Reel Classics: ‘Cinema Paradiso’

This edi­tion of Reel Classics will look at a film in which you like­ly will not know any of the actors, direc­tor, or writ­ers, but I believe that if you watch it, you will fall in love with the sto­ry.  For in many ways, the theme of the movie is love in its many forms—love for anoth­er, love for a pas­sion, love for an art form, and love for family. 

Cinema Paradiso is the sto­ry of a young boy told in flash­backs by the mid­dle-aged Salvatore Di Vita (Jacques Perrin).  The year is 1988, and Jacques is a very famous film direc­tor liv­ing in Rome.  He receives a mes­sage from his cur­rent girl­friend that his moth­er has called to inform him of the death of his friend and men­tor Alfredo (Philippe Noiret).  She lets him know when the funer­al will be held.  In thir­ty years, Salvatore has not been back to Giancaldo, the vil­lage in which he grew up.  And a bro­ken heart from his past has kept him trou­bled.  Unable to sleep, he begins to flash back to his child­hood in Giancaldo.

This is when we meet the eight-year-old Salvatore (Salvatore Cascio) nick­named Toto.  He is intel­li­gent, curi­ous, very mis­chie­vous, and has a love of movie films.  There is a local the­ater in the vil­lage called “Cinema Paradiso.”  He spends a great deal of time at the movie house and is fas­ci­nat­ed with the pro­jec­tion booth.  The time is just a few years after World War II, and he lives with his moth­er and sister—his father nev­er returned from the war.  His moth­er, Maria (Antonella Attili), strug­gles to sup­port her two chil­dren and often grows frus­trat­ed with Toto’s fas­ci­na­tion with the movie theater. 

An exam­ple occurs when Maria con­fronts Toto as to why he had not brought home the milk she gave him the mon­ey to get.  She learns that he has spent the mon­ey on a tick­et to the movie and she is angry and whips him.  Alfredo is near­by when this occurs and gives some mon­ey to her, telling her that it was found on the floor of the the­ater, when actu­al­ly it came from his pock­et.  He and Toto begin to devel­op a close rela­tion­ship. For Toto, Alfredo is like a father fig­ure, and for Alfredo, Toto is like the son he nev­er had. 

Alfredo lets Toto come into the pro­jec­tion booth and he begins to show him how the equip­ment works and how to keep it run­ning.  Toto is absolute­ly fas­ci­nat­ed and even­tu­al­ly begins to help out.  During the show­ing of the films we often find the audi­ence boo­ing and yelling as it is obvi­ous that some scenes have been delet­ed.  We learn that the rea­son for the “cen­sor­ing” is that the the­ater is owned by the local priest.  Before the show­ing of a film, he watch­es it alone and has a lit­tle bell in his hand.  When he sees a scene that he feels is inap­pro­pri­ate (kiss­es, roman­tic embraces, etc.), he rings the lit­tle bell and Alfredo notes to cut that scene.  He has a col­lec­tion of cut scenes from var­i­ous movies that he has col­lect­ed in a box. 

Toto learns how to oper­ate the pro­jec­tor and accom­pa­nies Alfredo every evening in the booth.  Their rela­tion­ship has grown very close.  Unfortunately one evening a fire breaks out in the booth after Toto has left and Alfredo is bad­ly injured.  Toto sees the fire and races into the the­ater while every­one else is rac­ing out.  He saves Alfredo’s life, but Alfredo is per­ma­nent­ly blind­ed.  The the­ater is destroyed, and the vil­lagers are very upset by the loss. 

One of the local vil­lagers has recent­ly won a state lot­tery and offers to buy and restore the cin­e­ma.  Alfredo can no longer oper­ate the equip­ment so Toto is hired as he is the only oth­er per­son who knows how to oper­ate the pro­jec­tor.  Alfredo con­tin­ues to assist in advis­ing him, not just regard­ing the pro­jec­tor, but on oth­er issues in life as well. 

We then see Toto as a teenag­er (Marco Leonardi) and he is still work­ing the pro­jec­tor in the the­ater.  He has obtained a hand­held movie cam­era and is fas­ci­nat­ed with mak­ing films.  His rela­tion­ship with Alfredo con­tin­ues to be strong, and he looks to Alfredo for guid­ance.  Toto has met a young girl who has moved to the vil­lage, and he becomes fas­ci­nat­ed with her.  Elena (Agnese Nano) is the daugh­ter of a wealthy banker, and she and Toto devel­op a rela­tion­ship.  He often films her with his cam­era and watch­es the films alone in his room.  However, her father has oth­er plans for her and does not take to Toto.  Her father even­tu­al­ly decides to move the fam­i­ly away from Giancaldo, and Toto’s attempts to con­tact her by let­ter fail, return­ing as unde­liv­er­able.  He is heartbroken. 

Toto has to serve in the mil­i­tary and leaves town.  Upon his dis­charge, he returns, but Alfredo coun­sels him to leave and fol­low his dreams.  He knows of Toto’s pas­sion for film­mak­ing and tells him he will nev­er real­ize his dreams in Giancaldo.  In fact, he encour­ages Toto to nev­er return and nev­er to give in to nostalgia.

In a quote from the movie, Alfredo says to Toto, “Living here day by day, you think it’s the cen­ter of the world.  You believe noth­ing will ever change.  Then you leave:  a year, two years.  When you come back, every­thing’s changed.  The thread­’s bro­ken.  What you come to find isn’t there.  What was yours is gone.  You have to go away for a long time...many years...before you can come back and find your peo­ple.  The land where you were born.  But now, no, it’s not pos­si­ble.  Right now, you are blind­er than I am.”

Salvatore:  “Who said that?  Gary Cooper?  James Stewart?  Henry Fonda?  Eh?”

Alfredo: “No, Toto.  Nobody said it.  This time it’s all me.  Life isn’t like in the movies.  Life...is much hard­er.”  Toto decides to take Alfredo’s advice, and the last time he sees Alfredo alive is in their tear­ful embrace at his depar­ture.  One of Toto’s part­ing remarks to Alfredo was, “Thank you.  Thank you for every­thing you’ve done for me.”  Alfredo responds with “Whatever you end up doing, love it.  The way you loved the pro­jec­tion booth when you were a lit­tle squirt.”

The flash­back is over, and we return to the present.  Salvatore (as he is now known) looks about the vil­lage and sees all the changes.  The the­ater has closed as peo­ple now watch TV and video tapes.  Salvatore speaks with Alfredo’s wid­ow, who tells him how Alfredo fol­lowed Salvatore’s career and spoke with pride of Toto’s accom­plish­ments.  She gives him a reel of film that Alfredo had pre­pared and left for him as a gift.  The Cinema Paradiso is sched­uled to be demol­ished to make way for a park­ing lot.  At the funer­al, Salvatore sees the faces of the many folks who attend­ed the the­ater when he was there.  Back in Rome, check­ing out the gift to him from his friend Alfredo, Toto finds inner peace.

Giuseppe Tornatore was the direc­tor and writer for Cinema Paradiso.   He filmed the movie pri­mar­i­ly in his own home­town of Bagheria in Sicily.  He incor­po­rat­ed a good deal of his own child­hood expe­ri­ences into the sto­ry.  Movie the­aters were impor­tant in the towns of Italy.  Reportedly, in 1956, Italy had 17,000 movie theaters—more than any oth­er coun­try in Europe. 

The film was high­ly acclaimed in var­i­ous world film fes­ti­vals and won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1990.  It is the suc­cess of Cinema Paradiso that is often cred­it­ed for reviv­ing the film indus­try in Italy.  Another high­light of this film is the music score com­posed by Ennio Morricone and con­duct­ed by Andrea Morricone.  One review­er described it as “haunt­ing­ly beau­ti­ful,” and in my opin­ion, it enhances the emo­tions expressed through­out the film. 

The scenes with­in the the­ater draw an emo­tion­al response from the view­er.  The young chil­dren laugh­ing, cou­ples smil­ing and hold­ing hands, and adults wip­ing tears from their eyes will like­ly stir not only emo­tions from the view­er but like­ly mem­o­ries of our own expe­ri­ences in the the­aters from the past.  As one review­er stat­ed, “The scenes made me real­ize the pow­er of cin­e­ma and its abil­i­ty to make peo­ple laugh, clap, whis­tle, enjoy, cry, wipe tears....” 

I have a per­son­al expe­ri­ence with this very film from the past.  I have always been a major fan of the Kentucky Theater in Lexington and was a very fre­quent vis­i­tor there.  I saw this film at the Kentucky Theater in 1992 after they reopened fol­low­ing dam­age to the the­ater from a fire in the build­ing next door.  They had a grand re-open­ing fea­tur­ing five films—Cinema Paradiso, Singin’ in the Rain. Jesus Of Montréal, Bugsy, and Thelma & Louise.  I proud­ly still have and wear the T‑shirt from that event with the movies list­ed on the back. 

The Critics Consensus on Rotten Tomatoes sums up the film: “Cinema Paradiso is a life-affirm­ing ode to the pow­er of youth, nos­tal­gia, and to the movies them­selves.”  The film is includ­ed in Steven Schneider’s “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.”

In 2002 Cinema Paradiso was re-released with over fifty min­utes of film cut from the orig­i­nal added back to it. The extend­ed ver­sion pro­vides more detail on Toto’s romance with Elena. 

The Internet Movie Database rates Cinema Paradiso at 8.5 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a Critics Score of 91% and an Audience Score of 96%. 

Checking my Roku device I found it avail­able for free stream­ing on Pluto TV and Kanopy (avail­able with your library card).  There is a copy of the DVD on the shelf at the Clark County Public Library. 

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia.

I’ll be back soon with the next Reel Classic, but before I leave you with the trail­er below let me remind you that if you enjoy these clas­sic movies please join me on the sec­ond Tuesday of each month at 6:00 PM at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics.”  I present a clas­sic com­e­dy film usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a vin­tage car­toon.  Popcorn and drinks are pro­vid­ed.  More infor­ma­tion about the next film is avail­able on the library’s web­site and Facebook page, as well as WinCity Voices Facebook page.