Censoring the Kisses
The First Cut
In this scene early into the film, a 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 the offending scenes from the film, and Toto grabs it and holds it up to the light. He is fascinated by the images. We see two close-ups of frames from that strip. Alfredo says he can't have that strip of film. Toto points a whole tangle of strips cut out of previously exhibited films, and Alfredo explains that he has to splice the strips of film back into the prints before shipping them back to Rome, where they will be viewed again uncensored. However sometimes Alfredo can't remember where the strips he previously cut go back to.
"Besides they kiss too much." Alfredo adds, and he makes a deal with Toto: he'll give him the unused strips as a present, but on two conditions: One, the boy stays away. Two, the strips stay in the projection room. So the boy leaves, but then stalks back into the room. Eventually Alfredo will take the young Toto under his wing and train him as a projectionist, further fostering his life-long love affair with film.
