1989 Winner, Cinema Paradiso

Cinema Paradiso

Director:  Giuseppe Tornatore 

Distributed by:  Miramax Films 

Released:  November 1988

Country:  Italy

As with most technological improvements, advancements in movie-making and movie-watching bring with them an unforeseen downside.  Availability is one of those advancements.  Nowadays, even foreign films from 25 years ago can be found on DVD by going on Amazon or just using a library card.  You can stream movies by using a remote control in your living room (and by “you” I mean "not me"; I’m still not trained in the art of Netflix or Hulu or any of that kind of stuff).  But the price of this availability is, simply put, the Movie Theater.  I’m not talking about the multiplexes with 20 or more movies being shown at the same time; I mean the old movie houses where huge crowds would all watch the same movie together as a community experience.

The Cinema Paradiso is one of those movie houses.  In post-World War II Italy, Alfredo is the

Toto checking out some deleted scenes

theater’s projectionist, at a time when being so was more of a profession than a job.  But the star of the film is Salvatore, a 5-year-old who lost his father in the war and loves to hang out at the theater.  Salvatore, or Toto as he is called, is a handful, both to Alfredo, who considers him a pest, and to the local priest, who can’t get Toto to be a proper altar boy.  The movie is told in flashback, as the adult Toto learns of the death of Alfredo, who had grown to be a father figure to him.

Early in the film, Alfredo is pre-screening a film for the priest—and whenever a kissing scene shows up, the priest rings his bell, an indication for Alfredo to mark the film for cutting.  No kissing is aloud to be shown to the masses.  When the films are screened to the public, the crowd lustily boos and jeers, good-naturedly expressing its anger at the Church censorship.  Toto, the film lover who will grow up to be a successful director, wonders about the scenes being cut, which eventually leads to the film’s famous and touching finish.

Annoying kid in an American film

Where to begin on what is good about this film?  First, young Salvatore Cascio is terrific as a little boy full of mischief yearning for a male figure in his life.  There is something about young kids in foreign films that American films don’t seem to have—Toto, the young boy in Life is Beautiful, the youngest son in Journey of Hope, the granddaughter in Antonia’s Line—these kids show a charming endearing quality that the annoying wise-ass Macaulay Culkins (Home Alone) turn into obnoxiousness in American films.  (Add to the list of charming kid performances that of the boy from the “foreign language” Calcutta part of the current film Lion.)  The first part of Cinema Paradiso is worth watching just for Toto, and for his relationship with Alfredo, who sees greatness in him.

Adult Toto loving the cinema

But the heart of the movie is in its love of movies themselves and the movie-going experience.  The cinema, and to a lesser extent, the theater that is the Cinema Paradiso, are what bring people together in war-weary Italy.  Most especially, the theater brings Alfredo and Toto together at a time both need it.  I think of theater-going as when I have to contend with the older people behind me loudly pointing out the actors they recognize, or the younger people texting their BFF's while the movie is showing. At the Cinema Paradiso, a lot of the fun is the crowd laughing or jeering or even sitting mesmerized  together as a community.

The story, the characters and acting, and great cinematography are all perfect here.  Director Giuseppe Tornatore, who has made three English-language films and several noted Italians films since, made it difficult on himself to top this film made at the beginning of his career.  The score by his frequent collaborator, the brilliant composer Ennio Morricone  (perhaps most famous to Americans for the scores of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly and The Mission),  is perhaps one of his best, and that's saying something.   

I’m not sure all the films Alfredo showed from the projection room of the Cinema Paradiso were great films, but if they were half as good as Cinema Paradiso, the huge movie house would be packed every night.

The Title:  The Italian name of the movie is Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, or New Paradise Cinema.

The Culture:  A great look at small-town Italy right after World War II.

Agenda Danger:  Whatever commentary may be derived from the over-protective and controlling Catholic priest is more than offset by the humor of Toto’s interactions with him and the emotional ending.

Best Picture that year: Driving Miss Daisy

Rating:  Italian cinema is noteworthy for so many great films, like Life is Beautiful (1998), The Bicycle Thieves (1948), and the works of Fellini (such as 1963’s 8 ½ and 1960’s La Dolce Vita).  This film takes a back seat to none of them.  It's a movie about loving the movies that makes you love movies even more. 

1952 Winner, Forbidden Games

Forbidden Games

Director:        René Clément

Distributed by:  Times Films Corporation

Released:  December 1952 (in USA)

Country:  France

William Tecumseh Sherman, Union General in the American Civil War, is credited with the succinct but meaningful bon mot, “War is Hell.”  Perhaps less famous but only slightly less concise is the cryptic title of a song by the chanteuse Pat Benatar:  “Hell is For Children.”  Using the capability to construct a syllogism, as taught to me during my eight years of Jesuit education, I thus deduce the following:  War is for Children. 

Okay, that doesn’t really a lot of sense, but Forbidden Games, 1953’s Best Foreign Film, is a movie that shows that while the grown-ups may be the ones shooting and bombing each other, the kids certainly get mixed up in the unpleasant business that war is.

Paulette with her dead dog

We start with an air attack by the Nazis on the fleeing Parisians during the 1940 Battle of France.  A macabre parade of cars exits the city into unknown country, with desperate and frightened families taking what they can squeeze in, trying to escape the destruction of the France they once knew.  One dad picks a bad time to forget to fill the gas tank, and he, along his wife and young daughter, Paulette, appear to be stuck.  To add to the panic, Paulette’s dog runs away and the five-year-old cute-as-can-be blonde girl rushes after him.  Which of course means papa and mama have to rush after Paulette, which results in everyone but Paulette being casualties of the attack, including the dog.  Paulette is traumatized, seemingly thinking they are all sleeping and cannot be woken.  As the caravan moves on, Paulette is taken on, extremely reluctantly, by another family, only able to carry the dead pooch with her.  The mother on the car thinks that's one dead dog too many in their car and heaves him out into the fields.  Paulette jumps off the car to retrieve her pet and then makes her way on her own into the country.

Planning the pet cemetery

She soon happens upon a ten-year-old boy named Michel.  Michel lives on a farm along with his family, and though she is a bit on the young-side for him, they instantly bond, almost romantically.  Michel looks out for her and his family takes her in.  Becoming aware of the pet she is still toting around, Michel tells Paulette her pretty little pet has to be buried.  Paulette is upset—won’t he be all alone?  Good point, Michel responds.  The next step will be to find other dead animals to keep him company, and if they can’t find them dead, they can make them dead.

If all this sounds a bit comical, it isn’t really.  Paulette is clearly expressing her confused grief for her parents in her caring for the dog.  In essence, death is treated so casually by everyone, it is quite unsettling.  This is the product of war.  Paulette and Michel will bond over their shared experience of death, becoming more and more reliant on each other.  Their pet cemetery won’t be looked at with any fondness by Michel’s family or by the authorities, but to them, it is what has bound them together.

Paulette has Michel wrapped around her finger

Forbidden Games is really a touching film, sweet and sad with just a little bit of humor.  Paulette, played by Brigitte Fossey (who would appear as a character in the extended version of 1990’s Best Foreign Film Cinema Paradiso), is about a cute a kid as you are going to find, and it’s easy to see why Michel becomes so attached to her so quickly.  As disconcerting as it is to see how war affects the way the lower-class French folks see death, there is something beautiful in the innocence of the children as they have the hell of war thrust upon them.

The Title:  Jeux interdits.  An oddly titled film, if you ask me.  I believe it refers to the children’s attempt to understand and deal with death by creating their pet cemetery.  The adults don’t see the way they go about things as appropriate, but it is their innocence that is being stripped away by the adults who supposedly know better.

The culture:  The Battle of France, which resulted in the Nazi victory over and occupation of their

Brigitte Fossey in Cinema Paradiso, still crying

neighboring country, is one that hasn’t been the subject of much in film, at least in American cinema.  It must have been unimaginably horrific for the average peasantry in France, having lived through the hell of World War I only a quarter of a century earlier.  The opening scene of the families fleeing their home city to escape the Germans is very moving.

Agenda danger:  This isn’t quite the anti-war movie you might expect.  But certainly, the film’s main theme is how a culture of death caused by war can lead to the end of the innocence for the young folks just starting their lives.

Best Picture that year:  The Greatest Show on Earth.   Some consider this film to be the worst film to ever win Best Picture.

Rating:  A very moving story, fueled by great performances by the kids.  It’s a war film that shows the horrors of war without the blood and guts of it.  The horror is less in the tragedy of death during war than it is in the matter-of-fact acceptance of death necessitated by the culture that war brings.  

Note:  There was no Best Foreign Film awarded in 1953.