Cinema Paradiso, Neo-realism?
Sebastian Bernheim
I just had the pleasure of seeing an italian film called
Cinema Paradiso. It was subtitled, but easy to follow the dialogue
anyway. I thought it was a teriffic flick, but I am wondering about
something.
In my Intro to Film class, we are currently studying Italian
neo-Realism (Rome, Open City, Paisa, and others), and I noticed a
large influence of neo-realism on Cinema Paradiso in the earlyier
parts of the film, but not as much in the later parts. When Toto's
life as a child in Sicily is depicted, I get a sense of strong
neo-realist influence. It reminds me a lot of Rome, Open City.
However, I don't really know if this film is neo-realist, because in
the later parts, when he returns to Sicily as a grown, successful man
on the occasion of his friend's death, it seems very pure and good and
melodramatic. The happy ending also made forced me to doubt the
neo-realist influence. This seems a very interesting thread. Could
someone else who has seen the film give me thier impression of this.
I am about to write my semester's paper. I think I will do it
on neo-realism, now that I have seen this movie.
Thanks.
--
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O++O Sebastian Bernheim
=\/=
"Love them little mousies!"
"Ma che sciagura d'essere senza coglioni!" (something like that)
Disclaimer: I just work here, they don't pay me enough to think!
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Chet Chin
>Hi
> I just had the pleasure of seeing an italian film called
>Cinema Paradiso. It was subtitled, but easy to follow the dialogue
>anyway. I thought it was a teriffic flick, but I am wondering about
>something.
>
> In my Intro to Film class, we are currently studying Italian
>neo-Realism (Rome, Open City, Paisa, and others), and I noticed a
>large influence of neo-realism on Cinema Paradiso in the earlyier
>parts of the film, but not as much in the later parts. When Toto's
>life as a child in Sicily is depicted, I get a sense of strong
>neo-realist influence. It reminds me a lot of Rome, Open City.
>However, I don't really know if this film is neo-realist, because in
>the later parts, when he returns to Sicily as a grown, successful man
>on the occasion of his friend's death, it seems very pure and good and
>melodramatic. The happy ending also made forced me to doubt the
>neo-realist influence. This seems a very interesting thread. Could
>someone else who has seen the film give me thier impression of this.
>
but are instead more likely to display the influence of two or more genres.
As such, it should not be surprising that there is a major neo-realist
influence in the early part of _Cinema Paradiso_, followed by a melodramatic
influence in the later part. Mind you, I have not seen the film myself, but I
took Film Studies as a minor in my undergrad days, so I can understand your
attempts to relate what you study in class to what you see in the movies these
days.
You should try to understand that genre study is only one way of classifying
movies, but movies these days tend to defy strict classification. It is often
only in the case of classical Hollywood cinema that anything close to a strict
classification is possible.
I hope you're having fun in your "Intro to Film" course. Some of my best
undergrad coursework were done in the various film seminars I took.
By the way, what do you mean by "pure and good and melodramatic"?
Chet Chin
UC San Diego
*Just putting in my two cents' worth.*