Does a story really need to be true?
All of the most important
stories, for the most part,
are not about real facts:
they are true in the present,
but not in the past

[G.Bateson, M.C. Bateson,
Angels Fear. Towards an
Epistemology of The
Sacred, 1987, p.59]

Writing about the film “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso” is a unique psychic stimulus, and it is different from anything else. At least for me, it is a physical, cinematographic and psychological projection. Such a condition, is a huge solicitation for my cinephile and professional curiosity.

Cinema is an impressive crucible of soul events in which Mankind has entrusted his own thoughts, dreams, fears, all in various shapes. These starts at least since the myth of Plato’s cave, up to present days.

From my side, the difference between writing about this movie instead of others, lies in the setting and in the background. In fact, as is well-known, the most substantial and nuclear part of the film by the director Giuseppe Tornatore, was shot in the village of Palazzo Adriano, in Sicily: here comes, in my opinion, the beginning of the anomaly. For me, Palazzo Adriano is the Village; where my father and his parents were born and lived their daily lives. Regarding my father, this is partially true, since he left “Palazzo” at the age of fourteen, during his adolescence, in the year 1940, when the Second World War was about to become a dramatic Italian affair, too.

Most of my childhood summer holidays took place in Palazzo Adriano, where the days started early and ended late; full of things to do, running far and wide across its steep streets. Inevitably, sooner or later, I would have to cross “the Piazza”, often with my small hand in my father’s big one. There was a stone fountain in the middle of the square; fresh water flowed from it. There, my father used to quench his thirst, accomplishing an unaware ritual every time he came back to “his” village.

The Fountain, and its more or less barycentric location raise it to the function of a navel, that was the Omphalos for the Greeks. It was originally a conical stone placed in the sanctuary of Delphi. Omphalos was the center of the world: the point where the different ways of being were meeting each others. According to the Encyclopedia of Religions; the place where communication and passage are made possible. Therefore, the Fountain of the film plays a balancing role; all around it human events unfolds. In front of the Fountain, there is the Cinema. It is the silent, motionless medium, a physical and psychic object that allows the passage of time, with its catalyzing presence. Furthermore, the Fontana could get the role of witness (in Italian: testimone), in whose Latin suffix –monium could discover the meaning of the assignment.

However, I have to write about the film, allowing to myself a both timid and arrogant freedom, that lets the universal images of the film sliding away together with my personal images permeated with my individual memories, inevitably interwining with the plot of the film, creating a space-time phase shift between figure and background.

Yes, “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso” is a hymn to memory; it is an apologia of memory, to which I could subdue associate my personal memory, made of signs and senses. The first sign is, in fact, the stone of the Fountain, but it is also the milestone, the “zero kilometres”, that is a small, black and white parallelepiped placed at the base of the steps of the Greek church. The Fontana of the village has an octagonal shape; nothing happens by chance. The “eight”  is both a symbol and a universal sign of infinity; it is like a silent, motionless pivot, very vital to the plot. I think it is an encouraging viaticum to let me go through the story of Totò. It represents the history of those who lived his own hometown as a marvellous, but at the same time a hateful prison in which we can recognise and confess our love, only after we moved away from it. Totò looks comfortable in his village; after all, he has almost everything: he has his physical and imaginative freedom (although his mother, not understanding it, tries in vain to limit it; perhaps, who knows, with the unconscious dread that such imagination would have taken him far, maybe too far away). He also has some friends, the school, the sky, the space, the village as a natural “protective box” (like a témenos, that was a sacred place in Greek mythology). Totò has the vital curiosity of childhood; moreover, he has the Cinema and Alfredo. I used the word almost before, because here lies the need for something else and elsewhere: the desire for a seemingly full life. A life full of everything is like a saturated solution: it is impossible to add anything else when the maximum saturation limit is fulfilled. We need empty spaces, we need sense of lack in our own lives, for allowing, or forcing us, to move from one place to another.

I think Totò has a kind of lack: it is the figure of the father, rather than the real father; it is no coincidence that the regret that Totò feels for the absence of the parent, swallowed up in the remote Russia during the dramatic abyss of war (Totò confesses to the mother he totally forgot his father). This goes towards the father’s idea (Totò keeps a photo of his father in the box of films scraps, stolen from Alfredo), instead of the paternal physicality, evoked by any mythical figures of the great American actors, represented on the posters of the films. Totò’s little half smile, when he learns about the death of his father in Russia, reveals a “truth” of which he is the unique keeper. Bringing back the idea of his father overlapping it with the images of Hollywood stars is an unconscious way to give immortality to the lost parent (the terms to see – in Italian: vedere – and idea share the etymology: id / eidon = to see, from which the Latin word videre).

Alfredo is the rude, ignorant, wise, protective projectionist of “Cinema Paradiso”; he arises to the role of paternal, substitute figure for Totò, however Alfredo could be ambivalent; in fact, he warned Totò against settling for a unhappy life (Totò would like to learn the same job as Alfredo, while he encourages him to study in order to have more opportunities in life, far away from the village). At the same time, Alfredo ignites the passion of Totò for cinema, with his great example and “professionalism”. In some film analysis, Alfredo’s figure has been compared to the soothsayer Tiresias, since he go blind after the fire in the cinema. Particularly, I think to the Tiresias described in the Odyssey: in this poem, in fact, his spirit will indicate the way back to Odysseus[1]:

Son of Laertes, sprung from Zeus, Odysseus of many devices, what now, hapless man? Why hast thou left the light of the sun and come hither to behold the dead and a region where is no joy?

One of the Apollodorus’ hypotheses contained in his Library[2] attributes the cause of Tiresias’ blindness because of the vision of Athena’s nakedness; I would like to work a risky comparison: Alfredo – as Tiresias – preserves the frames that was immortalising the most sensual and rough parts of the films shown at Cinema Paradiso, the cut-kisses ones. According to the parish of the village, these fragments of film should have been destroyed, hidden by anyone; then, their collection are going to be the most tangible legacy left by Alfredo to Salvatore. Now he is an adult man, and is rich, famous, and far away enough – he is safe – in space and time. Now Salvatore, in a cold and empty projection room, can watch – alone – all of that strings that were forbidden to everyone. Alfredo-Tiresia, dead, has revealed the taboo to Salvatore through his blindness, who, finally, has the opportunity to open his eyes clouded by the mists of adulthood, seeing the both liberating and intimate deed of the kiss, a friendly and familiar osculum, an affectionate and loving basium, up to a sensual and passionate suavium.

What is the nostalgia of Salvatore? It is generic nostalgia for the past or, more specifically, it is nostalgia for an age, a state of mind, a psychological condition in which Totò-Salvatore compare both their present and future: Totò lives its daily life as a non-stop search of new opportunities and stimuli. We could say that Totò was unconsciously building his future; such unconsciousness allowed him to fully experience the present, apparently poor, that is, devoid of “objects”. We risk to live the present, waiting for the future: waiting for something that – eventually – is going to happen; meanwhile, we lose the sight of the current moment. On the other hand, Salvatore has a rich present, that is heavy by “objects” (success, wealth, fame). They take space, breaking the breath from Salvatore’s present, because of their “gravity”. He denies the memory to himself, whose presentification would risk to melt the “objects” of the present, like snow in the sun. They saturated his present life, as a superficial fullness, with no depth. Here comes the choice of Salvatore, denying to himself the “return to his homeland”; he has chosen to meet his mother, that is the last “psychological object” connecting him to Totò and to the ground, just in a non-

emotional, fruitless place, that is in its current residence, away from the village.

Therefore, we need a strong element, a “catastrophic change”, according to the sense attributed to this expression by the Anglo-Indian psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion[3]; he means the split of the knot of an action. Bion started from the etymology of the term “catastrophe”, that means a subversion (“turning downwards”). Perhaps, the death of Alfredo is the only, real “catastrophic” event for Salvatore’s psyche. Such event could wake him up from a state of emotionless anaesthesia, “freed” from the fear of Totò’s ghost, allowing him to face the pain for Alfredo’s loss, or, perhaps, for Totò’s loss, the loss of his self-child. In short, we could say that Alfredo’s death and the consequent return to the village allows Totò and Salvatore to “meet again” with each other.

The grieving process for a person or an idea goes through a deep encounter with that person or that idea. “Putting foot back” in the village (in the literal meaning of trampling, touching the ground with your feet) has assumed for Salvatore the meaning of being able to “see” and “feel” Totò in his places, among his stones. Alfredo’s recommendation to Totò-Salvatore (this is the late adolescent phase of the character in which both past and future identities coexist): it takes on a conditional value: “Do not go back as long as I am here.” We could say that Salvatore’s return to the village for the last farewell to Alfredo is a sort of liberation for him from any unnecessary superficial trappings (as the notoriety, a fragmented, desolate sexuality, and a paralysing anhedonia, testified by Salvatore’s sad mask, opposed to an irrepressible joie de vivre concentrated in the eyes of Totò).

We resume a theory and image used by the American psychoanalyst James Hillman, applying to the narrative of the film; Totò represents Salvatore’s “acorn”, and he feeds it as if the elements that will bring Salvatore to find himself are already contained in Totò-child. However, the message of the film is an invitation to recognise your past and your roots, so that the individual is “fulfilled”. It is a multi- circular path, starting from a point – childhood, places, our boyhood’s faces… – a path unfolds from this phase; sometimes it is linear and “logical”, other times is jagged and uncertain. It will bring us somewhere. We need to “feel” this place, so that it is going to become our own place; we need to feel a continuous line that connect these two points, like Totò and Salvatore. In this way, Salvatore-The-Adult- Man will be able to desire, dream, plan a new path, individuative, and not just like a mere simulacrum.

The village is as a “promised land” where, however, anyone must not come back. And if you do it, the penalty is the disappearance of the ground, and the humus: the fear that the return will kill the memory and our childhood, our golden age.

The very brief dialogue between Salvatore and Spaccafico, that is the owner of the new Cinema Paradiso, taking place during the funeral of Alfredo, is deeply intense; Spaccafico speaks to Salvatore, naming him “Mister” (Lei, in formal Italian, instead of friendly tu). Salvatore complains about that form (“Why are you naming me like this?”); Spaccafico replies that Salvatore is now an important person (“It is hard to be informal towards a VIP like you”). Salvatore is almost mortified, because he does not feel “recognized” himself as Totò, but formally and coldly confined to the “celebrity-Salvatore” (the Person, the mask, according to the Analytical Psychology).

Then, Spaccafico “releases” Salvatore from that simulacrum, giving him back his truest identity through his “real” name (“Anyway, if you care: Totò!”).

A small crowd of people, together with Salvatore, is accompanying Alfredo towards his last trip. There are his wife, Salvatore’s mother, Spaccafico. Salvatore has some short dialogues with these figures. There are a few ones at the funeral, among others, that lived in the village, at the time of Totò’s youth. They were revolving around and inside the Cinema; they knew Totò very well and frequented the cinema: the young couple, whose relationship began in the cinema hall; the blacksmith, moved by the most romantic scenes, reciting them one by one; Ignazio, the dumb, cinema factotum…): now, they are like ghosts, so white, distant, silent, motionless and impalpable (the mother will say to Salvatore: “There are only ghosts here”). A deferential greeting they offer to Salvatore is faint, without any physical contact; they seem to belong to another world, a dead’s one: a world that no longer exists. Salvatore recognises them, but he does not “feel” them; perhaps he is almost afraid of them; he hints at an imperceptible, embarrassed nod of greeting. It is designed to remain in a larval state, at least until when Salvatore will find Totò.

The opening scene is set in a chromatically cold environment, albeit opulent, with no heat or natural light, nor real eroticism or a kind of sensuality. Salvatore is lying down with the same clothes worn during the day, as a sign of lack of care and intimacy, opposite to one precise context: his childhood, in which physicality is continually prompted by gestures, words or vital contexts). An “erotic negation”, the narcissistic immobility of the adult Salvatore is an unconscious response to a time full of emotional impulses, hopes (the expected father’s return), participation, chorality, open spaces (the square as an agorà, as a stage for humanity), investment for the future. The poverty of the village is seasoned with desire; the adult Salvatore’s wealth is full of despair (without any hope, there is nothing more to be desired).

Here, then, the meaning of film script, which unravel itself like a story, with temporal jumps that alternate some paintings of the past and contemporary films. We can notice a difference: the images of the “how we were” are throbbing with sounds, colours. They are fully imbued with light and a naive, poor and “peripheral” humanity, still vital in its “small ancient world”, opposed to a present life without memory, without any certain points of reference, without a “milestone” from which the world and life could express, a place of the soul from which to start. A place without any fountain to drink from and, without being seen, looking both ourselves and the world.

For Salvatore, the return to his childhood places is returning to light reaching full consciousness: Totò’s eros, vital and “binding”, is in contrast with Salvatore’s thanatos, which separates, mortifies and cuts off. Alfredo’s death therefore marks Salvatore’s ability to access his most hidden and painful parts of his soul, resuming an interrupted dialogue, knowing that without those, the individual will never be able to fully undertake the path for his own individuation.

One of the final scenes of the film talks about the definitive demolition of the Cinema.

The “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso”, in fact, have to be demolished to make room for a parking lot. On one hand, the physical disappearance of an object could confer an aura of eternity to the object itself and to the meanings that it contains, on the other hand, the intended use assigned to the area (the parking lot is a metaphorical

place where the object-car loses its own function, that is the movement) describes the symbolic decadence of places and their non-sense. This goes in contrast to the director’s choice to rebuilt the scene, in fact, a parking lot in the “real” village of Palazzo Adriano, besieged by cars and billboards would be a barbaric act, it would be just useless and superflue.

After all, in a contemporary reality that tends to distort the landscapes, making them homogeneous, anonymous and “normalized” in all places of the world, the director’s idea of artificially “modernizing” the Piazza, highlighting the slovenly and the sense of the chaos with ugly billboards, a petrol station and many cars, gives the real current time of Palazzo Adriano an extraordinary strength, in which memory can find a safe shelter.

The return of Salvatore to his “home” is like a closing circle, and I am also seeking for the sense of this curved line that brings me back to him, when I talk about myself-child, naive and free, simple, being involved in a plan bigger than me. The philosopher Henri Bergson said: «If the circumference is made up of a series of points, then memory, like cinema, is made up of a series of images: if it is immobile, is in a neutral state; if in motion, it is as life itself»[4].

What is the “true” reality? The “lived reality” or the “remembered reality”? Salvatore moves carefully, gently, perhaps frightened, when he returns to his village; his voice is a whisper. Memory is a sweet fact; it is a shelter where symbols find their order. Memory is an intimate, fragile place where visitors have to move carefully. We can’t be like an elephant in a glass shop; that’s when we will be able to hear the rustling of the curtains, the breeze on the blade of grass, the seed falling from the wooden floor, the ant on the pavement. In these states, our existence discovers eternity.

Starting from that, finally free from nostalgia, we discover that returning home is not a closure; it is the return that makes us our fathers’ fathers, our mothers’ mothers. Therefore, Salvatore’s village becomes a limit place, between what we have and what we are, the subtle limit between oblivion and memory. Oblivion is the intense and merciless light, which eliminates both the contours and shades. It is the rawness of abundance, that makes believe us we can have everything at all times; however, the oblivion kills dreams, humiliates love. The memory lies in the twilight; under the light of the street lamp that illuminates a fragment of the road and plays with the last ray of sunlight. In memory we seek our own path for identification; many sections of this route are barely noticeable. Sometimes they are invisible; they are unconscious.

The encounter with the unconscious may be painful if we are not equipped enough, we risk raising defensive walls that give us the illusion of being able to protect our appearance public present. This has been defined by C.G. Jung as the “regressive reconstitution of the Person”; it makes us believe we can identify and replace who we are with the social role we occupy. Eventually, here comes the guidance of the film – at least, I feel it meaningful for me – is that at a significant point in our life (for Salvatore it is the death of Alfredo), we can “free” ourselves, renouncing to our stereotyped, bidimensional, anodyne and anaesthetic image, in order to not renounce to our true self. As for Salvatore, the chance of being able to finally restore the bond with Totò, at the same time paternal and filial, opens up.

4 Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory, 1991

This could be the nuclear theme around which the film’s psychological themes revolves around, embedded with a feeling of nostalgia and memory. Salvatore lost his true self; the Person has had an advantage over the Soul. The public, the exterior perspective of individual-Salvatore have darken the Soul, the Soul that Totò, instinctively and freely expressed in his daily life. The child, in an authentic and virginal way, accessed to the most unconscious and less constructed aspects of his personality. He expressed his inner freedom through his physical and emotional exuberance. Everything in Totò manifests an immersion in a magical world that is not separated from him, it is an integral part of it: miming, curiosity, impertinence, thirst for life. In short, emotion and movement marks the present of Totò, who lives the present, in the present, without nostalgia and remorse; this state contrasts the present of Salvatore, in whose past he seeks peace, to escape from a present that is too saturated, too “dry” and devoid of “humidity” (in the root of this word we find humus, mood – in Italian: umore, humanity, humor …) Now, it is time for me to step aside; the Film contains other films, like a Matrjoska. It allowed me (or forced me?), to look outside and inside myself, through the mirror of Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, “using” Totò, Salvatore, the village, in a dizzying game of cross-references in which to lose our space-time coordinates, and finally finding ourselves. It is just a mirror, it belongs to whoever wants to use it, without any fear.

[1] Homer, The Odissey, 2003.

[2] Apollodorys, The Library, 1989.

[3] Wilfred R. Bion, Group and Organisation Studies, 1976.

[4] Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory, 1991.