Amadeus: Director's Cut / Theatrical Cut

[dx23]

AVS reporting the release of Amadeus in Blu Ray. Warner is adding several things not available in the Special Edition DVD:

AMADEUS DIRECTOR’S CUT

Amadeus Director’s Cut, with an additional 30 minutes which includes deleted scenes and extended scenes, will be the Blu-ray Hi-Def version of the title and will be presented with an exclusive bonus book packaging with 35 pages of insightful essays, beautiful photography, trivia and details about Mozart and his music. The Blu-ray Hi-Def also includes a special CD compilation from the Best Sound Oscar-winning original film soundtrack created especially for this release. Also included will be a digital download copy of the film for use with Windows Media and iPod portable devices.

Nominated for eleven Oscars and winner of eight, Amadeus was directed by Milos Forman from the Peter Shaffer screenplay. Tom Hulce, F. Murray Abraham, Jeffrey Jones, and Christine Ebersole, among others, starred in the film based on events in the life of classical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Amadeus Director’s Cut will sell for $35.99 SRP. Orders are due January 6, 2009.

About The Film

Amadeus (1984)
Amadeus. The man. The music. The magic. The madness. This is the incredible, mostly true story about the relationship between two composers in 18th century Vienna -- Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), the successful court composer for Emperor Joseph of Austria, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce), a child prodigy who, while vulgar and irritating, writes the greatest music the world has ever heard. The film unfolds in a series of flashbacks, as Salieri is consumed with jealously by Mozart’s natural talent, and is unable to accept the knowledge that he will never possess the genius of a man he cannot stand.

Special Features:
· Director’s Cut commentary by director and writer
· The Making of Amadeus documentary
· Theatrical trailer
· BONUS DISC: Soundtrack Compilation CD
· Digital download copy of the Director’s Cut (run time: 180 minutes)

CD Sampler Track Listing:
1.W.A. Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio, K.384), Chorus of the Janissaries (arr.)/Ich möchte wohl (Ein Deutsches Kriegslied), K.539 (arr.) 4:30, Sir Neville Marriner, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
2.W.A. Mozart: Concerto for Two Pianos, K.365; 3rd movement 7:15 Sir Neville Marriner, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; Imogen Cooper, Anne QueffelecCpianos.
3.W.A. Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, Act IV, Ah Tutti Contenti 2:19, Sir Neville Marriner, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
4.W.A. Mozart: Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), Aria (No. 14), “Queen of the Night” (Die Hölle Rache Kocht) 6:53, Sir Neville Marriner, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; Louisa KennedyCsoprano.
5.W.A. Mozart: Piano Concerto in D minor, K.466; 2nd movement (Romanza) 12:21, Sir Neville Marriner, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; Imogen CooperCpiano.
6.W.A. Mozart: Symphonie Concertante, K.364; 1st movement 13:38=, Sir Neville Marriner, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; Levon Chilingirian Cviolin; Csaba ErdélyiCviola.
7.W.A. Mozart: Six German Dances (Nos. 1-3), K. 509. 2:52, Sir Neville Marriner, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
8.W.A. Mozart: Don Giovanni, K.527; Act II, Commendatore scene 6:56, Sir Neville Marriner, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; Ambrosian Opera Chorus, John McCarthyCdirector. Richard Stilwell (Don Giovanni), John Tomlinson (Commendatore), Willard White (Leporello).

OSCAR BLU-RAY HI-DEF PROMOTION
Street Date: February 10, 2009
Order Due Date: January 6, 2009

Amadeus Director’s Cut
Run Time: 180 Minutes
Dolby TrueHD
Rated PG
$35.99 SRP

[domino harvey]

Finally, I can watch Amadeus on my iPod

[foliagecop]

Domino scores a 10 on the sarc-o-meter again.

[Mr Sausage]

Domino scores a 10 on the sarc-o-meter again.

That one counts as irony. We're highbrow here.

[tojoed]

SD or Blu-Ray, it's a travesty however you look at it." Mostly true story..",
it's not even on nodding terms with the truth.

[teddyleevin]

SD or Blu-Ray, it's a travesty however you look at it." Mostly true story..",
it's not even on nodding terms with the truth.

So? It's a thoroughly entertaining film.

[Highway 61]

Yeah, even in its choice of title--Amadeus rather than Mozart--the film announces immediately that it's all figurative. The studio markets it the opposite way, of course.

[SuperBlu]

From the lack of discussion am I right to assume there is not much enthusiasm for this title? I was a little disappointed myself with the picture quality of this blu-ray. It seems the same master for the 2002 SD edition was used, and we only get the inherent improvement of blu-ray over SD. To me, this is the main reason why it is tough for blu-ray to be fully adopted by the public: the inherent advantage of blu-ray over SD is often not able to wow the viewer. The best-looking blu-rays are often benefitted by a NEW REMASTER of the video. Without a new remaster, we only feel half the impact.

[aox]

Well, I think you make the obvious point. A lot of these movies are being rushed out hoping the technology will carry the improvement itself. They did the same thing with DVDs from '97-01 just rushing out the VHS or LD masters on a new format. The companies will spend the money again to remaster these films in the coming years and we will see another surge of remastered Special Editions come 2011-2019+.

I skipped this purchase. I thought the improvement was marginal at best. I am either buying new films or films that have undergone a meticulous remastering improvement (e.g. The Third Man) for HD.

[dx23]

Amadeus is being re-released on blu-ray in September without the Digibook packaging and CD.

[stroszeck]

Amadeus was one of my favorite movies from the 1980s and I probably watched it around a dozen times. Just got done watching the film on netflix in a FAR inferior "directors cut" edition, which apparently is also the only version available on home video format. What is the story with these very prominent movies from past (the cover art on the Blu ray proudly announces the fill was the recipient of 8 academy awards) being altered, having scenes added or removed and not having the ORIGINAL theatrical release available? I mean that's the movie that won acclaim and awards and frankly in many moments not only is the narrative significantly altered as when salieri tries to get mozarts wife to sleep with him in exchange for a royal post (which is even further infuriating when a silly extended sequence of him rejecting her when she returns) but there's clear issues in pacing issues and some of the subtle, implied aspects of the movie become overwrought and obvious.

[Matt]

Sad to see Mike Pogorzelski's name as one of the Restoration Supervisors in the restoration credits at the start of the new 4K UHD. He is the former director of the Academy Film Archive, laid off last November after 24 years.

[MichaelB]

Amadeus was one of my favorite movies from the 1980s and I probably watched it around a dozen times. Just got done watching the film on netflix in a FAR inferior "directors cut" edition, which apparently is also the only version available on home video format. What is the story with these very prominent movies from past (the cover art on the Blu ray proudly announces the fill was the recipient of 8 academy awards) being altered, having scenes added or removed and not having the ORIGINAL theatrical release available? I mean that's the movie that won acclaim and awards and frankly in many moments not only is the narrative significantly altered as when salieri tries to get mozarts wife to sleep with him in exchange for a royal post (which is even further infuriating when a silly extended sequence of him rejecting her when she returns) but there's clear issues in pacing issues and some of the subtle, implied aspects of the movie become overwrought and obvious.

Matt's timely revival of this thread is a good opportunity to highlight that the new 4K UHD release is (exclusively) the theatrical cut.

[Peacock]

Which is in this case the true director’s cut.

[MichaelB]

The point about the fact that it was the theatrical cut that won all the awards and acclaim is an important one, because on the projects that I've overseen I generally try to include the most famous version even if it's been widely accepted as inferior.

The editor of Age of Consent even complained to Sight & Sound about the Indicator edition including the Columbia studio cut (with a wholly different score!), but while I understand where he was coming from emotionally the fact is that that's the only version that was viewable outside Australia for nearly four decades, and so consequently everything written about it outside Australia during that period would have been about the studio cut.

We did of course make it clear that the Australian cut is the original and preferred one, and authored the menus to to emphasise this, but we did think that it was important to include the studio cut as well.

[JSC]

I wanted to bump this up momentarily to ask if anyone can confirm that the UK steelbook release
of this actually comes with both a 4K disc and a blu-ray as the US release appears to be only the
4k disc at present.

[starmanof51]

I wanted to bump this up momentarily to ask if anyone can confirm that the UK steelbook release
of this actually comes with both a 4K disc and a blu-ray as the US release appears to be only the
4k disc at present.

Would like to know this as well

[aox]

Matt's timely revival of this thread is a good opportunity to highlight that the new 4K UHD release is (exclusively) the theatrical cut.

Which I think is a shame. While I prefer the TC, and it won all of the awards and acclaim (and Milos said that is the one), the DC still holds some value, especially since almost two generations of people grew up with it exclusively. While inferior, the DC is still not a bad movie. Seamless branching should work here to include both, Gladiator being almost an analogous example of similar lengths.

[dx23]

The DC barely added anything other than unnecessary nudity. Never understood why in an era of double/triple dippings where films like American Pie had multiple cut releases, a lauded film like Amadeus couldn't get the original theatrical cut released either on DVD or Blu-ray. It's taken to the third wave of high definition release to finally release this superior cut and from what I read, WB hit the mark. I know The Warriors theatrical cut was stuck in limbo for a while until Arrow's special edition release and of course, there's the Star Wars original trilogy fiasco, which we'll never see the original theatrical cut, but maybe one day will get the Cerveza Cristal one on home media.

[kekid]

On this subject, the greatest travesty is the Wong Kar-Wai films, where the director essentially forbids the original cut (including the original color palette) to be ever released on physical media.

[nicolas]

Amadeus’ theatrical cut was only restored after Paul Zaentz, who took over the company from his uncle Saul, made the initiative to get this done prior to the new restoration. This was quite a task as Saul had the negative conformed to the “directors cut” in the early 2000s. Paul and the Academy Film Archive, where the film is held, went at great lengths to do the work all over again in getting the negative back to the theatrical cut. From there on the restoration took place, so it was a conscious decision on his part to not bring the longer cut back into circulation.

[vsski]

I wanted to bump this up momentarily to ask if anyone can confirm that the UK steelbook release
of this actually comes with both a 4K disc and a blu-ray as the US release appears to be only the
4k disc at present.

Would like to know this as well

I can confirm that the UK 4K Steelbook Collector’s Edition does NOT come with a Blu-ray, but solely the 4K disc (just like the US version plus the swag)

I noticed that now all the ads no longer advertise the Blu-ray although I could have sworn that at the time I ordered this it did say it does comes with a Blu-ray (and on the other forum it still lists a Blu-ray and the picture of the inside of the steel book still shows two slots).

So unless you really need to have the swag or the steel book, save yourself some money and get the single 4K disc.