Austria in the late 18th Century—and the confrontation between the two is fatal.

The story is told in the framework of a memory by the very old Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), consigned to a madhouse after his...