Censoring the Kisses
The First Cut
In this scene early into the film, the mischievous young Salvatore (nicknamed Toto by Giancarlo's townsfolk) sneaks into the Cinema Paradiso and watches the town's priest Father Adelfio screens the latest film sent to the theater by a Roman film distribution company. The film featured in this scene is Jean Renoir's The Lower Depths (1936) (Versa la Vita in Italian).In the following scene: Alfredo cuts out an offending scene from a strip of film, and Toto grabs it and holds it up to the light. He is fascinated by those pictures. We see two close-ups of frames from that strip. Alfredo says the boy can't have that strip of film. But then Toto points a whole tangle of strips cut out of former films. (You see, Alfredo has to splice the strips of film back into the prints before shipping them back to Rome, where they will be viewed again uncensored.) Alfredo explains that sometimes he can't remember where the strips go. "Besides, they kiss too much." Then Alfredo makes a deal with Toto: he'll give him the unused strips as a present, but on two conditions: one, the boy stays away and two, the strips stay in the projection room. So the boy leaves, but then stalks back into the room.
