Traditional, old-style cinemas dotted around obscure corners of the globe are collector’s items these days, veritable antiques. These modern-day amphitheaters, with their glorious ephemeral architecture, decorated with specific iconography, in all their arresting grandeur have housed the love-crazed, the horrified, the heartbroken, the laughing, and the crying.
The velvet, maroon curtains and their color-coordinated assembly of seats, the dimmed lights, and the evocative smell of popcorn that disguises the stench of the man’s feet behind you, who’s watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and was enticed by the idea of placing one’s dirty, and potently cheesy feet upon the dusty seat beside you. In religious circles, prayer is a sacred practice that is observed in all walks of life. Like prayer, cinema is viewed as almost ecclesiastical and is indiscriminate, regardless of social background, as is beautifully conveyed in the 1988 classic Cinema Paradiso.
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Cinema Paradiso in the Community
Titanus
Aside from its cuisine, beautiful towns, and cities, Italy is perhaps most renowned for its non-secular beliefs and Catholicism, with the Vatican at the country’s very heart. Chapels, churches, and cathedrals occupy the epicenter of most towns and villages. Yet, in Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso, the cinema is the nucleus of the fictional Sicilian town of Giancaldo (loosely based on Bagheria, near Palermo). The movie theater is the heartbeat of a poverty-stricken area; it’s the lifeblood of neglected people, and offers a refuge and escape from the gritty everyday reality of Italian life during World War II.
The movie theater attendees are somewhat reminiscent of churchgoers, a congregation gathered to watch the distribution of a cinematic sacrament. As the whirring of the trustee projector beams through the agape mouth of a lion head bust, the packed-out Paradiso is a sea of awestruck eyes and bated breath.
Not only is the act of Cinema Paradiso’s communal assembly in the movie theater symbolic of a shared sense of belonging, but through the laughs, the tears, and the joint expression of emotion and reaction to what is screened, the experience is shared in both body and mind. It extends beyond the need to just be physically present, but like that of a religious environment, the Paradiso requires a form of spiritual participation and not just passive viewership. It’s a community brought together by fantasy.
Cinema Paradiso and its Romanticism of Film
The Paradiso not only facilitates communal gatherings, but also the film’s central relationship between Salvatore (nicknamed “Toto”), the young boy at the center of the film, and Alfredo, the aging projectionist at the theater, who form an unlikely friendship. The cinema becomes the home of some of Salvatore’s earliest memories, from cheekily peeking through the curtain to watching the likes of classic Hollywood movies such as Sullivan’s Travels and Gone with the Wind (though to please the Catholic community and priest, Alfredo has removed all the kissing scenes from these classic movies).
As such, cinema is treated with a great deal of romanticism, even more so than other movies. There’s an obvious adoration and reverence for cinema itself in many movies, whether it be in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds or Ming-Iiang Tsai’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn; there and in Cinema Paradiso, the regard for the old 35mm rolls of static imagery, the dusty cinema seats, and the magic of light being funneled through a lens onto a giant silver screen is profound. There’s something inherently sentimental about on-screen portrayals of the cinematic experience. Cinema Paradiso is exactly that — sentimental. The film’s plot draws upon the director’s personal experiences of cinema as a child, the overwhelming effect it had on him as a young boy, and the impact it had on his chosen career path.
The saying “love your work, for you’ll never have to work a day in your life” is certainly applicable to a young Toto, who simply marvels at the big-screen, and whose ardor for both watching, projecting, and making movies dominates his life both professionally and personally. Even his love life is semi-played out via the medium of film, with Salvatore often admiring his love, Elena, by recording her from afar (something that would probably translate to a one-way ticket to a restraining order these days…).
Movies and Nostalgia
With his biological father in the midst of war in Russia and later feared dead, Toto spends his early childhood yearning for the paternal connection he lives without. In the shape of Alfredo, that father-sized gap in his life is filled. Outside their perpetual argue/make-up cycle of friendship, Alfredo assumes the capacity of an emotionally supportive, wisdom-giving father figure. While Toto and Elena’s relationship is ostensibly the principal romantic narrative strand of Tornatore’s movie, Alfredo and Toto’s father-son-like platonic love for one another is really the primary “love story,” and the romanticism of cinema is born out of the duo’s friendship and their bond over film. It’s also the impetus for the film’s investigation of nostalgia itself.
When Toto finally departs from Giancaldo, he is warned by Alfredo, “Don’t give in to nostalgia. Forget us all.” Despite adhering to Alfredo’s strict instructions for over 30 years, following the news of his death, Toto’s nostalgic recollections lead him to do exactly what the old projectionist warned him of, which subsequently sees him return to Giancaldo. This makes way for arguably the most poignant aspects of the film, as Alfredo’s untimely demise leads into Salvatore’s catharsis, and he gives in to the thoughts, emotions, and suppressed love he still has for Alfredo, Elene, Giancaldo, and his upbringing in Sicily.
The final scene, in which Alfredo’s handcrafted cinematic montage plays out in front of a now-successful and older Salvatore, is not just an amalgamation of all the discarded “pornographic” kissing scenes Alfredo had previously cut; no, it’s the soundtrack (or in this case, the film-track) to Toto’s life, and a beautiful cinematic expression of his relationships with Alfredo, Elena, and his now decrepit hometown. Perhaps this isn’t nostalgic at all, really, and not a ’looking back;’ perhaps, with the medium of great film, moments become immortal and the past gets paved over by eternity. That’s what Cinema Paradiso celebrates.
