Life is Beautiful
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Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful: Daring to Laugh in the Face of the Unthinkable Katainen, Louise
Roberto Benigni's La vita e belly (Life is Beautiful), first released in Italy in December 1997, has received much praise in the United States and around the world. It has won more than fifty international awards, including the Golden Globe, the European Film Academy Award, the Prix Cesar, the Nastri d'Argento (Silver Ribbons), and eight David di Donatellos (Italy's Oscar). Life is Beautiful also has been feted at numerous festivals, including the Festival of Jerusalem.
At the 1999 ceremonies of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, Life is Beautiful won Oscars for best foreign picture, best director, and best soundtrack. Records were set. With seven nominations, Life is Beautiful garnered the highest number of nominations ever for a foreign film. Roberto Benigni is also the first actor to receive an Oscar for a film not in English. Additionally, Life is Beautiful is one of the few films in Academy Award history to receive an award for a self-directed film.
Yet despite the many laurels that Life is Beautiful has garnered, this film has also been a magnet for controversy. As Janet Maslin notes in her review of the film: "It dares to laugh in the face of the unthinkable" (New York Times, October 23, 1998, B12). Detractors of Life is Beautiful have focused their criticisms on two questions. First, they ask whether it is possible to produce a humorous treatment of a topic as tragic and horrifying as the Holocaust. Second, they object to Benigni's profiting monetarily from the Holocaust. Art Spiegelman's cartoon in the New Yorker portrays a skeletal concentration camp victim clutching an Oscar in a barbwired cell. The caption, which quotes an advertisement for the film, reads "Be a Part of History and the Most Successful Foreign Film of All Time" (New Yorker, March 15, 1999, 97).
Despite the controversy that this film has attracted, one thing is certain: because of the world-wide appeal of Life is Beautiful, Roberto Benigni has, almost overnight, become an international star. This slender, balding, rubber-faced Italian was born in Tuscany to an extremely poor farming family in 1952. His father worked as a sharecropper and later purchased a small farm for his family, while continuing to work for other farmers, in order to make ends meet. Benigni tells us that forty or fifty extended family members and close friends lived in one big house, "just like in the 1800s" (Stefano Masi, Roberto Benigni [Rome: Gremese, 1999] 17; hereafter, Masi).
Roberto was a bright student, who, at an early age, displayed a talent for writing. In addition to the excellent compositions he submitted to his teachers, he also invented jokes, which he sold to classmates for ten lire apiece. So, even as a youngster, Benigni derived a great deal of pleasure and fulfillment from making people laugh.
After a brief stint at a Jesuit high school in Florence, Benigni transferred to a school more congenial to his funloving personality, a commercial institute in Prato, near his hometown of Vergaio. In Prato, he also organized his first cabaret evenings, specializing in nonsense rhymes, which he recited while accompanying himself on the guitar. The childhood experience of family gatherings around an enormous fireplace - singsongs complete with improvised lyric - constituted good training for the profession of cabaret performer.
Upon graduation in 1972, Benigni studied biology at the university level but soon discovered that this was not the true direction of his life. In September of the same year, Benigni made a fateful move to Rome, which in those years was an important center for avant-garde theatre.
In Rome, Benigni worked in various theatrical enterprises and also met many individuals influential in the world of theatre, film, and television. Among these was Giuseppe Bertolucci, the brother of Bernardo Bertolucci, director of such famous films as The Conformist (1970), The Last Tango in Paris ( 1972), and The Last Emperor (1987). Giuseppe Bertolucci helped Benigni to hone his talents as a standup comic, by focusing on those aspects of his verbal virtuosity that would best display his genius. "I was fascinated just listening to him," Bertolucci relates. "He made me laugh, he made me cry, but most of all laugh. And after a while I realized that inside this child there was film" (Masi 25).
The result of Giuseppe Bertolucci's tutelage was a risque performance near Vergaio that left the audience speechless. Indeed, the next day the president of the organization that sponsored the performance was forced to resign. But one member of the audience, Paolo Poli, recognized the genius of the man on center stage and helped Benigni to present the show in Rome, where a sophisticated audience received it more warmly. Roberto Benigni's career as a hard-hitting, takeno-prisoners comic was launched.
Benigni's humor has, of late, become more refined and subtle. It also exudes a sense of pathos, as is clearly evident in Life is Beautiful. However, subtlety, refinement, and pathos were not always Benigni's stock in trade. Indeed, Benigni, the young stand-up comic, was known for his crudeness of topics and language, which sometimes descended to what can only be labeled `bathroom humor' reminiscent of Lenny Bruce. It was also characterized by a strong dose of political satire, like the comedy of Dick Gregory. However, Benigni also possessed the very special artistic capacity to transform scatology and political lampooning into lyrical, adrenalin-fueled poetry. In both the political and the comic senses, Benigni is reminiscent of another Tuscan poet of many centuries ago, Cecco Angiolieri, who skewered contemporary conventions with little modesty.
Benigni has appeared in both television and film productions. His most famous television character is Cioni Mario, a role which was later captured on celluloid in G. Bertolucci's 1977 Berlinguer ti volgio bene (I Love you, Berlinguer). Some of the more important films in which Benigni has appeared include Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law (Daunbailo) (1986); Federico Fellini's last film, La voce delta Tuna (The Voices of the Moon) (1990); Jarmusch's Night on Earth (1992); and Blake Edward's Son of the Pink Panther. Benigni made his screenwriting and directorial debut in 1983 with Tu mi turbi (You Trouble Me). Since that time, he has written, directed, and starred in a number of films, including Il piccolo diavolo (The Little Devil, 1988), Johnny Stecchino (1991), II mostro (The Monster, 1991).
Benigni has appeared on screen alongside such American luminaries as Walter Matthau and Tom Waits. He has been compared to many famous comics, including Woody Allen, Charlie Chaplin, Peter Sellers, Groucho Marx, and Harold Lloyd. But of all the English-language comics, Benigni considers himself to be closest in spirit and technique to the stonyfaced Buster Keaton, whom the Italian comic admires, in his own words "for his impassiveness, for those gags that were born out of the melancholy of just existing" (Masi, 34).
Of Italy's famous comedians, the one that Benigni reveres most of all is the Neapolitan Toto (1898- 1967), whose comic style combined the commedia dell'arte, components of silent screen comedy, and the theatrical traditions of his native city. Many of Toto's comic films focus on serious social problems of the day, such as postwar unemployment and lack of housing. The same combination of comedy and social criticism is evident in Benigni's films. For example, Johnny Stecchino ridicules and criticizes organized crime and political corruption in Italy. The common element in the film art of both Roberto Benigni and Toto is the coexistence of tragedy and comedy. As Benigni observes in a recently published interview, "Laughter comes out of pain" (Sky Magazine, March, 1999, 68).
Benigni is a modem adult Pinocchio, a michievous rebel doing what needs to be done in order to survive. Stefano Masi dubs Benigni "the layman saint of an entire generation of Italy's thirty-to-fortyyear olds" (Masi, 11).
The following interview with Steven Silvern, rabbi of Auburn, Alabama's, Beth Shalom Synagogue, and professor of Early Childhood Education at Auburn University, was conducted in the spring and summer of 1999, shortly after the American release of Life is Beautiful. Dr. Silvern is very well qualified to address those aspects of Life is Beautiful that evoke mixed emotions (to say the least) among Jews who view the film. He is also an expert not only on how children team, but also on how they assimilate adult truths and values, and on how they really behave in lifethreatening situations. Dr. Silvern is a most compassionate and articulate spokesperson on matters relating to the human condition. He speaks out forthrightly on matters of importance to him, to his congregation, and to his community, but he always does so gently and with humor. A sign which hangs above his desk at Auburn University reads: "When you shoot the arrow of truth, dip the point in honey."
For all these reasons, I felt that Dr. Silvern was eminently qualified to speak to the complicated and difficult issues that Benigni's Life is Beautiful presents. The following interview helps to clarify many of the thorny and thoughtprovoking questions that the film has raised for all of us. I would also like to express my thanks to David Rosenblatt, Librarian and Archivist at Auburn University, for kindly lending me his copy of Stefano Masi's book, which proved to be very useful in this project.
LK: You have now seen Roberto Benigni's film Life is Beautiful (La vita a hello) twice. What kinds of issues do you think the film addresses?
SS: It certainly brings up issues of people's world view, of how one approaches life, of how one takes control or takes charge even in situations in which one seems to have no control. Here is one of the questions that Benigni asks: Is life something that happens to you, or do you make life happen? What is interesting about Life is Beautiful is that it is about the Holocaust, but then again it is not about the Holocaust. In fact, the Holocaust is really a backdrop to the story. I did not catch it the first time, but on a second viewing I realized that the brief introduction at the very beginning of the film - even before the craziness with the car starts - lets the viewer know that this is a told story rather than a lived story. Right at the very beginning there is a voiceover, about two sentences long. The voice-over tells us that the film is Joshua's memory of what happened to him as a young child and to his father, Guido, and his mother, Dora.
LK: Is Benigni suggesting that humor is a very powerful tool that individuals can use to good effect in shaping their lives?
SS: Yes, but Life is Beautiful teaches us that an even more powerful tool is imagination. There is a certain amount of cleverness about Guido's life, not so much as regards humor but in terms of imagination. Guido has the ability to imagine something beyond. And this may be part of the riddle aspect of the film. Guido is able to think outside of predefined lines. For example, he is able to marry someone above his station. This was not so unheard of, considering who he was and where he was, but this action on Guido's part reveals his ability to use his imagination.
LK: Is this a story about religion?
SS: It does not strike me so much as a story about religion. For example, Guido could have been a gyspy.
LK: Or a member of any persecuted group? A Kosovar, for example?
SS: Yes, I think he could have been. I think that the Jewish context was convenient for the setting that Benigni chose to portray in the film; namely, having an identifiable set of events where the victims were clearly unable to control their own lives. Lack of control in Kosovo or Bosnia is not as apparent to an American audience as lack of control in being sent to a concentration camp.
LK: What are the most famous film treatments of the Holocaust? And are there any treatments that are humorous?
SS: I don't think there are any humorous treatments of the Holocaust. And 1 don't know of any Holocaust stories that have been filmed that are not documentaries, except for Steven Spielberg's 1993 Schindler's List. But even Schindler's List has a documentary quality to it. The Holocaust stories that I know include the one of Anne Frank. But even the Anne Frank story is about the Holocaust only at the end. It is rather about another world,
another place, and the Holocaust only impinges at the very end. But there are very few film treatments of the Holocaust in narrative form. There are lots of written accounts of the Holocaust. But I think they are virtually untouchable in the visual media, because the subject matter is just too graphic. And I think that this was one of the public's responses to SchindLer's List - that it was just too much. People whom I know came out from the movie saying, "This is not a movie that I would ever see again." It was crushing. So I think this is the reason why there are not more individual film treatments of those stories.
LK: In 1972 Jerry Lewis made a film called The Day the Clown Cried. This film, in which Lewis stars, has never been released, and it is screened very infrequently. It is set during the Holocaust and is about a German clown who is incarcerated in a camp and used for marching Jewish children into the ovens. The subject matter is so sensitive. To try to make a comic treatment of any aspect of a human tragedy as terrible as the Holocaust seems just too difficult an undertaking. The director's intent can be very easily misunderstood. Do you think that it is possible to make a comic treatment of a tragic subject of immense proportion?
SS: It depends on the comedy. I am reminded of a television show like Hogan's Heroes. It contains atrocious stereotyping of Germans. The comedy is directed at the buffoonery of the German soldiers, so that the American television audience can feel superior. Like Life is Beautiful, Hogan's Heroes is set in a labor camp or a POW camp. There is a little bit of this type of humor in Life is Beautiful. For example, the scene in which the German soldier is barking orders. Guido volunteers to translate what the soldier is saying. He actually doesn't have a clue, but he doesn't want his son, Joshua, to hear an accurate translation. So he makes up a translation that fits the cadence and the inflection of the German orders. The fact that the German soldier has absolutely no idea of how Guido is translating the German is humorous.
LK: A similar lampooning takes place in the school scene, when Guido ridicules the Italian fascists. Guido is making fun of the Italian Fascist laws concerning anti-Semitism. Benigni must have been aware that this kind of historical reminder would resonate with Italian audiences, as well as with other viewers of the film. Have you seen Ernst Lubitsch's 1939 movie To Be or Not to Be? It is about Polish Jews who are actors in Warsaw at the time of the Nazi invasion. In addition to doing a production of Hamlet, this acting troupe is also mounting a play about Nazism. The humor in the film derives from the fact that these actors, who happen to have Nazi uniforms among their costumes, impersonate the invading German soldiers and wreak havoc. It is a very funny film. The German commander is so confused by the pandemonium that he commits suicide.
What about the controversy, evident at least in the United States, about Life is Beautiful? The principal criticism, as I understand it, is that it is insulting to try to treat the subject of the Holocaust humorously. Must all treatments of this topic be serious?
SS: Clearly some people are offended by the fact that this comedy is set during the Holocaust. But I really think that this is being overly sensitive. Benigni is not poking fun at the situation. Far from it. He portrays the situation as a very serious one. Actually, in the second half of the film (from the transportation in the truck on), I get the sense that the movie is very sensitive to the Holocaust situation. The entire concern of the principal character is the safety of his son, Joshua, and of his wife, Dora. To a large extent, it is a movie about how Guido really does not think about himself. Rather, he thinks about how to communicate to the two most important people in his life. He wants to communicate to them thoughts that will help them get through this difficult situation. These communications are very subtle, very clever. I think that the wounds of the Holocaust are very deep and are still not healed. So anything about the Holocaust that is not absolutely reverent is seen as offensive. But to focus on its Holocaust setting is to miss the entire point of the movie. It would be like saying, "I really did not like that production of Hamlet because the actors were not wearing period costumes." To me, the Holocaust in Life is Beautiful is really a background.
LK: Art Spiegelman's cartoon in the New Yorker depicts a concentration camp prisoner holding an Oscar. The caption reads: "Be a part of history and the most successful foreign film of all time." Clearly, this is a negative commentary on the subject matter, and perhaps the success, of this film.
SS: There is an Israeli word, "shochan." It literally means someone who makes a profit from the Holocaust. In Israel, Elie Wiesel is seen as not very heroic and not very upstanding, because he has profited, in fact, from his Holocaust memories.
LK: To what extent has he profited? Isn't he the head of a not-for-profit organization?
SS: Yes, but consider the prizes and the honors and the recognition that he has received. He has literally made his living from the Holocaust.
LK: So is the perception and the reception of Elie Wiesel different in other parts of the Diaspora?
SS: I think so. In the United States, Wiesel is seen almost as a backwards prophet, as a spokesperson for peace and nonviolence. He is seen less as a hero than as an idol, a person whom one would want to emulate across the board, in terms of approach to civil liberties and nonviolence.
LK: What do you think Benigni's goal was in making Life is Beautiful? I don't think that becoming a millionaire was at the top of his list of goals.
SS: I agree, and I don't think he was looking at it to make a profit off the Holocaust.
LK: Benigni has been making films for many years. While he is a star in Italy, he has not been well known, until now, outside of Italy. I don't believe that any of his earlier films has made what would be considered a lot of money in the United States. If culpability for making a profit off the Holocaust lies anywhere, does Miramax, the American distributor that heavily advertised the film both before and after its Oscar nomination, bear some of the responsibility? Some say that Miramax has the talent of choosing for distribution good, lowbudget films that have the potential for making money and winning awards.
SS: Perhaps. But as I mentioned earlier, I think that, as regards Life is Beautiful, it is important to separate out the fact that the backdrop is the Holocaust. Viewing the film for a second time, I perceived the Holocaust as the background, not the foreground. You almost have to ask yourself, "In what other situation would Guido have the opportunity to be as proactive as he is in this situation?" I cannot think of another situation in which someone could project a desire for life so strongly. Perhaps imprisonment is a similar situation. But it is not plausible that one's spouse and one's child would also be in prison. Perhaps a similar situation would exist in today's Kosovo, in Cambodia in the 1970s, or in Turkey in the 1920s, or in Korea during the Second World War. Terrible situations such as these have existed throughout history. Unfortunately, I don't think the general public in the United States is aware of the kinds of tragedies that are being lived out around the world on an almost continual basis. The situation in Life is Beautiful is at least believable. If in a film one has a setting that is not really believable plus a main character who is not really believable, then one totally loses the story. So, it is almost as if Benigni had to have the horror of the Holocaust as this setting, in order to provide some identifying place so that the viewer could then identify with the character and the narrative.
LK: It seems to me that there were some positive references to things German in the film. For example, the German philosopher Schopenhauer. Perhaps Benigni was trying Co say that not all aspects of the German culture are pure evil.
SS: I think Benigni is trying to show that there is as much a range of ability and caring within the German culture as there is in any other. For example, I remember the throw-off line that we hear as the women are descending the stairs in the labor camp. One woman says to Dora about one of the German guards, "When we first got here, she was nice."
LK: The potential for good or evil exists in all.
SS: The doctor in the film is stupid, but I don't think Benigni was casting all of Germany as Hitler-like.
LK: The power of suggestion was a very strong theme in the film, I think. It is brought up first of all with the reference to Schopenhauer early in the film. Will power. Is Benigni telling us that if you will something, you can make it happen? Either something horrible like the Holocaust or something that is life-affirming?
SS: Absolutely. That's the theme of the movie: you can make it happen.
LK: What is the significance of the riddles in the film? Is the riddle a metaphor for life? How does the doctor's obsession for riddles fit into the film? Or was the riddle element just a narrative ploy that permitted Guido to demonstrate his high degree of intelligence and ingenuity?
SS: I think it served a couple of functions. First, it shows how absolutely narrow and unfeeling some people can be. One cannot imagine a character more self-absorbed than the doctor. Even the help that the doctor gives Guido and his family derives only from the doctor's need to try to find an answer to the riddle. He does not save Guido for altruistic purposes. He tries to save Guido so that h, may save himself, so that he may find an answer to the riddle.
The second function of the riddle element may be to show Guido's absolute cleverness. But consider this element from another perspective. One might consider the riddles really trivial, so that perhaps these riddles show the absolute triviality of the doctor's preoccupation. This reminds me of something else that might have been intended. Riddles are used in Buddhism to transcend - to determine what is illusion and what is reality.
LK: Is this movie about what is real and what is unreal?
SS: One would have to ask Benigni what his intent was. Is there an intent to distinguish between reality and fantasy? What is really real?
LK: And can one make one's own reality?
SS: To a Iarge extend. I think This is what Benigni is saying.
LK: Since the end of the Second World War, Italians have certainly been examining and analyzing their Fascist past. In the first half of Life is Beautiful (which recalls the dreamy, idealized style of the Fascist-era "white telephone" Italian comedies), Guido, like many Italians of that period, is in a state of denial. His uncle is perfectly aware of what is happening, but Guido continues to deny the enveloping reality until he is being transported to the train station in the truck.
SS: Even after that point, Guido asks his uncle in the truck, "Where are we?" I get the impression that, in the first part of the film, to a large extent Guido worries only about what he can personally control. If he cannot personally control something, then it really does not make any difference. The theme of control or the lack of it reminds me of the very beginning of the movie, when Guido and his friend are in a runaway car. The out-of-control car is a metaphor for Guido's life. He is being swept along by history, by this out-of-control car, by out-of-control events. The people in the welcoming reception acknowledge him as the ruler, so he plays out the role of the prince,
although I don't know whether he realizes what the people were doing.
LK: Getting back to the selfishness of the doctor, the supreme irony is that the doctor is begging for help from a person who himself needs infinitely more help than the German does.
SS: The doctor says to Guido, "Help me." He just cannot see that Guido is the one who really needs the help. And he does not offer to help. The doctor says only: "I've got to speak to you about something that is most important. What goes 'quack, quack'?"
LK: Which comedians does Benigni remind you of?
SS: I think there is a lot of Groucho Marx in Benigni, although there is only a small amount of slapstick in this film. I prefer the kind of humor that is involved in the episodes about Maria throwing the key out the window: "Maria, give me the key." This is the humor of happenstance and place, and of being so aware of where you are, and of what is going to happen that you can take advantage of the situation.
LK: Serendipity, and this ties in with the theme of control, of how much control one has over one's reality.
SS: Yes. Benigni is telling us that it is so important always to be aware. One of the most important messages of the movie is that life is beautiful, if you are constantly aware of it and if you take advantage of its opportunities. In the film, Benigni demonstrates this ability in so many ways. Guido happens to be walking past the loudspeaker shack when no one is around. And he just happens to find the Offenbach recording, and nobody notices that he is playing it so loudly. And he just happens to notice that he was in the place where this woman, Maria, throws this key out the window on command. And the business with the hat. For someone who is less aware none of this happens. For a less aware person there is no opportunity.
LK: One idea I had while viewing the film was that life is depicted as a mirage. This ties in with the question of reality. What is real?
SS: There is almost a question there: Who survived the Holocaust? Perhaps it was the people who were most able not to be absolutely confronted by it, even though they were living in it. It's the idea that there had to be an element not of denial of reality, but of transformation of reality. If you want it to happen, you can transform it. Guido says, "Perhaps it's all a dream, and Mamma is going to wake us up and bring us cookies and milk."
LK: But what did you think of the acting of Giorgio Cantarini, the boy who plays Joshua? I thought it was not as good as it could have been. Perhaps it would have been better if the filmmakers had filmed more takes, in order to obtain responses that do not appear staged or set up. But one must acknowledge that it is very difficult to elicit a seamless acting performance from a child of Joshua's age, especially given the film's subject matter. On the other hand, the boy's lines at times have a profundity that is lacking in the lines of the adult characters. I thought to myself, "Out of the mouths of babes." One truth the child reports is that an old man had told him that the Germans were burning people and making soap and buttons out of them. This incredible notion, which Guido dismisses to protect his boy, is, in fact, the sad truth.
SS: That may be the most sensitive point in the entire movie. Because this is what some revisionist historians are saying: "It could not possibly have happened. You can't burn people in ovens. You just can't do it." A professor at one U.S. university has tried to demonstrate that it is mechanically impossible to have accomplished the mass burning of bodies that is reported from Auschwitz. So it has to have been made up, this professor says. It could not possibly have happened, in his view.
LK: Life is Beautiful is a love story on two levels. First, it is the story of the love of a man for a woman, and of her love for him. Their union is represented by the scene in which the loving couple enters the greenhouse. The next moment a happy family emerges. From this point on, the film focuses on the second love story, which is about parental and familial love. As an educator, what do you think parents, or individuals in society in general, ought to be doing to help young children to understand and to empathize with tragic events that are happening in different parts of the world? Also, what do you think parents, or individuals in general, can do to help children who are caught in horrible situations?
SS: I think this is an interesting question, because, in terms of reality, what Guido was doing with his son is absolutely what I would not recommend. The survival mechanism, though very cleverly depicted in the movie, is not a real survival mechanism. The way children do survive is by understanding what is going on around them and by trying to assimilate it into something that makes sense to them. Children then extract out of that understanding ways of coping.
For example, I vividly remember Deena, an Israeli girl who lived in Auburn for a year when she was about six. The first time that she and my daughter Becca played together, Deena spoke no English and Becca spoke no Hebrew. They nevertheless spent the entire afternoon together, and they put on a play for us. It was fascinating to watch, because in the play there was a bomb. The girls were walking down the street, and they saw a bomb. They had to stay away from it, and they had to warn people, so that the bomb could be taken care of. Becca had no clue as to how this element of play reflected a reality in Israel. She did what Deena was having her do, but she did not understand why it was important to act in a particular manner. Deena had incorporated into her playing the kinds of behavior that must become second nature for one to be safe in Israel. One has to be aware that an unattended package is dangerous and that there are certain procedures to follow if one discovers such a package, in order to protect oneself and those nearby. Deena was acutely aware of this. My sense was that her parents and her teachers had done a very good job in helping her understand her environment and how to cope with that environment. But this was something that Becca could not, at the time, grasp.
When we were getting ready to go to Israel ourselves, we had to teach Becca that there are people who want to harm others and that, because of this, we have to treat the world a little differently from the way we do in Auburn. We had to understand the world differently. We had to deal with the situation in a real way, asking "What's the reality here?" and not make a game out of it. Then the children could make a game out of it, so that they could cope with it and practice it and understand it and feel confident in their understanding of it. None of that happens in this movie. "Hide from the mean guys because you are going to lose points" is completely different from "hide from the mean guys because you are going to lose your life if you don't." Children need to be told that certain things are really important to understand, that there is a reality here. So in the fantasy of the movie, the game that the father plays with the child is touching and carries Benigni's point, but it is not realistic in terms of how one ought to deal with children in real-life situations.
LK: How do children learn?
SS: Children do learn through play, but this is because they use play to assimilate reality, not because an adult assimilates it for them.
LK: But in a life-threatening situation, can a child of Joshua's age be made to understand the gravity of the situation?
SS: Absolutely.
LK: If the life-threatening situation goes on for an extended period, how much is the child hurt? To what extent is the child wounded for the rest of his or her life because of having been exposed to such horrid realities at such an early age?
SS: A very interesting question. I am reminded of the lecture that Gay Bloch and Malka Drucker gave recently at Beth Shalom in Auburn. They talked about Jewish children in Belgium during World War II who had been separated from their parents and put in Christian homes and given dif ferent names. Some of these children were interviewed when they were adults. Only thirty years after the war were some of them able to revisit the people in Belgium who had rescued them. The experience was so traumatizing that they had not been able to confront it at all before then. But I don't think you can lessen the trauma of such an experience by making it a game.
LK: That aspect of the film seemed unreal to me, too. It was just a ploy for the plot.
SS: Exactly. A child would know that the adult was lying.
LK: Also, the child Joshua was being influenced by not just one adult in the camp. He was surrounded by morose, skeletal adults, and in such a setting I think that a child would understand or intuit the gravity of the situation. On the other hand, I think children tend sometimes to deny absolutely the reality of something terrible that is happening to them. This is a defense mechanism. They pretend it does not exist. For example, children who are being sexually abused retreat to a fantasy world to protect themselves. And they won't tell others, not only out a sense of shame, but also because they think that if they don't talk about it, perhaps it is not really happening.
SS: We have to remember that there may also be threats which inhibit children. Children have a real inability to understand responsibility. So the problem is that children feel responsible for things that happen to them, when in fact they are not responsible. This accounts in large part for why children do not talk about traumatic events; they feel they themselves are doing something to cause such events to happen to them. They do not realize that these terrible things are not supposed to be happening to them. Fantasy versus reality: this is interesting because it is the theme of Life is Beautiful. Can children distinguish between reality and fantasy? For example, in Fred Coe's A Thousand Clowns ( 1965 ), the roles are absolutely reversed. The adult lives in a fantasy world, and the child is the realist. But children really can distinguish between what is real and what is pretend. When an adult confuses this distinction, he or she is not helping the child, because children depend on adults to help them sort out such things. So one would have to say that the film we are discussing, Life is Beautiful, is not a how-to manual. Rather, it deals with other sorts of issues. On the other hand, the game ploy provides the opportunity at the end of the film for the child to be able to say, "We won!" This is an interesting comment.
LK: How so?
SS: Surviving the death camps is, in a real sense, the victory. The Nazis' purpose was ultimately defeated. Viewers recognize that there is a certain amount of triumph in the film. Two-thirds of European Jewry was destroyed, yet the culture and the ideals of the victims prevail; while the culture and ideals of the victimizers are reviled. So too, even though the father in the film dies, the family wins. The game that Guido played with his son allows for the line "We won!" but even without that line the sentiment is accurate.
LK: There is a very strong sense of family in the film. Family is portrayed as a strong social unit.
SS: Yes, particularly perhaps in that the grandmother has to reconcile herself with the family. It is clear to me that it is the grandmother's choice first not to be involved with the family, and then it is the grandmother's choice to reconcile with the family.
LK: And the little boy understands that she is his grandmother, when she comes into the store.
SS: Right. Either Joshua is very precocious, or this is an adult fantasy. You don't expect a four-year-old to be able to do arithmetic or to run a store without his father around. There is quite a bit that is not real in terms of the depiction of childhood in this film. But one can have this in movies.
LK: How do you characterize Life is Beautiful? Is it comedy? Is it drama? Is it realistic? Is it a fable? Or is it all of the above?
SS: The movie is a gift. In the introduction and at the end of the film, the adult Joshua expresses this idea: "Here is the gift my father gave to me, the ability to transform reality with a clever eye and imagination."
V. Louise Katainen is an associate professor of Italian in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Auburn University. Steven Silvern is a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Auburn University and rabbi of Beth Shalom Synagogue in Auburn, Alabama.[1]
