The Art of Possibility

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• ROGER ROSENBLATT:

  Watching "Cinema Paradiso" for the billionth time recently, that heartbreakingly beautiful movie of 1988, I was reminded that so much censorship lately has focused on the things we find offensive, but wish to protect nonetheless. The uproars in New York City in the past year or so when Mayor Rudolph Giuliani attempted to suppress art in the Brooklyn Museum that clearly were offensive to a good many people.

  And there have been lots of attempts at censoring demonstrations and individuals. Mohammed Abdul Rauf, the NBA Basketball player who was threatened with suspension because he refused to stand for the playing of the "National Anthem" at the beginning of games. The groups that protested the right of the Ku Klux Klan to march in Harlem, an issue that recalled the one in Illinois some years ago when the American Nazi Party marched. And of course, the ever present flag burning issue raised most recently when a bill to prohibit flag burning was passed by the House of Representatives. All such events served to reinforce the value of the First Amendment for the very reason that they, in fact, are displeasing or insulting or enraging, often to vast segments of the population.

  The First Amendment allows us to protect the expression of those things we cannot stand. In art, this is because one man's pornography is another man's or woman's work of genius. One man's "Ulysses" is another man's "Ulysses." "Nude Descending a Staircase" may descend too far. To some, the moon is gold; to others, the moon is blue. All this is fairly obvious stuff.

  What is less obvious about the unacceptability of censorship is brought out in "Cinema Paradiso." If you forget the story here it is: The "Cinema Paradiso" is the only movie in the small, suffocating Sicilian village. To the theater comes Toto, a small boy, to visit his friend Alfredo and their friendship is forged over movies. To the theater also comes a priest, the local priest, who expurgates the love scenes from the movies; these love scenes consist mainly of kissing scenes. Alfredo takes the strips of film and hangs them in the projectionist's booth. Toto grows up; Alfredo goes blind; Toto takes over his job. Toto eventually falls in love, but the love of his life leaves that suffocating village. Alfredo tells Toto, "You leave too. You leave or you will never find your life in so narrow-minded a place."

  Toto only returns as a grown man, rich and powerful now. He returns for Alfredo's funeral. He sees that the "Cinema Paradiso" has been shut down, and is ready for demolition. His mother then gives him a gift that Alfredo left for him. It is a movie reel, which he plays for himself in his own theater in Rome. Six, five, four, the numbers wind down. And there, on the reel, are all the expurgated scenes from the movies of his childhood: All the censored kisses. All the censored passion. All the censored life. And the man rests his head in his arms behind him, and he smiles, and cries and smiles again. "Cinema Paradiso" is a work of art, not of politics.But it is under girded by a political thought.

  What if nobody had taken had taken out any of those love scenes? What if the people who discovered a little freedom in the movies had been encouraged to know the full range of their feelings? The essential thing that censorship removes is a sense of possibility, the art of possibility. Censor possibility here in America, and you have another country.

  I'm Roger Rosenblatt.