440 - Cinema Paradiso, Italy/France, 1988. Dir. Giuseppe Tornatore.
Cinema Paradiso is a sweeping, nearly three-hour celebration of what it means to love the movies. A celebration of the movies themselves. A celebration of the movie theaters that showed them. A celebration of the theaters that united communities, bringing people together to laugh, to cry, to desire, to fear, to triumph, to live.
It is a film about love. Love in the heart of a boy. Love of life. Love of stories. Love of cinema. Love of the movies. Love between a man and a boy. Love between two different men each and a boy. Love of a mother for her son. Love between a boy and a girl. Love between a man and a woman. Love of a man for a woman.
The heart is as deep as the sea.
We open on the sea.
Salvatore's mother is trying to find him. Trying to reach him by phone. She has news for him. Important news. She calls people. He is hard to reach.
Back in Rome Salvatore drives home late. His current girlfriend lies in bed. She asks him where he was. He said he is sorry. Work kept him. He had no way to call her. Salvatore is a successful film director. He keeps late hours.
His girlfriend gives him the news. Your mother called. She thought I was another woman. I played along. I did not want to make it awkward for her. Somebody died.
Alfredo died.
Salvatore turns over in bed. Alone. Looking out the window. Through the wind chimes. The shadow of the wind chimes rests upon his face. A natural cucoloris. They chime quietly, gently in the breeze as the shadow caresses his face. We have not seen wind chimes used like this since Body Heat (1981). But here more subtly. More melancholily.
He goes home. He has not been home in thirty years. Whenever his mother wants to see him, she goes to Rome. He sees the old village. The square. The old theater. The people. He attends the funeral. Talks to his old boss. The owner of the theater. He acts as pall bearer.
He remembers.
Eight-year-old Salvatore loves the movies. The diminutive of Salvatore is Toto, and both the character Salvatore and the actor who plays him are named Salvatore and are called Toto.
Is there any more cinematic name for a boy who loves movies than Toto?
Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Sicily anymore.
Eight-year-old Toto sneaks into the village movie theater, the Cinema Paradiso. He watches movies for free. They capture his imagination. He can stay awake for them. In contrast to his falling asleep during his duties as an altar boy at the local church.
Toto does not remember his father. His father has gone off to war. From Italy to Russia. And his mother keeps promising him that his father will come home one day. Toto asks why he has not come home already since the war is over. She tells him it takes years to travel to Russia and years to travel home. His mother, Maria di Vita, will hold on to this position for the rest of her life. Not that she is deluded with false hope, but that she is loyal. Loyal to the father, even if he does not come home. And loyal to her children, Toto and his baby sister. In the end she observes that "when you're loyal you're always alone," and yet she does not seem sad about it. It is who she is, and she takes comfort in loving her husband and children, whether they are in her life or not. She has her own big heart, and she uses it well.
The two fathers. Adelfio and Alfredo.
The Father, as it turns out, spends as much time at the theater as anyone, for it is his duty to censor the films of kissing. He watches every movie alone--not knowing that Toto is watching too, peaking through the curtains, smiling, laughing--and frankly he enjoys them. He laughs. He cries. He even allows himself to be pulled into the love stories. All the way up to just before they kiss. The "Ode on a Grecian Urn" moment. Perhaps it is his duty to turn movies into urns. When they kiss, he rings a bell. Possibly Toto's bell. Possibly the same bell Toto uses in his duties as altar boy. When he does, Alfredo places a piece of paper in the film roll to mark the spot. He goes back later and splices out the kiss.
Alfredo then tosses the film scraps into a heap. Toto asks him if he can have them. To get rid of him Alfredo says, Yes, you may have them. But I must keep them here for you, and you must never come here. At first Toto relents and leaves. Then he realizes the logic of the arrangement. He goes back. "What kind of deal is that?" Alfredo responds by growling at him.
Toto secretly steals film frames anyway. He keeps a collection in a film canister under his bed. He pulls them out and looks through them at the table as his mother sews. He makes up roles and plays them.
"Pom! Pom! Pom! Shoot first; think later. This is no job for cowards, you backstabbing dogs!"
"Hey, you! Hands off the gold, you rotten bastards!"
"You dirty swine. Stay away from me or I'll smash your face in."
Toto is all boy. He dreams of adventure.
Throughout this part of the movie, we ourselves see movies, through the eyes of Toto, through the eyes of Alfredo, through the eyes of Adelfio, and through the eyes of the villagers. Many movies. Many kinds of movies. We laugh with them and cry with them and remember with them and live with them. When we get to the kissing scenes, the movies jump ahead and the couples stand apart again. The villagers complain. One says he has not seen a kiss in thirty years. If only.
When Toto spends the milk money on the movies and his mother asks him where it went, Alfredo covers for him by claiming Toto saw the movies for free. He then gives Toto the money, pretending they found it on the floor under the seat.
While walking back from a funeral with Adelfio, several miles uphill, Toto feigns injury in order to catch a ride with Alfredo. On his bicycle. And here the two bond for good. Laughing. Smiling. Feeling the fresh air against their faces.
When they arrive home, his mother is screaming, trying to put out a fire in the film can she has brought out into the street. Trying to protect his baby sister from burning. She berates him. Beats him. Yells at him for bringing home highly inflammable nitrate-based celluloid. He could have burned down the house. Alfredo watches and feels bad. Maria makes him promise he will never again allow Toto in the projection booth.
Toto of course will find his way back in. And Alfredo will be forced to teach him how to run the projector.
One night when many people cannot get inside to see the film, Alfredo shows Toto that he can turn the projector mirror around and cast the film outside the window onto the wall of the apartment building in the square. The crowd loves it. Toto loves it. The man in the apartment hates it. He wakes up. Steps out onto the balcony. Becomes a part of the movie. The people laugh.
To find out what happens next you must see the film for yourself.
You will follow Toto as an eight-year-old boy, as a teenager falling in love, and as a grown man coming home.
And all the pieces will come together like celluloid rolled back onto a film spool.
Alfredo gives Toto life lessons. Often taken from John Wayne quotations.
And he changes the course of Toto's life forever.
Whatever you end up doing, love it.
The way you loved the projection booth.
Can you imagine a childhood so rich with fortune as to sit in the projection booth of a theater and run the movies?
And dream.
And through your dreams create your future.
Toto can.
And he does.
Some of his dreams come true. One does not. But it lives forever. In his memory. In his heart. Like the Casablanca poster that always hung over him in the projection room of the Cinema Paradiso.
Wherever you go, whatever you do, I will always love you.
* * * * *
Films Referenced in Cinema Paradiso
Here is a list of some of the films referenced in Cinema Paradiso. It is a work in progress. I wrote down as many as I could while watching the movie and then supplemented it from filmsinfilms.com. They have done some heavy lifting, but they have also left out quite a few. I have tried to supplement their list with my own and some others on the internet.
Movie posters on the wall, including John Ford's Stagecoach (1939).
Private screening of Jean Renoir's Les Bas-Fonds (The Lower Depths) (1936).
Movie posters in the projection room, including Casablanca (1942), Laurel and Hardy, and Clark Gable in the next room over.
Trailer of Stagecoach (1939).
First film of a double feature, Luchino Visconti's La Terra Trema (1948).
Second film of a double feature, Mack Sennett's The Knockout (1914), with Fatty Arbuckle and Charlie Chaplin.
Posters of the two films at the theater entrance, La Terra Trema and "Comedy by Charlot" (their name for Charlie Chaplin).
End credits of Alberto Lattuada's Il mulino del Po (1949).
Posters of John G. Blystone's Block-Heads (1938), with Laurel and Hardy and Charles Chaplin's Burlesque on Carmen (1915).
Poster of Arthur Lubin's Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944).
Poster of Gordon Douglas' The Black Arrow (1948).
Toto's projecting of Pietro Germi's In nome della legge (In the Name of the Law) (1949).
Censoring of Giuseppe De Santis' Riso Amaro (1949).
Watching of Mario Camerini's La Figlia del Capitano (1947).
Victor Fleming's Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde (1941).
Poster of Gus Meins and Charley Rogers' Babes in Toyland (1934), starring Laurel and Hardy.
Poster of Charles Vidor's Gilda (1946), starring Rita Hayworth.
Poster of Victor Fleming's Gone with the Wind (1939).
Screening on on the outside square of Mario Mattoli's I pompieri di Viggiu (The Firemen of Viggiu) (1949), starring an Italian comedian named Toto.
First screening in the new theater, Alberto Lattuada's Anna (1951), with Silvana Mangano dancing and the first uncensored kissing scenes.
Blind Alfredo correcting the focus of Vittorio de Sica's L'oro di Napoli (The Gold of Naples) (1954).
First color film, Vittorio de Sica's . . . And God Created Woman (1956), starring Brigitte Bardot.
Viewing of Federico Fellini's I Vitelloni (1953).
Posters and screening of Raffaello Matarazzo's Catene (Chains) (1949).
Poster of David Miller's Billy the Kid (1941).
Outdoor screening of Valerio Zurlini's Le ragazze di San Frediano (1955).
Outdoor screening of Mario Camerini's Ulysses (1954), starring Kirk Douglas.
Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (1930).
Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels (1941).
Charles Chaplin's Modern Times (1936).
Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).
Michelangelo Antonioni's Il Grido (1957).
Fritz Lang's Fury (1936).
Stanley Donen's Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954).
Federico Fellini's The White Sheik (1952).
Howard Hawks' Red River (1948).
Henry Hathaway's The Shepherd of the Hills (1941).
William A. Wellman's Wings (1927).
Howard Hughes' The Outlaw (1943).
Luchino Visconti's Bellissima (1951).
Robert Rossen's Mambo (1954).
TV show Double Your Money, hosted by Mike Bongiorno
The Kissing Scenes
Giuseppe De Santis' Riso Amaro (Bitter Rice) (1949).
Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday (1940).
Luchino Visconti's Ossessione (1943).
Charles Chaplin's The Gold Rush (1925).
Michael Curtiz and William Keighley's The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).
George Fitzmaurice's The Son of the Sheik (1926).
Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946).
Luchino Visconti's La Terra Trema (1948).
Luchino Visconti's La Notti Bianche (1956).
Alessandro Blasetti's La Cena Delle Beffe (Dinner of Mockery) (1942).
Jean Renoir's La Bas-Fonds (The Lower Depths) (1936).
Frank Borsage's A Farewell to Arms (1932).
Luchino Visconti's Senso (1954).
Riccardo Freda's Il Cavaliere Misterioso (1948).
Clarence Brown's A Free Soul (1931).
Edmund Goulding Grand Hotel (1932).
Victor Fleming's Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde (1941).
Receipts Toto Goes Through to Find Elena's Note
Moby Dick
Dreams in a Drawer
The Challenge
The Searchers
Magnificent Obsession
The Cry
Elena's Note
Salvatore, forgive me. When I see you, I'll explain what happened. It was terrible not to find you here. I'm afraid I'll be leaving tonight for Tuscany with my mother. We're moving there. But I love only you. I'll never be with another man. I swear it. I'm leaving you the address of a friend where you can write me. Don't give up on me. Sealed with a kiss. Your Elena.
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