Despite the censorship that was being exercised in that Italian town, the older man was keeping the clips of romance and had collated them. For the viewer the timing was right, he was older, supposedly wiser, and had lost his sense of romance.

It’s the gift.

And no, I’m not going to ask a question about why people are so fond of pressing lips together. I’m not THAT far out…

If the answer has something to do about the science of kissing, you are the expert, and I can not wait to read your thoughts.

As for audio however, let me try to explain, with the best English I am able of, what I meant. Any video-sound editing, be it in movies, television or even the simplest Youtube productions, has the potential to elicit an emotional reaction: laugh, or tears. But the magic is in the mixing of the audio and the pictures: because the same pictures, without the music, would not have that emotional effect.

In some cases, it takes the perfect choice of music to create that magic. But surprisingly, with some types of video products, many musics can elicit the same emotional feeling, and I am thinking here of sound-image editing that people can do on their PC with their travel pictures or family pictures. If you show to other people your travel pictures in sequence, it will be dull for a lot of them. If the same pictures are showed with a nice music editing, it suddenly gain an entirely new emotional value.

Without any doubt, with Cinéma Paradiso, we are many, many steps ahead of this Youtube-kind-editing. But the basics are very similar.

But that’s just my opinion.

I collect movie memorabilia, and the most common image on lobby cards, one-sheets, and stills, not to mention movie trailers, are scenes of a man and a woman kissing, about to kiss, or with their faces very close.

I have dozens of these two-shots on lobby cards alone and it was no passing fad. The images persist from the beginning of film promotional materials until today. Those sales merchants know we are attracted to romantic or sexual intimacy. They aim right for the driving forces that get people to the box office.

The movies allow us to be voyeurs and vicarious participants at the same time. The experience is immediate, yet evokes our own past experiences, especially in a compilation such as this, an effect enhanced by the music.

But boiled down, the images speak to our need for love, romance, sex and intimacy.

The only other possibility that seems introspectively plausible to me is what one might call “emote-censoring”, i.e., instinctively attempting to cover up facial expressions so as not to a) cause other people distress in conversation, and b) not embaress oneself by giving too much information away. (Is there a real word for this behavior besides the one I just made up?)

I noticed that at the start I inadvertantly was pressing my hand to my lips

That’s a very interesting observation. Could be by chance, but there certainly may be more involved…

Though I should confess that I noticed that at the start I inadvertantly was pressing my hand to my lips. Although that could have been to rest my head, it’s also plausible that I was either mimicking the main actor of the film, or was surrogate kissing my own hand.