Cinema Paradiso
I feel that the overall cinematic quality of this clip from the film Cinema Paradiso clearing illustrates the pain/joy of young romance. The clip starts out with Salvatore in a dark street gazing up at the brightly lit window of his heart's desire. Camera angles upwards towards the window to show that he desires her and what she symbolizes. The music chosen underlines the romantic nature of the scene, while the changing weather and cut-ins of the calendar show that time is passing. The juxtaposition of the New Year's countdown compared to the excitement building on Salvatore's face demonstrates the rise before the fall of young love. His walking away from the camera shows that he is giving up on it. While he is in the backroom at the theatre, ripping the calendar apart, the camera is sneaking behind the frame created by the equipment. This is to show that he is not completely over his heart ache and the camera is gaining access to this secret by remaining in the background.
For some reason or another, I can only get the editable hyperlink. When I try clicking on the view only link, all my annotations disappear.
the clip worked fine for me =)
ReplyDeletei really loved how you moved on the thematic and economic conditions of the movie. what makes cinema paradiso such an endearing movie to us all is just that: its accurate portrayal of early cinema and its place in post-war italy, and its thematic plays on the love of cinema and how it interweaves with salvatore, and you chose the perfect clip to capture it.
semi-tangentially, this movie is right up there with Schindler's List for me in terms of "movies I know logically I shouldn't be suckered in by, but somehow I am every time". It really plays on the melodrama to GREAT effect, just as Spielberg did in Schindler's List. Even the small things, like the calendar scratching...so cliche, and yet it feels like it would be WRONG to leave it out. Sign of a master movie-maker.
ReplyDeleteJoe, good sense of how the color and shots are used to portray the love story and his characters; you also see the purposes for using these techniques in terms of the New Year's Eve countdown as a specific space/time.
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