Nuovo Cinema Paradiso - Best Guess Theatrical Cut

[ParanoidAndroid]

Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (simply Cinema Paradiso outside of its native Italy) has been presented in three different versions throughout its lifetime; premiering at the Bari Europa Cinema festival in September 1988 at 173 minutes, it was subsequently cut to 155 minutes for its general Italian release that November but failed to gain much interest. For its International debut at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1989, the film was further cut to 123 minutes and re-released to box office success and great acclaim, winning among other awards the 1990 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

While both the popular International Cut and the very first version (now titled the Director's Cut) have been widely available on home video (I received the blu-ray set containing them back in 2013), the original Italian Theatrical Cut is nowhere to be found. This intrigued me, since while I enjoy both versions as they are (albeit leaning more towards the International Cut) I sometimes feel that there could be happy medium somewhere in between, leading me to wonder what the lost version looked like.

I have not been able to find any specific descriptions of how it differed from the others, but based on some scene timings and (what I presume is) the original poster one can make an educated guess. I have applied this guess to editing to produce my own 155-minute cut, and would welcome the opinions of fellow fans of this wonderful film.

 

[Darth Kermit]

I would be interested, but only after I watch both of the widely available cuts first. It’s a film that I am dying to see, just haven’t gotten around to it, but I’m always up for a good preservation project.

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

I would be interested, but only after I watch both of the widely available cuts first. It’s a film that I am dying to see, just haven’t gotten around to it, but I’m always up for a good preservation project.

Not sure if it counts as a preservation, I think of it as an approximation!

 

[TM2YC]

A masterpiece movie. My last re-watch was the shorter cut a year ago but I've not seen the long cut in a while. IIRC the longer cut's most significant change was the extra older Elena scenes at the end, which changed some of the meaning of the film (for the worse IMO).

Is yours going to omit that end bit? So it's like an extended version of the shorter cut with the same story/structure, just with more moments in between?

By the way, it's always felt odd to me that the movie was widely released as "Cinema Paradiso", which is neither a translation into English, or an accurate representation of the original meaning.

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

A masterpiece movie. My last re-watch was the shorter cut a year ago but I've not seen the long cut in a while. IIRC the longer cut's most significant change was the extra older Elena scenes at the end, which changed some of the meaning of the film (for the worse IMO).

Is yours going to omit that end bit? So it's like an extended version of the shorter cut with the same story/structure, just with more moments in between?

By the way, it's always felt odd to me that the movie was widely released as "Cinema Paradiso", which is neither a translation into English, or an accurate representation of the original meaning.

SPOILER ALERT FOR ANYBODY READING!

It does include the extended 80s scenes, older Elena and all I'm afraid. The reasoning behind this is the presence of her daughter on the poster plus the fact that the start of the major DC changes in this period take place about 19 minutes after the equivalent timecode in the IC. Removing most of the extra DC scenes before this point and making a couple more changes here and there gives pretty much exactly the 155 minute runtime as reported. I really wish there was more information to base this on, would be fascinated to hear from somebody more knowledgeable on the subject.

Perhaps another extended cut could be made as you suggested, including the extra DC scenes not featuring the 80s Elena storyline. I'm not sure how much I would want to reinstate, some I definitely wouldn't.

In any case I am not attempting to recreate an unavailable better version (unlike your brilliant HD reconstruction of Amadeus), just wanted to experiment a little and see what people think. While the new 80s scene do dramatically shift the tone of the ending I still find that I enjoy it, which version I play for a sitting depends on what mood I'm in!

I too have wondered about the title, at one point I thought the presence of "Nuovo" meant there was some older connected work! Leaving it untranslated may have been to give it some "foreign flavour" in the English speaking world, the meaning is still obvious!

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

A masterpiece movie. My last re-watch was the shorter cut a year ago but I've not seen the long cut in a while. IIRC the longer cut's most significant change was the extra older Elena scenes at the end, which changed some of the meaning of the film (for the worse IMO).

Is yours going to omit that end bit? So it's like an extended version of the shorter cut with the same story/structure, just with more moments in between?

By the way, it's always felt odd to me that the movie was widely released as "Cinema Paradiso", which is neither a translation into English, or an accurate representation of the original meaning.

Went ahead and also made the version as proposed in the second paragraph, thanks for the idea TM2YC!

For the most part, scenes deleted/shortened for the IC barring the additional 80s plot in the DC have been put back, result is pretty close to an inversion of the Mostly Theatrical Cut with regards to IC vs DC sourced footage. A very easy edit that comes to 152 mins (vs BGTC's 155), all of a morning's work!

Will submit once I've had a chance to watch through and check over properly, and also must come up with a suitable title!

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

Haven't sat down to do any editing in a while (small matter of life getting in the way), completely forgot that I had a very simple project (less than ten cuts between the different sources) waiting to be exported!

The first edit I did of Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (the Best Guess Theatrical Cut is a supposition of the original 155-minute Italian release version), it essentially follows the 123-minute International Cut until the scenes where Toto encounters a ghost from his past, from then on it mostly uses the 173-minute Premiere Cut/Director's Cut.

This second edit is in some ways the inverse, almost entirely using the Director's Cut but cutting out the reunion scenes and using a short section of International Cut prevent this from producing a continuity error. As mentioned previously I need to give it a watch-through to ensure that everything is in order but will hopefully submit before the end of the month, still need to decide on a title (interim is "De-Extended Cut") so would welcome any ideas!

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

Watched through and cleared a couple of bumpy transitions, now named the "Suggested Longer Cut" in reference to it feeling to me more like an extension of the International Cut rather than an a trimming down of the Director's Cut (which has a very different feel courtesy of an additional 3rd act subplot).

Nuovo Cinema Paradiso - Suggested Longer Cut.jpg

forums.fanedit.org

 

[MusicEd921]

I'm a little confused about which version is being worked on, but I wanted to clarify because in the near future (files already loaded on the computer) I was going to do an edit of this movie that has everything EXCEPT the present Elena scenes. My thoughts were that it was going to keep things focused on Toto, Alfredo and the Paradiso and Elena is just a first love that is lost to time.

My thought was to have older Toto find the letter she left him in the Paradiso when he walks through it towards the end to kind of leave things on a more hopeful note, but that was going to be it.

The edit was going to be titled Toto, Alfredo and the Cinema Paradiso

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

Ah, sorry, should have been a bit clearer, the version most recently referred to is the Suggested Longer Cut, basically everything in the Director's Cut minus present-day Elena subplot. Perhaps I should have started a separate thread but thought that the projects were closely related enough (one born of the other) that this would not be necessary, lesson learned.

What you describe does sound interesting, if I may ask how do you plan on having Toto find the note if he doesn't meet present-day Elena and have her tell him about it? Would love to see the end result whenever you have it ready!