Life is Beautiful: the Sacrifice My Father Made

by Giedrius Saulytis

The shafts of light that pierce the darkness, morning born from murderous night. The eye perceives a different world when you awake from deadly slumber. Eva Lang, A Shout

Nobody needs to wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. Anne Frank, Diary

It seems that every time in the past twelve years the theme of the Holocaust is put on the big screen it leaves indelible impression on both film-goers and film-critics. First it happened in 1993 when acclaimed director and producer Steven Spielberg was awarded Best Director for Schindlers List. The film won 6 more Oscars including Best Picture of the year. Then, in 1998 Italian auteur and comedian Roberto Benigni dared to take an unconventional look at the Holocaust in a comedy-drama La Vita Bella (Life is Beautiful). The film achieved even greater success internationally winning a host of awards, among them the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, the Best Jewish Experience Award at the Jerusalem International Film Festival, and three Oscars, including Best Actor and Best Foreign film. This year, dehumanizing horrors of the Holocaust slinked on the big screen again and yet one more time did not disappear unnoticed. Adrien Brody, playing a survivor of Holocaust and a composer Wladislaw Szpilman, won Best Actor nomination for The Pianist. The organized, racist murder of six million Jews in the heart of Europe arguably was one of the biggest tragedies of the twentieth century. The world we are living in has been deeply affected by it. Thus, it is no surprise that films the most representative cultural texts of our times try to portray the tragedy and possibly provide some answers or at least raise some questions regarding this vast evil. The surviving Jews, the prime sufferers of the tragedy, no doubt, were the first ones to raise these questions and to seek for answers. Although even they, stunned with horror,

kept silent for a time. Except for Anne Franks diary that was first published in 1947, there were practically no texts on the Jewish Genocide. Silence, said Elie Wiesel, was the most appropriate response to the Holocaust.1 For this Jewish novelist and Nobel Peace Laureate it took 11 years of silence before he crafted an autobiographical novel Night his testimony about the survival in concentration camps. For Eva Lang, a Hungarian poet and a Holocaust survivor it took even longer. Only during the past 15 years she has chosen to publish her poems about the violence, hatred, and death in concentration camps. Both Steven Spielberg and Roman Polanski, the director of The Pianist, are Jews by nationality. All family of the latter was killed in a concentration camp in Austria, just his father survived. Roberto Benigni, though not Jewish, has personal roots in this tragic saga: his father served time in a German labor camp. Thus, the motivation behind their works can be attributed to their quest for history not to be forgotten and even more importantly not to be repeated. Never again, say Jews at Yad Vashem every year remembering what happened to them during the Second World War in concentration camps across Europe. The same resolve and the same message cannot be missed in such films as Schindlers list and The Pianist and to some extent in Life is Beautiful. The latter, though deals with tragic historic events, is less concerned with realism of the Holocaust and more with its implications. And in this respect it grips my heart the most. Ben Dworkin, film reviewer for Jewish News, paraphrased Elie Wiesel when he said that the Holocaust was uniquely Jewish event but its implications are global.2 I absolutely agree with this remark. Holocaust is more than a tragedy of Jewish nation. It is a tragedy of human race, reflecting its meanness as well as its dignity. Meanness in being capable to create such a
Rosemary Radford Ruether, Herman J. Ruether, The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989), 192. 2 Making Life Beautiful Featurette, DVD, (Miramax).
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machinery of evil and death; nobleness in finding powers to resist and survive it. In this paper I would like to pay a closer look at how the human virtues that resist evil are portrayed in Roberto Benignis film Life is Beautiful.

Italian Clown Prince Roberto Begnigni was born on October 27, 1952 in Misericordia (Arezzo, Tuscany) but very soon his family moved to Vergaio (Prato, Tuscany) where he grew up. Until he was a teenager Benigni was a very introvert boy, he studied at the Jesuits Seminary at Florence, and he almost became a priest. In 1966 flood in Florence forced him to go back home where he studied at the Economy Institute at Prato and worked as a bartender in the Casa del Popolo of his hometown (Communist party meeting place). Benignis first experience in front of an audience came with the Modin Circus performing in the town squares and after that he took part at the Festa dell Unit (Communist party art shows and concerts). In 1972, carrying his guitar, he left home to Rome with his friends, where he got his very first part in the Satire Theater. Since his theater debut he did several television appearances until when in 1977 he got his first role in the movie Berlinguer Ti Volgio Bene (I Love You, Berlinguer). After that his acting career went in crescendo with I Giorni Contati (The Days Are Numbered) (1979), Letti Selvaggi (Wild Beds) (1979), La Luna (The Moon) (1979), Chiedo Asilo (Seeking Asylum) (1980), Il Papocchio (In the Popes Eye) (1980), Il Minestrone (Maestro) (1981). As a comedian Benigni was very much influenced by Charlie Chaplin. I saw Chaplin one hundred times in the same theater in Rome. When I discovered Chaplain it was a

stroke in my life, says Benigni in one of his interviews.3 According to Guido Fink, the Director of Culture Institute of Italy, not many people can use Chaplain in original fresh and personal way. Roberto is one of the few. Because of this comic personal way sometimes Roberto Benigni is referred to as Italian clown prince. What Benigni and Chaplain have in common is that they enable audience to feel empathy with their characters, says film reviewer Ben Dworkin.4 However, Benignis talent goes beyond being a clown. In 1983 he debuted as a director with Tu Mi Turbi (You Disturb Me). The following year he achieved even greater success with his second directing effort, Non Ci Resta Che Piangere (Nothing Left to Do but Cry), together with his friend and unforgettable actor and director Massimo Troisi (Il Postino, Postman). His third movie as a director/actor was Il Piccolo Diavolo (The Little Devil) (1988). As a director Benigni mustve been influenced by renowned Italian director Federico Fellini. Benigni was featured in Fellinis last film La Voce Della Luna (The Voice of the Moon) (1991). One may recognize Fellinis style in Life is Beautiful. The whole first section of the film is very much fellinesque, says Guido Fink.5 Benignis successful career in his native Italy skyrocketed in the 90s with two wildly successful comedies about mistaken identity: Johnny Stecchino (1991) and Il Mostro (The Monster) (1994). Although a superstar in Italy, Benigni was barely noticed outside the country. To American audiences he was probably best known for his work in the Jim Jarmusch films Down by Law (1986) and Night on Earth (1992). Yet that was not to last long. Roberto Benignis name came into spotlight with the making of Life is Beautiful in 1998. The film has captivated the hearts of people around the globe, bringing honors to the Italian auteur
3 4

Ibid. Ibid. 5 Ibid.

in festivals at Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Los Angles, and Jerusalem, and winning around 40 international awards.

Life is Beautiful: Plot It is the simple storybut not an easy one to tell. Like a fable, there is sorrowand, like a fable, it is full of wonder and happiness, with these words a narrator, whose identity is hidden from viewers until the end of the film, sets in motion the plot. This simple-fable-like-story takes place in 1939, a time when Italy has fallen under the grip of Fascism and anti-Semitism a time when some 8,000 Italian Jews of all ages and from all walks of life were removed from their long-lived homes and deported to concentration camps. For a time we do not know that Guido (Benigni), an energetic country boy freshly moved to the big city is Jewish. He arrives in town in a runaway car with failed brakes and is mistaken for a visiting dignitary. There are hints of the impending conflict (fascism is discussed, well dressed soldiers wander the streets), but for the most part, the first half of the film is about a gentle and comic romance. Guido, a hotel waiter, begins to woo a beautiful school teacher named Dora (Nicoletta Braschi, Benignis real life wife, who appears with him in a number of films). However, he has a problem Dora is getting married to someone else. So, he becomes the undeclared rival of her fianc, the Fascist town clerk. Guido is an imaginative talker to call him a liar would be a bit harsh, but he does spend most of his time spinning fanciful tales. Upon first meeting his lady love, Guido claims to be a prince who will soon be re-seeding the land on which she lives with wall-to-wall camels. His energetic non-stop talk often goes deep into night depriving his poet friend Ferruccio (Sergio Bustric) of sleep. At one point, Guido shows up at the school where Dora

teaches posing as a government inspector and delivers a wonderful lampooning of Nazi eugenics to her students demonstrating the excellence of his big ears and superb navel. His easygoing temper helps him to make friends with the German doctor (Horst Buchholz) who is a regular guest at the hotel and shares his love of riddles. All of this early material, the first long act of the movie, is comedy much of it silent comedy involving the fate of a much-traveled hat that helps Guido to maintain his dignity. Eventually, Guido takes away his princess and the films second half takes a dramatic turn. Several years pass off-screen. Guido and Dora are married, dote on their 5-year-old son Giosu (Giorgio Cantarini), and Guido maintains a small bookshop. The war now is in full swing and Guido, being a Jew, becomes a frequent target of harassment. One afternoon Dora returns home to find her husband and son are being shipped to a concentration camp. She begs to be placed on the train with her family, and gets her request. Unable to tell his young son the truth about their incarceration, Guido falls back on an imaginative lie. He tells that they are being sent to a special summer camp. If they obey all the rules, they can gather points. The first person in camp to amass 1,000 points wins a tank not a toy tank but a real one, which Giosu can drive all over town. Guido acts as the translator for a German who is barking orders at the inmates, freely translating them into Italian designed to quiet his sons fears. While father labors during the day, he literally hides his child from the camp guards explaining the rules of the game that have the boy crouching on a high sleeping platform and remaining absolutely still. Here, the film is straddling a precarious line, but it plows ahead like a seasoned tightrope walker without so much as a stumble.

The ending of the film has been criticized by many for being unrealistically happy for the story of the Holocaust. I would not agree with that. True, there is a sunny feeling about the last few minutes of the film, but it cannot be seen in isolation from the fact that Guido, the father, dies in order to save his son. Marching to be shot by a storm trooper, the father does his comic goose step for the last time and gives a wink to his hiding son. At the price of his life, the father fights for his son, forcing him to believe that all what is happening is only the game and the prize is on the way. And in fact, it is. In the next scene, a tank of liberating army rolls in and a soldier invites Giosu to take a ride. Passing through lines of survivors he notices his mother. As he is handed over to her, he exclaims with exuberant joy, We wona thousand pointswe are taking the tank home...we won. At the same time we hear the voice of the narrator. The same voice over that began the film identifies itself at the end; it is the voice of the grown up Giosu, Guidos son. It was the survivor of the Holocaust, who has been telling his story.

Life is beautiful debated Many critics condemned the film because of its unfairness in dealing with the horrible realities of the Holocaust. David Denby, film critic for The New Yorker, was so provoked with the films success that he concluded, We are ready to put the Holocaust behind us. Exhausted, we dont want to think about it anymore, so were grateful that Benigni has turned it into comedy. The film, he admonished, is a benign form of Holocaust denial.6 Another film critic expressed similar dissatisfaction, Life is beautiful because Guido shields his son from all the bad things around him with humor, and his son survives and presumably
6

Pamela Schaeffer, Benigni' Film, Like Life Itself, Is Beautiful, National Catholic Reporter, 04/16/99, Vol. s 35 Issue 25, p32,

learns to love life. Sure, its a neat trick to set such an uplifting story in the shadow of the gas chambers, but there are better ways to celebrate life than blithely glossing over its darkest moments.7 However, the real survivors of the Holocaust after the screening of the film at Simon Wiesenthal Center have not been offended. On contrary, they welcomed Benigni with tears. Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center expressed his opinion, I find it in no way being a desecration of Holocaust. On the contrary, I find it to be affirmation of love and human dignity8 It is worth of noticing that Pope John Paul II have invited Benigni for the screening of Life is Beautiful. After the screening with Benigni the Pope was quoted to the effect that, for him, the film demonstrated that there were saints even in places like Auschwitz.9 One of the major issues debated among critics is regarding the films genre. The question that was raised is whether it is appropriate to make a comedy about Holocaust. Such a concept is offensive for some and perplexing for others. Some argue that Life is beautiful is a failure because it dismisses the tragedy of the Holocaust. Others dispute that Life is beautiful is a triumph of human spirit. More positive critics point out that satire as a genre is one of the most effective forms of resistance. Benigni himself is convicted that comedy does not play ancillary role in dealing with most serious questions of human life. He spoke of the big challenge of transforming a dramatic subject into a comedy. Yet, by daring to take this challenge Benigni wanted to prove comedies amazing potential of comedy as a genre. In my opinion, negative critics are so much concerned with genres compatibility with the content

Mr. Crankys rating, http://www.mrcranky.com/movies/lifeisbeautiful.html Making Life Beautiful Featurette, DVD, (Miramax). 9 Alan A. Stone, Life is Beautiful turned the Holocaust into a sentimental fable, http://www.fortda.org/fall_99/film2.html
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that they miss the message, which the world of the films meaning presents. The Holocaust is not an end but a means to prove that comedy can treat the Holocaust respectfully and suggest an outlook that tragedy is unequipped to convey, says Maurizio Viano, professor who teaches Italian cinema at Wellesley College. I did not want to make a film about the Holocaust, admits Benigni.10 So, it was just his instrument he used to convey the message. This message, though encoded in satiric and unusual way must not be missed. I fully agree with Roger Ebert who indicated that Benigni isnt really making comedy out of the Holocaust. He is showing how Guido uses the only gift at his command to protect his son.11

Life is beautiful: composition/structure The architecture of the film also helps to grasp the world of meaning in Benignis film more accurately. If we are attentive to the introduction, especially to the words of the narrator like a fable, there is sorrow the first half of the film leaves us wandering what sorrow has been suggested. The second half of film clears that out, however, likewise raises the question about the happiness that was mentioned in the beginning, and, like a fable, it is full of wonder and happiness. Paradoxically the first part of the film is full of wonder and happiness and the second half full of sorrow. Has the narrator misplaced the sequence? No. It is just the method Benigni uses to convey Maurizio Viano is right on the target, when he describes the effect of this unique composition: Life Is Beautiful has a remarkable architecture because it creates a filmic space that is virtually symmetrical. It is, however, a weird symmetry. Far from producing the sense of balance and comforting harmony traditionally associated with it, symmetry here disorients viewers by forcing them to experience the anxiety of an unexpected schizophrenic attack. Life Is Beautiful splices together two halves that are, in fact,
Stanley, A., The Funniest Italian You Probably Never Heard Of, New York Times Magazine, October 11, 1998, 42-45. 11 Roger Ebert, Life Is Beautiful, http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Wing/6027/ebert.html
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recalcitrant opposites, one the negation of the other: slapstick comedy and tragedy. Life Is Beautiful is not just tragi-comic but it is first comic and then tragic. In a sense, Life Is Beautiful successfully helps its viewers to imagine what many Italian Jews must have felt, the eruption of absurdity and the transformation of one reality into its opposite. This is how Life Is Beautiful is faithful to reality it dramatizes its deepest implications. It is faithful to reality in spirit and not in the letter.12

Life is Beautiful: the Message The opening and the ending scenes create inclusio, which, in my judgment is very important in order to rightly understand the message of this film. First and foremost it is a personal story. One must not miss the second part of inclusio, and the words it presents: This is my story. This is the sacrifice my father made. This was his gift to me. So, the whole film is a personal story by which a son gives tribute to his father for the sacrifice he made. In this respect the story is very Christian. In the Gospels, it is the Son who makes the ultimate sacrifice for humanity in order to fulfill the will of the Father. Guidos resolve to protect his child from the burning furnace may be seen as the reflection of heavenly Fathers love and care to save his fallen creatures from fires of hell. As Guidos care reminds us about our heavenly Fathers love, so his death reminds about the death of Jesus for those whom he loved. Emphasis on self-sacrifice can be seen not only in the farther-sons relations but also in Doras attitude. Dora, not Jewish, would be spared by the Fascists, but she insists on coming along to be with her husband and child. Thus, love is what binds this family together and gives strength in the darkest hour. Guidos family as other Jewish families is the victim of the Holocaust. In the words of Rene Girard they are victims of scapegoat mechanism. As victims they are too week to show any visible resistance to their torturers and murders. But even in order to survive they
12

Maurizio Viano, Reception, Allegory, and Holocaust Laughter, Film Quarterly (Fall, 1999).

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need to find strength and hope that would uphold them. In Schindlers List the hope for the condemned is associated with a good and rich German. Jews come to him and ask to have pity on them and on their relatives. In The Pianist, Wladislaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) draws strength to survive from the world of music. Music plays a big role in Life is Beautiful as well (composer Nicola Piovani). Belle Nuit, a barcarolle from The Tales of Hoffman becomes a hope giving source first for Guido, when he tries to win Doras heart at Opera, then for Dora in the camp, when Guido, after getting his hands on an old gramophone plays the same barcarolle to his beloved wife. However, it is more than music that gives strength to Guido. His survival means only one thing for him living for the sake of those he deeply loves. His family gives him the meaning of life in the midst of most horrible evil. It is this sensibility of a father makes the film real despite many unrealistic situations in the concentration camp. Guido actions resemble those of real-life fathers. Elie Wiesel in his novel The Night tells much about his fathers care for him in Auschwitz. On many occasions his father would save his ration of food to give it for his son. The son does the same. On one particular occasion, when Elies father is selected to be burned in crematorium, he gives his own knife to the son. Wiesel has more than one story that reveals self-sacrificing relations of a father and a son in concentration camps. He admits that it was a great challenge even for the beloved ones to remain human, more over loving and serving each other. For instance, he writes about a son of Rabbi Eliahou, who during transportation from one camp to another departed from his father in order to enhance his own chances of survival.13 Elie confesses that he also had to fight the same temptation when his father got terminally sick. He vividly recalls how a head of the block, gave him a following lesson:
13

Elie Wiesel, The Night Trilogy (New York: Hill and Wang, 1990), 96-7

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Listen to me, boy. Dont forget that youre in a concentration camp. Here, every man has to fight for himself and not think of anyone else. Even of his father. Here, there are no fathers, no brothers, no friends. Everyone lives and dies for himself alone. Ill give you a sound piece of advice dont give your ration of bread and soup to your old father. Theres nothing you can do for him. And youre killing yourself. Instead, you ought to be having his ration.14 Roman Polanski, the director of The Pianist testifies about his fathers survival in a concentration camp, saying that what kept his father alive in the concentration camp was his hope to see his son. Many critics have accused Benigni for creating totally fictional story about Holocaust. I agree that some scenes, for instance, when Guido has Giosu speak into microphone that broadcasts to the whole camp to his mother, wouldve not been possible. However, it does not make the film absolutely unrealistic. In fact, Benignis Guido just personifies the heart of those many fathers who lived and died for their loved ones in Nazis camps across the Europe. Whether its the real story of Wiesels father, who died, murmuring his sons name, or whether its the film in which Benignis Guido, marching to be shot, does his goosestep and winks to encourage his son for the last time, the message is the same love is life giving power, mightier than death itself.

Conclusion Talmudic inscription on the ring that the survivors of Schindler presented him declares, Whoever saves one life saves the world entire. The same words could characterize the main point of Life is beautiful. Benignis look at the Holocaust is unusual, yet very effective. As Eva Lang puts it in her poem, when you awake from deadly slumber, the eye
14

Ibid., 115.

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perceives a different world. As viewers of this film we are given the opportunity to get the glimpse of that different world. The world in which the most severe tragedy was overcome by love and hope. The film not only offers another window for looking back at the Holocaust, but also raises many important questions. Are we ready to face the trials of our lives and how? What are our priorities in life? How much do we love our loved ones? And yet, I suggest that the film could even bring to remembrance of its viewers the most important question of all: Have we accepted the sacrifice that the heavenly Father provided for all in the person of Jesus Christ in order that we may live the life that is eternal and beautiful?

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Bibliography Ebert, Roger Life Is Beautiful, http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Wing/6027/ebert.html Canby, Vincent, Manslin, Janet, ed. Nichols, Peter Best 1000 Movies Ever Made. New York: Random House. 1999. Levy, Emanuel Oscar Fever: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards. New York: Continuum. 2001. Making Life Beautiful Featurette, DVD. Miramax. Mr. Crankys rating: http://www.mrcranky.com/movies/lifeisbeautiful.html Ruether Rosemary Radford, Ruether Herman J. The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (San Francisco: Harper & Row. 1989. Stone Alan A., Life is Beautiful turned the Holocaust into a sentimental fable, http://www.fortda.org/fall_99/film2.html Schaeffer Pamela Benigni' Film, Like Life Itself, Is Beautiful, National Catholic Reporter, s 04/16/99, Vol. 35 Issue 25. Stanley, A., The Funniest Italian You Probably Never Heard Of, New York Times Magazine, October 11, 1998, 42-45. Viano, Maurizio Reception, Allegory, and Holocaust Laughter, Film Quarterly. Fall, 1999. Wiesel, Elie Memoirs: All Rivers Run to the Sea. New York: Alfterd A. Knoph. 1995.

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