Cinema Paradiso

In Giuseppe Tornatore's film, Cinema Paradiso, the Italian director examines the role that cinema plays in the lives of a young boy who grows to adulthood throughout the film, as well as the boy's relationship with an older film projectionist who becomes a type of mentor and father figure.  The film raises many interesting questions regarding the interplay of film and life, and in doing so, creates an obvious yet still intriguing additional dimension in which the viewer is watching a film within a film and seeing the impact of cinema on other fictional characters.  The irony of certain scenes in the movie is incredibly apparent - for example, when Alfredo offers Toto one of his last poetic bits of advice, and then explains that life is not like the movies, and that the real world doesn't function like the fictional world of film.  This leaves the viewer wondering what truths can be extracted from the film itself, considering that one of the central characters has just made it clear that what they are seeing cannot and should not be taken as reality.  

The review of the film states that the director seems to lose his narrative focus during Toto's adolescent years, and that his footing is most sure in the first and third parts.  However, the end of the movie seemed a bit contrived and almost unrealistic - yet another ironic feature in a movie that advances the belief that life does not mimic movies.  The movie seems to be impaled upon its own sword in that sense.  Additionally, the ending almost seems to push the idea of change vs. constancy in a manner that is too blatant and one dimensional.  Is the viewer really to believe that this man turned his back on his entire past without any backlash from the family and friends that he left behind?  And the idea that he chooses not to petition to save the theatre that he loved so much out of a refusal to live immersed in the past is once again a little too neat and convenient.  Cinema Paradiso certainly succeeds as an evocative story that will pluck the heartstrings of its viewers, and if the director's intention was to create this sense of pervasive irony, he has succeeded in that respect as well.  If, however, he was hoping to leave the viewer with some sense of profound truth regarding the relationship between cinema and life, it seems that he has failed to surmount the obstacles set in his own path by the film's claims about the separation between reality and cinema. 

How does film in general affect the way you see the world?

Film - like all forms of mass produced entertainment - serves primarily as a source of escapism for its viewers.  When we pick up a book, or sit down to watch a movie, we are attempting to momentarily suspend the world in which we experience reality and transport ourselves to a separate dimension of surreality.  At the same time, there may exist certain connections between the fictional world being portrayed on the screen and life as it is actually experienced by humans. Film therefore has the ability to both offer us a view of a life that we would prefer to our own, as well as to provide us with insight that transcends the fictional realm and relates to our own lives. Movies such as Fight Club appear to offer more of a view into a less realistic world - or at least a world that we would rather believe cannot intersect with our own.  That kind of violence and mental disruption was unsettling to me personally, and I would be hesitant to search for a relation between the life of the narrator/Tyler Durden and my own.  However, while the specifics of this particular film are not as closely linked to mainstream reality, there are still real-life applications to be found.  The narrator's inability to sleep without finding an outlet for his pent-up emotions, as well as the suffering that is portrayed in the group therapy meetings could not be more realistic.  We witness suffering in multiple forms every day, and while those particular situations seem to be vaguely satirized in the film, that does not take away from the fact that the film is addressing an ever-present reality.  Our perception of the world can be altered by films that force us to face these realities in new and different forms.  Whether or not they are presented in a way that we can personally relate to or even physically experience is irrelevant - the truths they reveal remain intact.  Indeed, it can be argued that presenting reality in an unbelievable context is one of the best ways to drive a point home to viewers.  If something is presented to us in a light that hits uncomfortably close to home, we tend to become defensive and unreceptive.  By viewing these situations in a form that is entirely foreign to us, there is a greater likelihood that we will recognize them in their pure form and then come to discover their applications to our own personal experiences.