the cinema man
 

PostED ON 16.10.2024

The 68 year-old Italian screenwriter and director, best known for his masterpiece Cinema Paradiso (1988), takes a closer look at the origins of making the film. 

Giuseppe Tornatore © Olivier Chassignole

At the beginning…
.I went to my first cinema when I was six or seven years old with my father, and I was blown away by the movie theatre. At first, I thought that films were actually born in the projection booth. As a teenager, I started making little Super 8 documentaries. After one of them, I was called by RAI Television’s regional headquarters in Sicily and I started working for them as a programmer and director.

Cinema Paradiso
The idea was born in 1977, eleven years before I’d made the film. One day, I came back to my village and the cinema had closed. I was able to salvage the equipment from the projection booth, but workers were dismantling the seats, the curtains, the lights... It was infinitely sad and I told myself that I had to do something. Later, in the 1980s, during a period of dissatisfaction and melancholy in my life, my producer said to me, “But don't you have a dream tucked away somewhere?” and I told him about Cinema Paradiso, about the era when people used to run to the cinema.

Little Toto
I found him through a photo, but he was wearing big glasses, so you couldn't really make out his face. All you could see was that he was short, thin and had dark skin. Since I already had Toto and Alfredo in mind, like a little mouse and an elephant, I called the child to ask him what his name was. He said “Salvatore, but everyone calls me Toto”. It was exactly the name I had written in the script! I discovered an extremely lively, mischievous and very intelligent child.

Giuseppe Tornatore © Olivier Chassignole

Censored kisses
A projectionist told me that he had worked in a parish cinema run by a priest, and this priest had the habit of watching the films alone. When a woman was shown with bare legs or if there was any kissing, he would ring his bell and the projectionist would have to cut the film and remove that part. I wanted to incorporate this into my film.

Very loud movie screenings...
I have wonderful memories of Sundays when we'd go to a movie theatre after lunch and not come out until dinnertime. We'd watched the film three times in a row! There was also a ‘class’ system, with the poorest people down in the front, making the most noise.

How the film was received in Cannes
.It was a huge success. The film was sold in many countries. It was the resurrection of the film! Some people ask me: “Do festivals really do anything?” Don't ask me that question! For me it's fundamental! In the producer's office, his assistant kept repeating, “Cinema Paradiso was forced on Italian audiences using French bayonets”.

Reported by Fanny Bellocq