Feature Presentation as Film's Protagonist

“The film raises many interesting questions regarding the interplay of film and life, and in doing so, creates an obvious yet still intriguing additional dimension in which the viewer is watching a film within a film and seeing the impact of cinema on other fictional characters.” - Tyler Infinger



Michael Jacob brought up that while Toto does not get the classical Hollywood resolution of the lovers’ kiss, the film acknowledges it’s importance to cinema by it’s place as subject of the final montage. In addition to this point, I would like to claim that this decision on the part of the director should be viewed as an encapsulation of the film’s relationship with the viewer. In the final sequence, all of the true feeling is created by five minutes of clips of the classical Hollywood ending while the character that one presumes to be the protagonist passively receives it.

But it occurs to me that I cannot accept Toto as the protagonist any more than I can accept the classical “getting the girl” to be the focus of the plot. Bel Destefani noted that “for the most part we do not see a clear cut problem that needs to be resolved by the end of the film.” I agree that this is the case upon the first viewing but I would like to propose that the reason we do not see a clear-cut problem is that we are used to the problem being one of a human. The archetypes of a plot’s problem usually fall into a few main categories: self vs. other, self vs. self, and self vs. society. I believe that the problem in this plot is quiet clear – it is a problem of coping with one’s identity and purpose in society. What is more difficult to apprehend upon the first or second viewing is to whom the problem belongs to, whom is the protagonist?

Film – as a living, changing entity with a role in society - is the true focus of this plot. Throughout Cinema Paradiso, Film changes as Toto (and the other audiences) perceive it in that time and place. One might say that it is developing to better itself and its situation. The challenge for Film (and the cinema) is to find a place in this city in Italy in face of the changes in its environment. Toto, rather than truly fulfilling the role of a versatile character that changes over time, functions more as a reflective object by which to chart the progress of Film.

I believe that Film actually has more agency in its environment than many of the character’s appear to. It is a leader – creating community and connections; from the cinema’s function as a social microcosm with class warfare, to the two people who’s eyes meet because they are not scared of Boris Karloff in the 1941 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It, even more so than Toto, bears witness to the changes in the society around it: its original freedom is hindered by the religious influence of the priest, its safety is improved by technology, its content is shifted by the war, its wholeness is undermined by the distributor, and its existence is risked by the video. Its importance is shown most directly by its intervention into the physical world of the plot – when the flammability scars one of its co-stars – Alfredo the projectionist.

Film is Toto’s way to get at something that makes him happy – a girl who has even less of a personality – and who is seen almost entirely through the context of film. This is exemplified throughout the prototypical love story: in the introduction to her is seen through the lens, the amour is held through the projection, the pursuit of her is done through a plot line, their embrace occurs to music from a film he is projecting, their reuniting takes place as a theatrical climax, and even Toto’s confession is held through a screen. Yet I would say that even this is evidence of Film’s goal to achieve an acceptable role in society; I believe this is one case of Film’s failure to cope with the sometimes disappointing events that happen in real reality rather than its’ constructed one.

Earlier I stated that I believed that in the final sequence, all of the true feeling is created by five minutes of clips of the classical Hollywood ending – essentially that any resolution one might feel at the end of Cinema Paradiso is caused by the late event of Film’s becoming complete. Yet this film ends with a distinct dissatisfaction – while the film now has that lost part of itself, we find ourselves in the place of Toto- with disconnected images floating in front of us. And as the Film reaches one deadline we are left with the realization that we are not even close to ours – for as much as Toto loved the cinema – it could not kiss him back.