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Customer Ratings: 4.5 (from 314 reviews) |
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| Editorial
Reviews |
Amazon.com essential video
Giuseppe Tornatore's beautiful 1988 film about a little boy's love affair with the movies deservedly won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film and a Special Jury Prize at Cannes. Philippe Noiret plays a grizzled old projectionist who takes pride in his presentation of screen dreams for a town still recovering from World War II. When a child (Jacques Perrin) demonstrates fascination not only for movies but also for the process of showing them to an audience, a lifelong friendship is struck. This isn't just one of those films for people who are already in love with the cinema. But if you are one of those folks, the emotional resonance between the action in Tornatore's world and the images on Noiret's screen will seem all the greater--and the finale all the more powerful. --Tom Keogh |
Amazon.com
Cinema Paradiso's complex, interwoven tales of wartime Italy, a boy's coming of age, and the history of cinema can be viewed in their entirety on the Director's Cut included in this Deluxe Edition. Director Giuseppe Tornatore's additional 50 minutes of footage provides closure for the saga's detailing Alfredo's death, and Salvatore Di Vita's lost relationship with his teenage love, Elena. Most of the 50 minutes serves as a continuation of the story, rather than as previously deleted scenes. The original, already celebrated Cinema Paradiso follows Toto (Jacques Perrin), a Sicilian boy who persuades the town projectionist, Alfredo (Philippe Noiret), to teach him how to show films. Spanning nearly 50 years, the film craftily draws parallels between Toto's life and those lives he sees on screen. As Toto matures into Salvatore, a successful Italian filmmaker, the Cinema Paradiso ages as well. Salvatore's return home for Alfredo's funeral is also a goodbye to his Paradiso, demolished to become a parking lot. The film's heightened sense of nostalgia subtly mirrors our humanistic love of movies, making it a tribute to cinema as an artistic genre. The Director's Cut can be fulfilling if one felt unsatisfied by the more ambiguous ending of the theatrical release, but it also feels slightly overwrought. Two documentaries in this package feature fans and critics praising Cinema Paradiso, proving its endurance as a classic. However, as Salvatore discovers over the course of the film, there is no need to improve a masterpiece. --Trinie Dalton |
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| Product Details |
| Actor: |
- Antonella Attili
- Enzo Cannavale
- Isa Danieli
- Leo Gullotta
- Marco Leonardi
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| Aspect Ratio: |
1.33:1 |
| Audience Rating: |
R (Restricted) |
| Binding: |
DVD |
| Director: |
Giuseppe Tornatore |
| EAN: |
0065935145639 |
| Format: |
NTSC |
| Languages: |
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| Product Group: |
DVD |
| Region Code: |
1 |
| Theatrical Release Date: |
1990-02-23 |
| Title: |
Cinema Paradiso |
| UPC: |
065935145639 |
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| Customer Reviews |
Customer Rating: 5
Review Date: 2009-06-13
0 out of 1 found this review helpful.
Summary: A Movie About Loss and Recovery--The Writing is as Superb as the Camerawork
There is too much in this film. It is medieval or baroque in its symbolism and relentlessly postmodern in its conclusions. Praising it seems almost passe, but it is certainly one of the central films of the 20th century, and it should be viewed as such.
I teach this film in philosophy classes in conjunction with Walter Benjamin's "Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." The director, Tornatore, clearly takes Benjamin's notion of 'aura' seriously, and he calls attention to how film itself (as an industry and an art form) exorcised aura in favor of politics.
Because I see the film through Benjamin, the main message of the film to me is its rejection of the collapse of politics into nostalgia, the collapse of love into obsession. Perhaps Alfredo's gift to Toto at the end is a sign that we can take, as one student said, "the passing away of human life" seriously. Perhaps. But that would mean that directors are blind and work with random fragments of previously censored material that others then use to reckon with the manipulation of their desires.
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Customer Rating: 5
Review Date: 2009-05-01
1 out of 1 found this review helpful.
Summary: ...and twenty stars more--what a work of genius !!!
Cinema Paradiso is one of those rare motion pictures that says something remarkably meaningful and it truly succeeds by any measure. The acting is very convincing and the plot moves along at a good pace although there is plenty of outstanding and insightful character development. The choreography and cinematography couldn't be any better; and this film easily deserved the Oscar it won for Best Foreign Film.
When the action starts, we meet young Salvatore "Toto" Di Vita (Salvatore Cascio) who is constantly annoying his mother Maria (Antonella Attili) by hanging out at the village movie theater where he tries time and again to befriend the somewhat cranky middle aged projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret). Alfredo finally lets young Toto routinely into the projectionist booth and Toto proves to be a quick study of the projection machinery. Toto's love for films and their village cinema in particular only grows with time. Tragedy strikes, unfortunately, when Alfredo is injured and blinded by a fire in the projectionist booth; and it isn't long before young Toto is given the responsibility of showing at least most of the films.
The film eventually jumps to Salvatore's entry into manhood from adolescence; he (now played by Marco Leonardi) works at the cinema and he falls deeply in love with a beautiful young woman named Elena (Agnese Nano). Salvatore tries so hard to get Elena to love him in return; and just when she truly does love him her parents whisk her away so that she could never marry Salvatore. It's also at about this time that Salvatore has to do a stint in the Italian military and when he returns to his village he finds his treasured job lost to a total stranger. Alfredo believes in Salvatore and tells him not to worry about Elena, the theater and their village. Alfredo wants Salvatore to go into big business, perhaps in film, and forget all about their village and his life up to this point.
Salvatore does go away--for thirty years. And from here the plot can go anywhere. Why does Salvatore (now played by Jacques Perrin) return--and why did he stay away for thirty years? Did he ever try to find Elena during all these years? How has his village changed over time? No plot spoilers here, folks! The last hour of the movie remains a secret. Watch the film and find out!
I'm honestly shocked that purely for the sake of making the film shorter they actually cut this film by roughly fifty minutes when it was first released; people seeing this film at that time did not have any more of the story regarding Salvatore and Elena. That's a terrible shame; the movie is so much stronger with the extra footage. It comes in at roughly two hours and fifty-five minutes; but it's well worth your time. They rarely make films as meaningful and touching as Cinema Paradiso. We also get more footage of Salvatore's time in the Italian military; and that's a plus, too.
Cinema Paradiso is like a supercharged jet that taxis down the runway, lifts upward and takes off with incredible power! You may want to have a box of tissues at your side especially during the last hour of the movie--it's quite a tearjerker--and I never tear up at movies! This is easily one of the best foreign films you'll ever see; and movie buffs everywhere are encouraged to get this and enjoy it over and over again.
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Customer Rating: 5
Review Date: 2009-04-30
0 out of 0 found this review helpful.
Summary: Fantastic movie
I love this movie. I met the director at the Academy of the Motion Pictures during the foreign movies symposiom. You have to watch this to learn about the history of cinema, sencership and Italy :) |
Customer Rating: 5
Review Date: 2009-04-29
0 out of 0 found this review helpful.
Summary: What a movie!
This was a great movie with a great message! I highly recommend it! Service through Amazon was impeccable and will buy again. Thanks! |
Customer Rating: 5
Review Date: 2009-04-28
0 out of 0 found this review helpful.
Summary: Favorite movie ever
This movie is as close as any movie has come to touching my heart. This movie displays so many emotions that we can all connect with. It's about unconditional love and sefless love. LOVE IT!!! |
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