When was cinema paradiso made

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Cascio is, he says, perfectly happy with still being best known for a part he played more than two decades ago. As a child, you act in a very natural, spontaneous way — you're just playing around.

But as you get older, acting begins to seem like something you need to study; it becomes like work. I never really wanted to be an actor. I'm very happy for Cinema Paradiso to be my calling card.

Understandably, given how young he was at the time, Cascio retains only vague memories of filming. I did find filming tiring — it was summer, and I just wanted to be off with my friends, playing football, riding my bike. But at that age, you just take it in your stride: even winning a Bafta just seems normal.

It was only years later that I realised what it all really meant. Take for instance the "first love" story, which coincides with the period "Paradiso" becomes a venue in which apparently everything goes.

We see the theater prostitute giving Toto the works shortly before he meets Elena and, as a result, when he blames his clumsiness towards her on this being his "first time", this doesn't ring true and greatly diminishes the innocence of their relationship, which is pivotal to the story.

Later on Toto goes back home for his friend's funeral and we watch as he runs into a young girl her daughter who looks uncannily like Elena naturally, since she's played by the same actress and by following her he encounters his old flame as played by somebody else. Unfortunately this older version of Elena is effectively competing with her younger version, with the ghost of a long lost love against whom she can't hold a candle and by portraying her committing adultery with Toto in a car, Tornatore does the film no favors.

One could even argue that Elena is the equivalent of the shark in " Jaws ": the less we see of her the more affecting she becomes and all these extra scenes do is take away the feeling of Toto's loss, diminishing the impact of the fantastic final scene. Most "Director's cuts" are simply re-releases of a film with extra scenes that were cut from the theatrical release for good reason and put back for purely financial purposes, but there are exceptions, for instance, James Cameron is usually forced to trim his films in order to fit a certain number of theatrical showings per day and once you see his directorial cuts you never go back to the original.

There are three considerations which I believe every filmmaker must take under account before embarking on the Director's Cut of a memorable movie: 1 The natures and attitudes of the characters audiences have come to know and love must not be altered significantly, 2 There must be no major changes in the dynamics of their relationships and 3 The movie must not be made longer than need to be.

The longer cut of "Cinema Paradiso" fails on all three accounts and greatly reminds me of " Apocalypse Now Redux " in which the legendary Lt. Colonel Kilgore now seems witless while searching for his surfboard and Captain Willard who could breath and think of nothing else than Colonel Kurtz is now shown as a James Bond of sorts who has dalliances with beautiful girls at various steps of his journey.

Both re-issues turn great classics into lesser movies and only serve in helping us value the powers of great editing. My recommendation for readers of this review is to stick entirely to the older versions of both and ignore that a new one even exists, otherwise you may find yourself forcing to apply the mental "erase button" that we usually reserve for the many sequels that have diminished their original entries.

Shortly after "Paradiso" became a sensation I learned there were plans to remake it as an ode to the American Drive-ins with Harry Dean Stanton starring in the main role. Despite the universality of the theme, I wasn't surprised that this project never came into fruition. Forget for a moment how the Italian language and idiosyncrasies fit this material so well but the short version of our film is one of those "lighting in a bottle" instances of the right setting, casting and music that's not easy to duplicate.

Gerardo Valero is lives in Mexico City with his wife Monica. Far Flungers A film improved by butchering. Gerardo Valero October 16,