by Swashbuckler on 3/5/2001
favorite track: 15
 
When asked what film he would liked to have had the chance to score at one point, John Barry stated that he wished he had the chance to score Cinema Paradiso... not so much because of any problem with Ennio Morricone's score, but because he felt very close to this film.

Most people have that reaction to Cinema Paradiso. The film is so honest and heartfelt that it often connects with even the most jaded among viewers.

Morricone originally had refused to score the film; it was not until he had seen the film itself that he decided to write the music.

Like the film, the score is about the appeal of motion pictures, and how those movies that we see at certain times in our lives help to define ourselves. The small town setting of the picture itself allows the score to take on an intimacy that, deliberately eschewing traditional Sicilian instrumentation, is universal and engaging.

Young Toto (Salvatore Cascio) is obsessed with movies and the projection booth. The local theater, the "Cinema Paradiso," serves as more than just a place where images flicker across the screen. It is a meeting place for the townfolk, where children sit in the front rows and smoke cigarettes, romance develops between men and women, prostitutes can take customers in the privacy of the darkness, and the projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret) can project his movies time and again.

It is the relationship between Toto (played by Marco Leonardi as an adolescent) that is the soul of this film; the adult Toto (Jacques Perrin), informed of Alfredo's death at the beginning of the film, begins to remember his childhood. He recalls the priest Father Adelfio (Leopoldo Trieste) ordering that all kisses be removed from the films before they could be screened, he remembers the fire that took away Alfredo's sight, he remembers his first love Elena (Agnese Nano)....

Morricone's score is primarily nostaligic, with tracks such as "Childhood and Manhood," "From American Sex Appeal to the First Fellini" and "First Youth" chiming in for this aspect of the film. However, there is a large element of wistful sadness that also is heard. "Cinema Paradiso," "Projection for Two" and "For Elena" feature quieter, more introspective themes. The title track, for example, is but a heart-wrenching piano over strings.

The love theme was written by Ennio's son Andrea, and it is a georgeous pop-influenced rhapsodic melody that truly captures the sweep of first love.

"Runaway, Search and Return" and "Cinema on Fire" are more standard film-score material, each scoring a specific moment in the film (many of the other cues are not written in full synch with the film, allowing writer/director Guiseppe Tornatore to drop thematic material into the film anywhere that is appropriate (which mean there are several tracks heard several times in the film).

"Toto and Alfredo" is one of these cues. A peppy cue based on a repeating figure with a rising violin solo atop, this cue appears at several points in the film, always illustrating the relationship between the two protagonists. One of the standout tracks on an album filled with amazing material, "Toto and Alfredo" is something that perfectly communicates the warmth of good friendship.

It is difficult to describe this music because its effects upon the listener are entirely too personal. Each person who listens to this album has a slightly different emotional reaction because it ties to their lives in different ways.

Ennio Morricone is a composer who has created many classics for the cinema, and this, his love letter to the genre, is one that is another undeniable classic. The portraits painted in this score are indelible. If the sound quality is a little shaky (and the stereo channels on several tracks reversed), then the heartfelt performance by el Unione Musicisti di Roma and solosists will more than make up for it.

This is an album that belongs in every