The script was born from an autobiographical impulse. Tornatore obtained the idea while visiting his native village near Palermo, Sicily where he found the local theater in ruins. It was his childhood haven in the 1900's where he first fell in love with film (59). Tornatore recreates this incident by taking the audience back to the nostalgia of the 1940's and 1950's. It is the time before VCR's and televisions were widely used in homes. Through young Toto he is able to represent a time when the movies were the focal point of entertainment, in Sicily, or anywhere.
Its success as sentimental nostalgia is due to the poignant use of an extended flashback (Johnson, 60). Salvatore (Toto), a successful Italian film maker, learns of the death of his childhood mentor, Alfredo. His memories take him back to the village in Sicily where he first fell in love with film. The imagery of the cinema creates a scene that may perfectly convey that movie going then was the same anywhere, thus reinforcing its historical significance. Much of "the action is seen through the small window of the projection booth, and some of the best moments come when Tornatore's camera rests on its other side, where the audience--mothers nursing their babies, old solders snoring and young lovers necking-shares the magic of the movies" (Johnson, 61). There are even wonderful clips of old movies peppered throughout the film that add to its ambiance (Ansen, 86). .
Critics have found that Cinema Paradiso successfully portrays movies as a means of escaping reality on several different levels. Just as the film itself offers audiences emotional escapism, the theater portrayed in the film allows the townspeople to temporarily forget about their post World War II poverty. Not only does the theater hold the town together, it's the arena for class warfare, justice and cultural change (James, C20).
On a more personal level, it is young Toto's escape from his reality.
