"Life Isn't Like in the Movies"

I am of the opinion that all film’s well that ends well. True, films are not fairy tales and their characters do not always live happily ever after, but I might venture to say it is imperative, or at least de rigueur, that a film resolve itself triumphantly and conclusively.

David Bordwell might agree. In his exploration of the traditions established by “Classical Hollywood Cinema,” Bordwell defines a movie ending as, “a decisive victory or defeat, a resolution of the problem and a clear achievement or nonachievement of goals." It can be argued that the film Cinema Paradiso adheres to this paradigm, but in an unexpected way that perhaps undercuts the “Classical Hollywood Movie” structure as we know it.

Centered around the goings-on of an Italian movie house, Cinema Paradiso seems at first to be a tribute to both the art of film and the culture that surrounds it. But, as the film progresses it takes on another raison d’etre: warning viewers of the dangers of being indoctrinated into the mentality championed by the Hollywood myth. Through and ending that is an example of markedly anticlimactic “nonachievement,” this film reveals itself as, not an homage to the idealized Hollywood trajectory, but rather a blatant dismantling of it.

Film is shown to be a literally dangerous medium early on, when Toto’s mentor and fellow cinema-phile Alfredo is rendered blind by a fire caused by an enflamed reel. And even after the development of an anti-flammable sort of film, the dangers of movies remain in the form of the mentality they cultivate. When forced to endure lives that don’t live up to on-screen realities, disillusionment is inevitable. As put by Alfredo in one of his final soliloquies, “Life isn’t like the movies. Life is much harder.”
This declaration is a dramatic change in tune for Alfredo’s character, who, even after his accident, seems to deify the wisdom found in film and, frequently referencing the American movie canon as a source of real-life guidance.

Another example of Hollywood-hero worship is found in the association of Toto’s father with Clark Gable. It is mentioned that the two men bear great physical resemblance. As Toto walks hand in hand with his mother to his father’s burial, we see him glance at an old poster for the American film Gone With the Wind featuring the iconic image of Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in a passionate embrace. It seems that throughout the rest of the film he is chasing the dream promoted by this film fantasy-- he yearns to live out the relationship his mother was denied by untimely death.

It seems that Toto’s adolescent life becomes defined by his desire to fulfill this fantasy. When he meets Eleanor, he is instantly convinced that she is the consummate love interest—the one and only object of his affection. Her appearance seems indicative of a very deliberate decision on behalf of the director—she may be Italian, but she looks every inch a blonde-blue-eyed Hollywood starlet. Her picture is even tacked to the wall by Toto alongside the headshots of major movie stars legends of the day.

Over and over we viewers are given ample reason to believe the Hollywood love myth. We are convinced that love will eventually conquer all, and that dreams, even if deferred, will eventually be obtained. For example, when a downtrodden Toto becomes convinced on a sad New Year’s Eve that Eleanor will never love him and that romance is worthless, he is proven wrong: she appears in the projection room and they share a blockbuster kiss. Later, we find Toto wallowing in despair, upset that Eleanor is away at college. He stares up at the stars as a movie flickers on an outside projector in the background, and viewers begin to wonder if perhaps he finally feels a disconnect from the film love featured on the screen behind him. Suddenly, his faith in love is restored when Eleanor appears dramatically in the rain for another Oscar-worthy smooch. Every time we are led to believe that Toto has been a fool to subscribe to the beliefs championed in movies, we are corrected by a love scene more dramatic than the previous disheartened one. We are meant to believe that romance transcends and trumps all.

The ending, however, defies all of our expectations and leaves us in the very place of disillusionment that Alfredo warned us about.

The audience expects another grand Hollywood rescue. We expect Toto to buy the theater and restore it, and to thus restore our faith in the concept of the movie. We expect him to follow his mother’s orders and settle down with Eleanor, the original love of his life. We expect him to pay some sort of momentous homage to his late mentor, Alfredo.

Instead, we see the demolition of Cinema Paradiso, the fizzling of the relationship between Toto and the preoccupied Eleanor, and the stoic, no-frills burial of Alfredo. The final scene presents the last stand and eventual collapse of Toto’s faith in film magic. As Toto sits in a dark theater watching a series of once-omitted love scenes, he seems to realize that his love for Eleanor was no more than an infatuation with the love depicted on screen. His tears stem from his understanding that his life’s devotion had been nothing more than a façade, and, as a director, that he had dedicated his own life to producing material that would similarly fool posterity.

While this ending is not uplifting nor is it expected, it is decisive, and proves that there is more than one way to end well.

How does film change the way we see the world?

How does film change how we view the world?

To me, the most obvious answer is that film convinces us that all the world is ours for the seeing. The camera has the ability to open up realms to which, according to everything from societal norms to the laws of physics, we would ordinarily be denied access. Given the right protagonist, viewers can go anywhere or do anything.

Movies allow for the willing and effortless suspension of reality, and both films we watched for this assignment--Amelie and Fight Club—seem to test the limits of this privilege. Thanks to modern camera tricks, the images that appear on screen appear real enough but are often undeniably absurd, as when Amelie interacts with an imaginary friend or Tyler Durden appears as a splice in the film for a millisecond.

These works, however, are rarely classified as part of the Science Fiction or Fantasy genres, and I might say this is because they are not meant to serve as documentation of a particular series of events, but rather to convey the inner workings of a specific individual’s mindset.

This we see in the personification of Tyler Durden, who is only a real being in the mind of Fight Club’s narrator. The world as seen through the eyes of this narrator is truly a manifestation of inward insanity, but it is the only version of the story we are told, and we accept it as truth.

Similarly, Amelie’s universe is a fantastical one, the result of an overactive imagination developed over the course of a lonely youth. The film introduces us to and submerges us in her world of dreams. Set in Paris, the landscape itself is a bit magical, and it along with a fairy tale soundtrack and computer graphics make imaginary friends and inanimate objects come to life in a way that is almost believable.

In this film, the camera and the narrator take on an impossible perspective, traveling in and out of many private spaces as well as across time. For instance, in the opening scene the narrator catalogs a number of seemingly unrelated happenings that occurred the moment the heroine was conceived. Later, the narrator follows various Parisians and lists off their likes and dislikes, demonstrating its ability to not only inhabit multiple perspectives but also to inhabit the psyche of multiple persons.

Later, Amelie herself seems to possess omniscient powers when she speculates about how many couples in the city below are having orgasms and comes up with what we are shown is the accurate answer. Thanks to the indoctrination of cinema, we accept that it is possible to be a billion places, or in this case fifteen, simultaneously.

This film is also self-referential in that it places heavy emphasis on spectatorship. Amelie is obsessed with watching other people. She observes their lives and yearns to fix their problems the same way filmgoers do. A specific nod to this concept is the relationship Amelie has with her camera, which she uses to create images of imaginary happenings. Upon receiving it, she uses it to capture a bunny rabbit she see in the clouds. Throughout the film she uses cameras to capture the poses of her father’s lawn gnome with the aim of making it seem that the gnome is traveling the world on his own. Her father is willing to suspend his own understanding of reality to believe this. The camera is thus established as a tool used to capture the world in a unique way that suits the whims of the beholder. Amelie, the beholder in this case, sees the world as moviemakers do and as moviegoers want to.

When Walter Benjamin posits in his “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” that “all film is political,” I am not sure that I agree completely, but I do see his point. Film as a medium has the capacity for enormous political influence by merit of the fact that it is so universally accessible, but also because it is overtly persuasive. If I learned anything from Fight Club or Amelie it is that the minute viewers submit themselves to watching of a film, they willingly sympathize with the protagonists and narrators and to some degree accept the stories they present, whether they involve the hallucinations of an insomniac or the caprices of a Parisian loner.

Introduction to Film