Kambrea Zarogoza 7th period

1. Title: Life is beautiful

2. Year of release: 1998(USA) 1997(original)
3. Originally the film was in Italian.
4. Director: Roberto Benigni
5. Actors: Robert Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Giorgio Cantarini, Guistano Durano, Horst
Buchholz
6. Plot Summary(250-250 words): This film is about man, Guido, who traveled to a new city
to live with his uncle and find work. While doing so he met a beautiful principessa
named, Dora. Dora was engaged to a man that she did not love and Guido came in and
sweeped off her feet. The two married and had a son, Giosue. One day Dora left to go
pick up a visitor while Guido watched their son. When Dora returned, they weren’t there.
She found them on a train and joined the two with their destination unknown, Guido has
to make up a lie to Giosue about where they are going. A game was his best idea telling
Giosue that they had to make 1000 points to win the game and a real life take. As this
little family goes through the everyday horrors of life in a concentration camp they keep
fighting. In the end, Guido had to make a sacrifice, but his promise to Giosue about a
tank comes true, as they are freed from the concentration camp.
7. Analyze the social and philosophical issues the film addresses. Make sure you include
the point of view of the movie, the context of the movie, what audience the movie is
targeting, and why. (i.e. you should address and reflect upon the “argument” or “meaning
of the work. This should be analysis, not just summary of issues in the movie.) (500
words) Socially, this film suggests a lot about the issues that happened during the
Holocaust. One of the big ones was the way that Jews were pointed out. One scene
shows the little boy, Giosue, reading a sign of a shop that says “No dogs or Jews
allowed” and he asks “why?” Giudo has to come up with some silly story saying that
everyone has a sign like it saying no to some sort of person and animal. He is trying to
cover up the fact that the Jews are being targeted. In another scene, it shows Giudo
closing his book shop, and as he pulls down the gate “Jew store” is sprayed acrossed it
served as a warning sign to people to know that Jews were running that store. He walks
off after he put the gate down and locked as if there was nothing there. I think that is
something important to recognize that the Jews could do nothing but keep going on with
life, until they were taken to camps. I also want to point out that this film shows that Jews
were just normal people. Some were rich, some poor. Some had shops, some worked
as tailers, servers, and teachers. It shows that these people kept going even when they
were being outcast. In one scene of the movie, a very important government official from
Rome came to a school to teach the children about “the superior race” and that was a
big social and philosophical issue that they briefly addressed in the movie. Which I think
is something important that happened in the movie. It shows the reality of what the
German’s thought in real life, that there was a superior race. In the scene, Giudo, goes
and acts as the government official and kinds of makes fun of what the “superior race” is
like. He does this by showing different parts of his body and saying “This is the most
superior type of [insert body part name]”. It’s kind of ironic because he in fact is a Jew, in
the movie. The Jews must’ve thought of the idea of there being a superior race silly
 because being Jewish was more of a religious thing than a blood thing until the
Holocaust happened. So I really like how to director takes this serious and real thought
and makes it silly and adds multiple perspectives into the one scene. The audience gets
a very childish and silly take on the harsh realities of the Holocaust. Philisophically this
film goes into the realities of what happened and made them seem as a game.
Something that all ages could understand. For example, everyday when Giudo has to go
work he tells Giosue to hide. At the end of the film when the Germans are taking Jews to
be burned, Giudo goes running through the women’s quarters looking for Dora and says
“I know there are people hiding in here[a barrack that appears to be empty]. Is Dora in
here?” and he gets a quiet “No.” from someone. Hiding from the Germans were a real
thing for those who were enslaved. I once read a book about someone who had a child
while in a concentration camp and she had to hide her baby everyday while she labored
so that the Germans wouldn’t take it and burn the baby. People lived in fear and I think
that this movie subtly shows it.
8. What is your response to the message of the film? Why do you respond this way? Show
that you are thinking about your own thinking here and the biases/assumptions about the
world you bring to your viewing. Did the film change the way you view the subject? Why,
or why not? (250 words) I think the message is a really good messge to have. What I got
out of it was to always look at the positive side of things and to keep an optomistic
perspective. I honestly got really annoyed with how positive Guido was throughout the
movie with his son. I felt like he was feeding him false hope with this “game” they were
playing and it just wasn’t sitting right me. I couldn’t understand how he kept so positive
and stuck with the game through their stay at the camp. I normally am a very optomistic
person, but I know for a fact that I would always have doubts about the goodness at the
end of the war. I personally think that I wouldn’t make it through the harsh conditions of
the camp. But I don’t have any children to be able to help me relate to the state of mind
that Guido was in. The director does a really good job at keeping the postivity up
throughout the whole movie. In the beginning, Guido knows that he will have Dora, even
though he is engaged. While in the camp, Guido did little things to help Giosue feel safer
or more optimistic of winning, he even sends little messages to Dora. And at the end,
even though Guido is dead, there is still hope and positivity as the tank comes and
Giosue sees his mother. I don’t know if this film changed my perspective on the
holocaust, but it definitely made me ask some questions that I want to look into. Some
questions are, I want to know if people really were like this, positive, with their children?
Did the peopel inprisoned look on the bright side?
9. What cultural differences did you notice in the film(philisophical outlook, humor,
architecture, customs, clothes, cities, weather, food, music, dancing, lifestyles, etc.)?
What did you learn about history, economics or politics? (at least 250 words) This film
was a lot more grainer than the American films I have seen from the same year this
movie was released such as The Titanic, Selena, and Men in Black. I don’t think this had
as much of a filming budget as other movies i have seen, which is fine, just different. The
architecture was very very very different than the films I watch. It had beautiful buildings
of bricks, kind of castle-like in my eyes. As compared to the buildings I see, which are all
super close to each other and they aren’t as “old” looking, which I personally don’t like. I
 like the character that the buildings gave to the European feel. The music was very
different as to what I normally see. First off, it was all in Italian or German, which I never
listen to or hear in movies. A lot of it was classical and opera like. Even for movies that
are based in those times of the war from America, there are swing songs that people will
listen and dance to. But it was strictly classical music throughout the film. I learned a lot
about the history, economics, and politics. I think that it is easy to forget that people on
the German side knew people on the Jew side. And I also think that it is easy to forget
that some people didn’t fully agree with the commands that they are given. We are easily
reminded of those things when Giudo sees his old doctor friend in the camp and the
doctor friend helps Giudo out by giving him information and a job where Giosue could
eat some real food. It is very easy to dehumanize the Germans, but it is important to
remember that they are people too.
10. What techniques did the filmmaker use that were different from what you see in the
films that you normally watch? Think about the lighting, dialogue, atmosphere, setting,
music, and how the filmmaker might play upon your own biases, etc. Read “How to View
a Film” on page 39 of your Humanities text and incorporate what you learn in the reading
in your analysis of the filmmaking process. (150 words) This film wasn’t as bright as the
other films I have seen from 1997. It was little bit more darker/duller which sets a good
mood about the topic of this movie, which is the holocaust. Like mentioned before it was
a little bit more grainy, but I didn’t mind it. This film had a goofy take on a serious topic.
The director kept the message very light and positive but it was strong message as he
showed it throughout the movie staying very silly. He takes everyone’s mind off of the
real problem but still keeps the problem present. The dialogue was very different in the
essence that the time period is different from now, the Italian language says things
different than the English language does, and that the main character is very weird in the
first place.
11. Discuss how what you saw in the film relates to one of the assigned readings or class
discussions we have had. (150 words) In one of the readings that we read in class, it
was a German soldier that was talking about how the Jews deserve to be treated better
now because of what they did to them. He talks about how the Jew’s own people turned
on them. They were part of a culture and they were cast out. On my writing for this
day(4.1) I talk about how the people under Hitler, followed orders because they were told
to, not because they agreed with it and we catch a small glimpse of that in this film. The
doctor friend of Giudo’s was checking out all of the male jews one day, and Giudo got
him to recognize him, the doctor friend got him a small little job serving food to some
important German leaders one night. At that dinner the doctor defied his commands of
not speaking to Jews and to hate Jews by giving Giudo some information about what is
happening and to prepare to leave. The doctor could’ve easily been caught talking to the
Jew and been punished but he risked it, because unlike many of the people involved in
the war, he was not a coward. He saw passed the “superior race” bs and spoke to an old
friend.
12. Why do you think I assign the international film? I think you assign the international film
for mulitple reasons. One reason being to get us out of the “American Bubble”. We aren’t
very cultured people, unless we have come from different countries. There is the
American pride thing that we have and sometimes it is hard to want to have stuff to do
with other cultures, especially movies. We have such a good film industry here in
America, the problem is we don’t see other cultures perspectives on the same stories we
hear about in history. I think that you are kind of giving us a push, trying to get us out of
our comfort zones, to try something new. It takes a lot for me to try something new,
especially movies, but once I get that push I really enjoy it.