Subjects:
Cinema Paradiso is the local theatre where Salvatore, whose father is presumed the have been killed in battle, escapes into. We find in the projection booth Alfredo, who learns to love Toto as his son. And indeed, the boy considers the old man his father as he makes the booth his home away from his indifferent home and the movies his mother. They teach him about people and life beyond the small town of Giancolo whose ways we become familiar with inside the theatre as they make movies their momentary redemption. The story takes place in the wake of World War II and the times’ hardship and poverty are shown. We come to understand in Toto that the power of the screen can compensate for a deprived life and aide the imagination not only to create dreams but to believe in them as well.
But the theatre, as the whole town, lives under the reverberating bell of the Church (the theatre is actually the Church-converted, after all!). The priest censors the films with a bell that is rung at every kiss, whereupon Alfredo stops and snips the offending footage and t
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If the moving picture is Toto’s religion with Alfredo as the priest in the altar of the theatre, Malena is the goddess and the object of Roman’s noble obsession in the film of the same title. He wishes her luck and rides off to escape - as Toto had to leave - never looking back but never to forget his childhood, his fantasies, his first love, Malena. We realize that although Alfredo was not Toto’s biological father, he was a real – and indeed the best – father Toto could have had. It is in this letter and by signing his real name at the bottom that he shows his courage – although he himself does not realize it yet. And it is in the demolition of the theatre that we understand that it is necessary to leave and separate oneself from the fantasy of the movies, of childhood, to become a man, to choose one’s own path - not to merely be one of the herd (of cattle) - and begin to truly live. And true to his name, it is through the adoring eyes of the helpless, lovesick Amoroso Romano that we see Malena (the hypocoristic form of Madalena) whose life is almost destroyed because she has the misfortune to be beautiful and because of an unjustified scandal and the mis-information of her husband’s death is reduced by wartime poverty to dating German soldiers. It is in this final scene of the film, as he watches Alfredo’s gift, that we understand that the rusty anchors, as well as his mother’s knitting, represent the small town and its limitations (the Church, the bells of restriction) and that he (as the yarn) must unwind himself to escape and discover life beyond; a life that is as deep, vast and blue (full of sadness?) as the sea. As the people in the cinema’s theatre, the people of the Sicilian seaside town of Castelcuto are typical small-town folk: loud, excitable, clannish and love to gossip. osses it into a pile of lifeless celluloid. The story is set during World War II and the beautiful and mysterious woman Malena (she is originally from another town) takes the place of movies as the town’s escape from the hardships of war.
Romano, now with a girlfriend and in long trousers, finds the fulfillment of his long devotion to Malena as he helps her pick the oranges she drops on her way home from the market. He sympathizes, barely understanding the kaleidoscope-confusion that an air-raid, resulting in the destruction of a large part of the town, and Malena’s need and ways of survival has pushed her to do bring. But the dreams the movies have helped create and Alfredo urge him to leave and keep moving forward, never to return. He cannot find her and no one dares tell him the truth - except Romano, in a letter.
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