An extraordinary declaration of love for the seventh art, “Cinema Paradiso” by Giuseppe Tornatore ends with an absolutely moving sequence that few spectators can resist. Warning, spoilers!
SPOILERS – Warning, the article below reveals potential spoilers. If you do not wish to know its contents, please do not read what follows…
From Singing in the Rain to The Artist via Who Framed Roger Rabbit or Empire of Light, the feature films which aim to declare their love for cinema are very often excellent films themselves.
Among all these memorable tributes to the seventh art, however, one work stands out from the others and – largely thanks to its masterful final sequence – holds a very special place in the memories of the spectators who know it. This is Cinema Paradiso, directed in 1989 by Giuseppe Tornatore.
The end of Manon des Sources is one of the most moving in the history of French cinema
Worn by Philippe Noiret and Jacques Perrin, this masterpiece (let’s not be afraid of words) traces the tender youth of Salvatore, a little boy from a modest village in Sicily, whose first memories are written in the light of a projector. That of the parish cinema, the Cinema Paradiso, whose reels are lovingly operated by his friend the projectionist Alfredo.
As he discovers the works of Jean Renoir, Frank Capra and Charlie Chaplin, the man affectionately nicknamed Totò also discovers friendship, love and life. So many memories that come back to him passionately thirty years later, in Rome where he works as a renowned filmmaker, and when he learns with sorrow of the death of his old friend Alfredo.
Tender and tinged with nostalgia, this poignant dramatic comedy with Pagnolesque accents takes away absolutely everything in its path with a final scene which remains among the most beautiful in the history of cinema, and which we strongly recommend that you discover in the best possible conditions before to read the following lines.
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Following Alfredo’s funeral, and after helplessly witnessing the destruction of the Cinema Paradiso, Salvatore returns to Rome with a last reel of film under his arm: the one that his projectionist friend had insisted on leaving him before dying, and that his widow gave it to him.
As he starts the film in his private screening room, Totò gradually realizes what it is about. On his adult face, as Ennio Morricone’s masterful score resounds, a childish smile gradually takes shape, and in his eyes, which light up again, a few tears begin to bloom.
The images that pass before him are those that were forbidden to him during his childhood. All the censored scenes – of hugs or kisses – which were scrupulously cut from the films to preserve the young spectators of the Cinema Paradiso, but which Alfredo carefully preserved and put back together end-to-end to send a final cinematographic wink to his best friend.
(Re)discover this scene, told by Kylie Minogue…