Sobbing in the Movie Theater

Sobbing in the Movie Theater

by Karenna Umscheid

photograph: filmgrab

Sometimes there is no salve as healing as an uncontrollable, guttural fit of sobbing. I’m not always prone to crying in movies, even a tick into being too sappy will take me out of the experience completely, but occasionally, there will be a film that speaks to me so intensely and deeply that I cry so hard I feel reborn. 

The summer before my freshman year of college, I watched Cinema Paradiso and cried harder than I had in months (the last time I sobbed before that was during the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones!) The film chronicles a tender, loving friendship between cinema projectionist Alfredo, and young boy Salvatore, throughout his life. It’s a classic movie-for-people-who-love-movies, rife with nostalgia and community, the beauty in a collective theatrical experience. Salvatore grows up to become a film director, and upon hearing of Alfredo’s death, returns to the small village he left long ago. 

Reckoning with the aches of change and growing up, Cinema Paradiso spoke to my post-high school graduation self with honesty and clarity. As Salvatore grows up, Alfredo instructs him to leave their small village, follow his dreams, and never look back. Even as I describe this, I swear it’s not overly cheesy or sappy! Like the ending of Leave No Trace, many moments throughout The Iron Claw, and the ending of Shoplifters, this scene invoked a guttural, cathartic bout of sobbing that was so necessary for me at that moment in time. 

Rewatching Cinema Paradiso, it’s impossible for me to replicate that initial feeling. I crave the emotional capacity I once had! Regardless of what emotions Cinema Paradiso invokes in you, the film is an essential watch in its beauty and tenderness. It peers nostalgically into romance, the self, and the people we are when we go to the movies, the people we become after. It’s a love letter to cinema in its purest form, like other classics such as Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, One Hundred and One Nights, and La La Land. Cinema Paradiso is one of the purest and sweetest films in the subgenre, celebrating the beating heart cinema draws out in all of us. And to see a movie about movies at the movies? What could possibly be better than that?

Cinema Paradiso screens at 2 pm on Sunday, February 7 at the Coolidge Corner Theater.

Until next Wednesday,

Karenna