Years & Movies: 1988

Giuseppe Tornatore's melodrama "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" was recognized as the best film of world cinema of 1988 according to FilmGourmand.

The script of the film, although not autobiographical, is largely based on the childhood memories and experiences of Tornatore himself, associated with the period of his life in his hometown of Bagheria in Sicily.

It should be noted that in terms of its subject - movies, cinemas, movie shows - the Tornatore film is the most Italian, since in Italy in the mid-50s there were 17 thousand cinemas, or one cinema for about 2800 people on average. According to this indicator, Italy ranked first in Europe. And even the USSR, for which "cinema is the most important of all the arts," was far behind Italy in this indicator.

Of course, by the 80s, the situation in Italy had changed significantly, and Tornatore once admitted that he wanted to make an obituary film about traditional cinemas (such as the one shown in the film) and the film industry in general.

The premiere of Giuseppe Tornatore's film "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" took place on September 29, 1988 in the Italian city of Bari as part of the European Film Festival, held in Italy annually from 1984 to 2009. On November 17, 1988, the demonstration of this film began in all Italian cinemas.

On May 21, 1989, Giuseppe Tornatore's film "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" was presented to the guests and participants of the Cannes International Film Festival. At this film festival, Tornatore's movie was nominated for the Palme d'Or. But the jury of the film festival, chaired by the famous German film director Wim Wenders, considered the picture of Steven Soderbergh "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" more worthy of the main prize. In the company of "losers" Tornatore's picture was accompanied, in particular, with the Canadian film "Jésus de Montréal" by Denis Arcand, the French film "Monsieur Hire" by Patrice Leconte, the Yugoslav film "Dom za vesanje (Time of the Gypsies)" by Emir Kusturica.

However, "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" was awarded the second most important award - the Grand Prix of the jury. (Along the way, I will note that "Jesus from Montreal" won the jury Prize, and Emir Kusturica won the prize for the Best Director.)

It is curious that in his homeland, in Italy, the film Tornatore received 5 nominations for the Italian Film Academy Award David di Donatello, but won only one of them - for the music of Ennio Morricone. In the most important nominations - Best Film and Best Director - the Italian Film Academy considered the picture "La leggenda del santo bevitore (The Legend of the Holy Drinker)" and its director Ermanno Olmi more worthy of the award.

Also in 1989, the film "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" by Giuseppe Tornatore received the Special Jury Prize from the European Film Academy.

The year 1990 for Giuseppe Tornatore's film "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" was marked by victories at American film forums. First, it won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and then the Academy Award in the same category.

But the French Film Academy, having nominated the film of Tornatore for its César Award in the Best Foreign Film category, gave preference to the American adaptation of the famous novel by Choderlos de Laclos "Les liaisons dangereuses", carried out by Stephen Frears. But "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" again found itself in a very worthy company of relative "losers": the already mentioned "Sex, Lies, and Videotape", "Time of the Gypsies", as well as "Rain Man" by Barry Levinson.

In 1991, the British Film Academy nominated Tornatore's picture in as many as 11 categories. And in 5 of them British Film Academy awarded the film its BAFTA prize. Including, in the most important nomination - Best Film not in the English Language. In another major nomination - Best Direction - the British Film Academy chose Martin Scorsese's direction for "Goodfellas". Also in 1991, "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" received a nomination for Best Foreign Film from the Japanese Film Academy. But the Japanese film academics made their choice in favor of the American film "Field of Dreams" directed by Phil Alden Robinson.

I dare to assume that the relative failures of Giuseppe Tornatore's film "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" at international festival venues in Europe were to some extent due to the "castration" of the picture, carried out in May 1989. The film was cut by as much as 50 minutes! And it would be fine if a sex scene on the floor in a movie theater was cut out of the film. This could be justified by censorship considerations. But no! The whole role of Elena in adulthood, performed by the wonderful actress Brigitte Fossey, was cut out of the film. And along with it - a significant part of the semantic load of the film. A completely incomprehensible solution, corrected later. But! After the festival period.

However, some film critics liked the "circumcision" produced on the film. So, the authoritative Russian film critic Sergey Kudryavtsev noted in his review: "The director of the film wisely shortened the overly prolonged and overly melodramatic modern scenes in the re-released version, immediately achieving the Grand Jury Prize in Cannes and the FIPRESCI Award there ..., as well as the Oscar and the special Felix ... But the first long version was released again on videotapes - and it's a pity!"

However, the above statements of an authoritative Russian film critic require some clarifications. Firstly, the 32-year-old at that time Giuseppe Tornatore, whose "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" was only the second film in his creative biography, did not quite make a reduction of his brainchild on his own initiative. The guru of American film criticism, Roger Ebert, in his second review of the film from 2002 directly indicates that the American film producer Harvey Weinstein, known to the whole world as a desperate womanizer, who at that time represented the MIRAMAX film company, which distributed the film in the United States, insisted on this "circumcision", and for this the film was promised success in America. (We must pay tribute to Weinstein, he kept his word.) But as for the European film awards, what Kudryavtsev calls the "Grand Jury Prize" at the Cannes Film Festival, after all, is not the highest award. The main prize here is called the Palme d'Or. And besides, the Grand Prix of the jury in Cannes, the film of Tornatore received in conjunction with a fairly average film by Bertrand Blie "Trop belle pour toi (Too beautiful for You)". Thus, the members of the jury of the film festival emphasized the level of the "neutered" film. And "special Felix", again, is not the highest award, but a kind of consolation prize from the European Film Academy, for which it was hardly worth disfiguring your creation.

Personally, the point of view of another well - known Russian film critic, Yevgeny Nefedov, seems closer to me in this regard, who wrote in his review: "The film, unfortunately, has undergone cuts, especially significant ones - in the version intended for demonstration abroad. The release (already in the next century) of the full, director's version allowed us to restore historical justice. It's not just that almost three hours of screen time fly by unnoticed. Among other things, an episode that was valuable for understanding the movie's sense (and, by the way, very touching) was forcibly withdrawn..."

The advantages of the full version over the shortened, "international", version of the film are also indicated by the fact that the above-mentioned Roger Ebert in his first review, written after watching the shortened version in 1990, gave the film 3.5 stars, and in the second review, written after watching the full, director's cut, in 2002, rated the film 4 stars and included it in his list of "Great Movies".

You can also recall that another famous American film critic, James Berardinelli, also rated the film with maximum 4 stars and began his review, written after the release of the full version, with this paragraph: "If you love movies, it's impossible not to appreciate Cinema Paradiso, Giuseppe Tornatore's heartwarming, nostalgic look at one man's love affair with film, and the story of a very special friendship. Affecting (but not cloying) and sentimental (but not sappy), Cinema Paradiso is the kind of motion picture that can brighten up a gloomy day and bring a smile to the lips of the most taciturn individual. Light and romantic, this fantasy is tinged with just enough realism to make us believe in its magic, even as we are enraptured by its spell."

It is difficult to say which version was watched by ordinary moviegoers - users of the IMDB and Kinopoisk sites, but 79% of these users gave the film by Tornatore ratings from 8 to 10. And 27% of users rated the film "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" with the highest score -"ten".

Taking into account the above, the rating of Giuseppe Tornatore's film "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" according to FilmGourmand was 11,131, thanks to which it took the 7th Rank in the Golden Thousand.

In addition to the film by Giuseppe Tornatore "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso", the following films were included in the "top ten" of the best films of world cinema of 1988 according to FilmGourmand:

- Rain Man. Director Barry Levinson, USA. Movie's Rating - 9,820; 57th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Dom za vesanje (Time of the Gypsies). Director Emir Kusturica, Yugoslavia. Movie's Rating - 9,036; 157th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Topio stin omichli Τοπίο στην ομίχλη (Landscape in the Mist). Director Theodoros Angelopoulos, Greece. Movie's Rating - 8,862; 198th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Dangerous Liaisons. Director Stephen Frears, USA. Movie's Rating - 8,792; 219th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown). Director Pedro Almodóvar, Spain. Movie's Rating - 8,790; 220th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Krótki film o milosci (A Short Film About Love). Director Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland. Movie's Rating - 8,523; 315th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Die Hard. Director John McTiernan, USA. Movie's Rating - 8,440; 344th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- L'ours (The Bear). Director Jean-Jacques Annaud, France. Movie's Rating - 8,001; 709th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Убить дракона (Kill the Dragon). Director Mark Zakharov, USSR. Movie's Rating - 7,941; 810th Rank in the Golden Thousand.

10 most "cinegenic"*, in our opinion, events of 1988:

- The Spitak earthquake. The Spitak earthquake occurred in Armenia (USSR). 25,000 people died, 15,000 were injured, 400,000 were left homeless.
- The explosion over Lockerbie. A Pan American Boeing 747 (USA) was blown up over Lockerbie (UK) by a bomb installed by a Libyan Al-Megrahi. 270 people were killed.
- Prologue of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. Inter-ethnic clashes began in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, an Armenian enclave on the territory of Azerbaijan, which served as the beginning of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.
- The beginning of the collapse of the USSR and the collapse of the "Iron Curtain". The Supreme Council (Parliament) of Estonia adopted the Declaration of Independence from the USSR, which marked the beginning of the process of the collapse of the Soviet Union. And the Hungarian government allowed free travel to the West.
- Ovechkins. In the USSR, the Ovechkin family tried to hijack a plane, which led to the death of 9 people, including 5 hijackers, a flight attendant and 3 passengers.
- The creation of Al-Qaeda. On the basis of financial assistance and arms supplies to the Afghan Mujahideen from the United States, the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden was created.
- 9th company. During the Soviet-Afghan war, 39 paratroopers from the 345th Separate Guards Airborne Regiment repulsed an attack by 200-250 Mujahideen in the battle for Hill 3234. 4 months after this battle, the Soviet Union began to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
- The A300 crash over the Persian Gulf. The Airbus A300B2-203 passenger plane of Iran Air was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired from the Vincennes missile cruiser of the US Navy. All 290 people on board were killed, including 65 children. At the time of the missile launch, the American cruiser was in the territorial waters of Iran.
- Gas attack in Halabja. As part of Operation Al-Anfal, which aimed to destroy the Kurdish people in Iraq, the Iraqi Air Force, which at that time was sympathetic to Western countries, under the command of Saddam Hussein's cousin, carried out a bombing using poison gases of the city of Halabja.
- Revolution 8888. On August 8, mass protests of the civilian population began in Burma (now Myanmar) against the ruling military junta, which put the country on the verge of an economic catastrophe. According to some sources, about 10 thousand citizens were killed during the brutal suppression of protests until the end of 1988.

Besides, Hal Ashby died.

*-By "cinegenic" in the present context, we mean events that either have already been reflected in world cinema, or deserve to be the basis of the plot of a future film.

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