Cinema Paradiso and Hollywood: Love and Hate

In reading many blog postings this week, many people were talking about how Cinema Paradiso does not fit into David Bordwell definition of a standard Hollywood film. I agree with this assessment, but what makes it so interesting is how much this film is a love letter to classic Hollywood. The film takes care to both mock and honor Hollywood.
First, Cinema Paradiso shows a priest removing aspects of the Hollywood films. This is the same way with the film itself, it has elements of Hollywood but is not a Hollywood picture. For one there is no clear cut conflict. There is no quest ToTo embarks upon or any evil he must defeat. He simply is growing up. If there is a conflict, it is ToTo's desire to be a projectionist, but this resolved too quickly to be well developed.
In fact, both of ToTo's flashbacks are parodies of classic Hollywood storylines. The first is of the epic quest. Only this quest is a child wanting to project film. The second is the Hollywood romance. It starts with attraction, the an act of love, followed by a conflict. It climaxes just when ToTo says it should, with a cliche kissing scene in the rain.
The final section of the film is one you don't see in Hollywood, one about real life. In this sequence there is no external climax of violence or love, just a man watching clips of movies. And yet, the scene hits you in so many different ways. In some sense the ending is anti-climatic, but in another sense it is one the most powerful emotional climaxes you will ever see.
Cinema Paradiso is about a boy who loves the movies of Hollywood. Yet this film is also a parady of Hollywood films. This why I said Cinema Paradiso has a love-hate relationship with Hollywood. And it is this paradox that makes Cinema Paradiso so beautiful.