CINEMA PARADISO: MAGICAL INGREDIENTS IN THE FILM  

**These notes develop the previewing themes noted in another handout.

A mother’s love and devotion for a son
A missing father
Magical powers of a mentor
Passages: childhood to adolescence to adulthood?
New ways replace old ways
A symbolic object—the perfect gift—that breaks the spell
Young people in love!

• first love
• The first KISS!

It takes a village to raise a child

• The church
• The school
• The cinema—especially melodramatic scene
• Mother
• Surrogate father
• Members of the communiy

• Salvatore lying awake in bed all night and remembering his life
• Toto's rescue of Alfredo
• Salvatore's 100 nights
• Salvatore’s trials during the Army—letters returned
• Salvatore sitting on the square after talking to Alfredo
• Sallvatore returns for the funeral of Alfredo and is trapped in nostalgia

  Returning home

  • Salvatore returns from the Army a new man (third transformation)

  • Salvatore returns to attend the funeral of Alfredo—sees his mother again
  • Salvatore visits his old bedroom—a shrine to his childhood and adolescence
  • Salvatore find all the old town characters still there

    Town “characters”

    • The manager of the cinema when it was owned by the church

    • Ciccio, the Neapolitan, who wins the lottery and builds the new cinema
    • The couple who met in the cinema—the man on the main floor, woman in balcony
    • The guy with mustache who liked to sleep in the cinema
    • The businessman who sat in the balcony and spat down at the lower sorts

      Saying Good-bye!

      • People stand in front of the ruined (burned) cinema

      • Salvatore leaving on the train (final farewell to Alfredo)
      • Salvatore at the funeral of Alfredo
      • Salvatore stands in front of cinema during funeral cortege
      • Salvatore revisits the ruined cinema
      • Salvatore watches the cinema exploded and torn down
      • Salvatore’s last conversation with his mother
      • Salvatore’s final good-bye to the “square is mine” character

        Leaving home!

        • Salvatore leaving Giancaldo (Elena doesn’t show up)

        • Salvatore leaving Giancaldo on the train (final farewell to Alfredo)

          Symbolic spaces

          • The town square (heart of the secular community)

          • The church (the moral center of the community)
          • The cinema—emotional heart of the community
          • The projection booth—source of the master’s power
          • Salvatore’s bedroom: a SHRINE

          Sources of magical lights being projected on the scene

          • Light emanates from the window in the chapel

          • Light emanates from the Virgin Mary
          • Light emanates from the mouth of the stone lion
          • Light emanates from Ciccio, the owner of the Cinema Paradiso
          • Light emanates from Alfredo, the magician

            Film resource written by Robert Yahnke
            Copyright, Robert E. Yahnke,  © 2009
            Professor, Univ. of Minnesota
            Request permission from the author to reprint this resource--for educational use only

             

             

             

            
            

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