Anthology of Ideas

“Cinema Paradiso” shows just how important art, culture and community is in human lives. For many people in western societies art is something that hangs around the peripheral of their lives never fully entering or leaving. But for Salvatore art was the focus of his life through his youth and adult hood; art and movies were the common threads that connected his entire life together. For the townspeople art was also important to them but not as all consuming as it was for Salvatore.

The Cinema Paradiso itself was the figurative and literal center of the town in the early and mid years it was in operation. Eventually, as the community was able to connect to the outside world more and more the Paridiso was slowly forgotten, until it was finally sold and demolished. During it’s early years of operation the Paridiso was for many people was the only way for them to escape the pressures of living in Sicily after the Second World War, large numbers of soldiers died leaving families broken, the land was poor and work hard to find.

The role that art plays in human lives is not the only theme of the movie, it also speaks of how life conspires without ones knowledge and leads people to where they end up. Life is like a giant puzzle for each person, events have conspired since the beginning of the universe to lead to their lives. This is not to say that human lives are predefined or that destiny controls the way people end up but more like that the people and events that came before each person effect our lives, just as the people and events around oneself does. For example if someones great great etc etc grandparent died and didn’t have a child they would never have been born nor would one of their parents etc obviously. But even in the most simplistic parts of daily lives everything from the school people go to, to the last horrible blind date are affected by outside events that most people never find out about.