Cinema Paradiso

A touching story of friendship and love. There are quite a few comical scenes with a sad reflective ending.

It's clearly an excellent film. The characters are well drawn, the acting is strong throughout, and it's moving, funny, tragic, and engaging. There is that one scene you might think unsuitable for younger viewers, so possibly it's not really a 'PG' as it's currently listed (Oct 2025) but apart from that, it's very good.

Cinema Paradiso is a serious movie buff's oxygen! No legitimate student of film can NOT be emotionally affected by it; no serious student of film can ever forget it! It is so many things: a tender story of friendship, a beautiful portrait of a Sicilian village community and a "love letter" to the cinema itself. As uplifting and heartwarming as the story is, it still does show that an obsessive love of something (such as films) can also result in sadness and regret: a man is able to have two "loves" in his life, but success in one of them comes at the expense of the other! There are actually two versions of this film that differ greatly: the original three hour Director's cut and the re-edited, two hour theatrical version which was the one that I saw when I first experienced this magical movie gem. I have since seen the longer version but (as is the case with Coppola's masterpiece "Apocalypse Now") the shorter version is crisper, more intense and makes the ending even more emotionally wrenching! A boy Salvatore (Toto) who grew up in a Sicilian Village returns home as a famous film director after receiving news about the death of an old childhood friend. Told in flashback, Salvatore (as an adult played by Jacques Perrin) reminiscences about his childhood and his relationship with Alfredo (Philippe Noiret), the projectionist at the Cinema Paradiso. Under the fatherly influence and guidance of Alfredo, Salvatore (played as a boy by Salvatore Cascio) falls in love with film making. Alfredo painstakingly teaches young Salvatore the skills that eventually become his "stepping stone" into the world of film making. As the retrospective story unfolds we are are witness to Salvatore as a teenager (played by (Marco Leonardi) and his tortured relationship with the beautiful Elena (Agnese Nano). As this whole endearing human story is finally revealed we are also shown the changes in cinema due to technological progress and social factors. Most of all the film illuminates a young boy's dream of leaving his little town to foray into the outside world Divided into three sections, it is the first section that was left almost intact in the short version. It is of course primarily concerned with the relationship between young Toto and Alfredo. It is full of delightful touches, such as Toto's spellbound face as he watches the footage that will be censored by the town priest. The cinema is portrayed as almost being the centre of life in the town (Giancaldo) in which the film is mostly set. As the film moves forward several years to show Toto as a 16 year old, the wonderful cinema scenes are still present. However, it is mainly concerned with Toto's (now called Salvatore) courtship of and love for Elena, a love that is never to reach its full potential. In the final section Salvatore, now a great film director, returns to Giancaldo as a middle aged man to attend Alfredo's funeral. His reunion with the older Elena (Brigitte Fossey) and his mother and his exploration of the cobwebbed, dilapidated cinema of his youth are extremely moving. And ... as for the final scene when Salvatore opens a certain gift Alfredo left him: it never ever fails to make the skin tingle and the eyes water profusely! I am often asked why I love movies so much (and I too once looked for a definitive answer to that question); Cinema Paradiso gave me the answer! If you love movies, Cinema Paradiso will remind you why you do; if you don't love movies, it will tell you why you should!

If Nuovo Cinema Paradiso isn't one of your favourite films, you probably haven't seen it. With the Paradiso serving as the focal point for a small Sicilian village, its changing sense of community and values beautifully realised and mirrored through the changing cinematic trends, few modern films have so many wonderful moments - the village priest censoring movies with his hand bell ever at the ready; a villager asking another what a rolling title says only to find out that he's illiterate too; the young Toto acting out a film while he holds a discarded strip of celluloid to the light; that great final montage... the list could go on for ages. Still a deeply emotional experience, some of the film's most moving moments are its most understated, such as the young Toto editing out a newsreel reference to war dead in Russia to save his mother's feelings or the sadness in Alfredo's face as he watches the villagers in the square marvel at the film he shows on a townhouse wall. But the version that won its way into the hearts of millions of filmgoers and critics alike in 1990 was not the original film. Originally called Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, it made its bow in Italy at 156-minutes to appalling reviews and bad business before being cut by half an hour for the foreign markets and taking the Cannes Film Festival by storm and later causing a minor storm of controversy after it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film (since then, films re-edited from their original version are no longer eligible for the award). Such was the film's success that by the mid-90's, Giuseppe Tornatore was able to not only restore the deleted footage but add other scenes he was forced to cut in a near three-hour director's cut. While some of it is merely additional shots or, in a couple of cases, redubbed dialogue, the film's last act was massively extended as the grown-up Toto (Jacques Perrin) meets his first love Elena (Brigitte Fossey, cut out of the two hour cut entirely) and learns what really happened and gets the chance to give their love story a proper ending... Is it a better film? In many ways yes, though it is a much darker, more melancholy one with more of a sense of loss and missed opportunities. The cuts had the effect of making sections of the film give in to nostalgia, which this version undercuts more adeptly. This is more about the terrible price that the love of cinema exerts - Alfredo's sight, Toto's one true love. When Salvatore returns from the village at the end of the picture, he has no-one to return to or anything to return to but a film award, the glittering prizes of work devalued as he realises he has no life but film. One of the all-time great endings, the stolen kisses at the end of the film now seem that much sadder and carry a much more real and painful sense of loss. This recent 4-disc UK boxed set from Arrow is at least the fifth time round on DVD for Giuseppe Tornatore's perennial, though if you already have it you may be able to rationalise buying it yet again on the grounds that it was worth it for the CD of Ennio Morricone's hauntingly emotional score or the extras. Containing remastered transfers of the two-hour overseas theatrical version and the superior three-hour version (both now bearing the original title Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, unlike previous issues) as well as a disc with a good documentary on Tornatore's Sicilian films, a half-hour retrospective on the making of the film featuring Phillipe Noiret and a grown-up Salvatore Cascio, a featurette on the kissing sequence, stills gallery and director's cut trailer, it's certainly the best presentation of the film to date - but with the original two-and-a-half hour version that played to disastrous business in Italy still unreleased, don't be surprised if somewhere down the line there'll be a sixth issue `ultimate edition' to get people to buy it all over again. And now Arrow have released their second Blu-ray version, which includes all the features from their 4-disc DVD set except for the CD of the score and adds an audio commentary by Giuseppe Tornatore on the shorter version. Unfortunately the new 2K scan for the theatrical version of the film is mildly disappointing - not terrible but with rather more digital noise in places than there should be in a specially sourced scan taken from the original negative. Black and white sequences from old movies shown in the Paradiso suffer particularly badly from the 'firefly effect' in parts of the frame that should be either pure black or grey, though it's nowhere near as bad as some of their earlier releases of Italian movies like Deep Red.

Correspond exactement à ma demande

Questo è un film che ho visto per la prima volta piuttosto tardi rispetto alla sua uscita al cinema. Ma l'ho amato sin da subito. Diversi anni fa ho acquistato le due diverse versioni su DVD distribuito Dolmen, quella da due ore (Alfredo e Salvatore in bicicletta) e la director's cut (Salvatore vicino ad un lume). Specialmente quest'ultima ha diversi problemi di qualità d'immagine nelle edizioni italiane. Speravo proprio in una riedizione in alta definizione, cosa che è avvenuta finalmente anche in Italia, ma solo per la versione più famosa, quella rimontata (e accorciata) che ha vinto l'Oscar. Da appassionato non posso accettare una simile situazione, dunque una volta saputo dell'esistenza di questa edizione pubblicata in Inghilterra per il venticinquennale del film, e che su due dischi Blu-Ray include entrambe le versioni, rimasterizzate dopo un attento restauro a 2k, non ho esitato ad acquistarla. Ho subito guardato la versione estesa, la mia preferita, e sono rimasto colpito dalla nitidezza dell'immagine rispetto ai DVD in mio possesso. Certe scene sono afflitte da una spessa grana, per enfatizzare i diversi piani dell'immagine, ma questo non ha rovinato il piacere della visione. Questo fatto della grana è chiarito nelle note di copertina riguardanti il restauro effettuato. Nota di merito il fatto che non vi siano evidenti segni di usura della copia usata per il trasferimento. L'immagine è pressochè sempre pulita, priva di pelucchi, bruciature, segni (tranne ovviamente negli spezzoni dei filmati d'epoca) e qualsiasi altro difetto dovuto all'usura. Una visione piacevolissima. L'audio (solo in italiano) è in due versioni: semplice stereo a 2 canali oppure in 5.1, i sottotitoli (in inglese) possono essere disattivati. Oltre ai due dischi vi è un libretto di 32 pagine, in inglese, con aneddoti, informazioni, posters e foto di scena. Cosa che nelle edizioni Blu-Ray italiane ormai non esiste più, e dove c'è un libretto questo non è altro che pieno zeppo di pubblicità. Se amate questo film, QUESTA è l'edizione che fa per voi.

Seen it before and it is a wonderful movie.

Film touchant avec Philippe Noiret et Jacques Perrin dont les réputations ne sont plus à refaire !

Cinema Paradiso is one of my all-time favorite films. It tells the story of a successful Italian movie executive who looks back on his early life growing up in post-World War II Italy. We see him as a mischievous altar boy with a love for movies, and then as a teenager who falls in love with the new girl in town. Guiding him along the way is Alfredo, the grizzled projectionist at the movie theater, who becomes a father figure to him. This is a sentimental movie, but it is not cheesy. There is both love and heartache. A love for movies oozes from every pore of this film. In fact, it may be the best movie ever made about movies. The final sequence is one of the best scenes ever filmed--it brings me to tears every time. Cinema Paradiso is currently rated #73 on the IMDB Top 250. It won the 1990 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, as well as a slew of other awards. The quality of the Blu-ray transfer is mostly good. Most daytime scenes are richly detailed. There are a couple shots, however, that are very poor in quality. They looked like VHS. Thankfully, they were brief. Nighttime and indoor scenes vary in quality. Some are sharp, while others are grainy (although never to the point of being gritty). The sound varies as well. The dialogue at the beginning of the movie sounds like it was being uttered in a tin can. But this was soon corrected. Thankfully, the moving score by legendary composer Ennio Morricone comes through well. My old DVD version had both subtitles and a dubbed version that was actually pretty good. This Blu-ray edition has only subtitles, however; the dubbed version is missing. Nor does it have any special features other than the original theatrical trailer. Thankfully, this disc did not include the director's cut, which I hate. It adds about 30 minutes of material that wraps up the love interest portion of the film, but there is a reason that it was cut from the US theatrical release. It turns Cinema Paradiso into a different movie, and that is not a good thing. Parental Advisory: This movie is rated PG for a few instances of sexuality, mostly implied. There are a couple of very brief scenes that show upper female nudity (they are clips of old black-and-white movies) and one scene that shows bare buttocks. There is some mild violence. In a couple of scenes, a mother slaps her child repeatedly. There is also a scene where a teacher is punishing a student for poor performance in the classroom. A scene involving a fire might be intense for younger children. I highly recommend Cinema Paradiso. It is one of the best films ever made. It is a "must see." If you are considering an upgrade from DVD, the improved video clarity makes it worth it. But the loss of some of the special features, particular the dubbed version, is a bummer.