This timeless Oscar winning Foreign film by then first time director Giuseppe Tornatore is life itself. In a rundown Italian village at the time of the great war we meet every type of humanity and are able to sense every type of emotion that can be realized by mankind. The film will make you laugh; it will make you cry; it will make you seriously sob but when all is said and done it will leave you with a very satisfying joy, the sheer joy of being alive and living. This film is especially endearing to me as it seems to be my life story to a large extent. When I was 10 my family took an extended holiday of six months to our southern hometown in Italy located one km. From the Adriatic sea. Knowing the owner of the town's lone cinema, there I was at that cinema night after night, not in the projection booth, but with the owner, a wonderful woman whom I scarcely can remember at this point of life. And here it was that my love of movies truly rose to a compulsion that I have never been able to overcome. I paid my dues in life like that incredible young boy so in love with movies and with Philippe Noiret who played the wonderful, beautiful projectionist. I did not turn out a film-maker, but much like that young boy growing into manhood life had its many ups and downs for me... but I turned out to be, I believe, a success in my chosen field of higher learning where I still take pride in shaping some of the great young minds at our University. My life basically took its true course in that magical Summer and Fall in a rundown Italian theatre. What will never leave me is that sense of nostalgia and yes, love of an era that will never return yet ONE I WILL NEVER FORGET! For me Cinema Paradiso is and always will be at the very top of world cinema. It is a masterpiece that many directors aspire to but very few attain. Even Giuseppe Tornatore, much like Orson Welles, with all the great films he has made, nothing will match his CINEMA PARADISO!
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