Roberto Benigni's moving film, Life is Beautiful, is a film that is set in a concentration camp and combines comedy with the seriousness of the extermination of the Jews in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. In Life is Beautiful, the real purpose of the film, is a love story on many levels. It is a tale about a man and his “principessa”, a man and his son, a man and his life. It is a tale about choosing how to exist and choosing how to die. The movie was primarily made for entertainment, using the Holocaust as its setting.
Despite the film’s failed attempt to really capture the seriousness of the Holocaust, certain details still appear to be accurate. The removal of clothing at the arrival at the concentration camp, the showers, the separating of the families, the lack of food, and the unnecessary gassing of hundreds of Jews, are clearly shown throughout the movie just as it occurred years before. Guido, the main character, is sent to part from his beloved wife, and taken to the other side of the camp with his son. Wanting to keep the truth away from his son, he explains...
He recreated the images of destruction and showed the cruelty used against the victims of the Holocaust, “Without passion, without haste, they [the Nazi soldiers] slaughtered their prisoners. Each one had to go up to the hole and present his neck. Babies were thrown into the air and the machine gunners used them as targets,” (4). After reading his narrative, readers could not dispute the occurrence of the Holocaust, as no one could conjure up images of such horror and evil. He described their displacement in such a way that people couldn’t even imagine, only those who had experienced it could explain the internal reasoning of the victims.
In the Italian movie Life is Beautiful, the main character Guido, played by Roberto Benigni, prioritizes his son and wife’s well being over his own. A prime example of a time when Guido’s unconditional love was instrumental to his survival occurs when he resigned himself to an inevitable end while working in the anvil factory, until he recognizes that his survival is vital to his son’s (Benigni). Although his sense of self-sacrifice seems to contradict the notion of self-preservation, Guido’s motive to endure the atrocities of the concentration camp was so he could continue to care for his son, otherwise he would have given into the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness and embraced death as an end to his
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
The way Auschwitz fit to the larger history of the Second World War was how the prisoners of Auschwitz provided basically free labor and taking valuables from the prisoners attributed to the monetary cost of the Second World War. In the book, it mentions how the prisoners were even building a factory meant for synthesizing rubber, along with how the prisoners provided labor by means of mining coal and other various forms of unearthing and creating resources. However, with this free labor it was also accompanied by consequences after the Second World War. This results many cases of mental trauma on prisoners of the Holocaust. It broke up families and caused mass deaths, especially since Auschwitz is known to be a death
I think something important is how awful the holocaust was and how they showed it. The concentration camps were nothing good, they used people for new experiments, torture, and executing. German authorities established camps all over Germany. They used some prisoners for construction and expansion for the camps. Many prisoners from the concentration camps died of maltreatment, starvation, poor health conditions, or execution.
"Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, we feel that we are greater than we know."- William Wordsworth. As stated in this quote, when we have something to hope for, and someone showing us love, we are capable of many things. In the movie Life is Beautiful and the book Night love and hope are the only things that keep the characters alive. This is shown through Elie and his father's relationship when his father reminds him of his fundamental feelings of love, compassion, and devotion to his family. Then Elie and his father look out for each other in hope to make it out the concentration camp alive. Love and hope are also shown in the movie Life is Beautiful when Guido and his son were taken to the concentration camp. Here, Guido's love for his son Josh, kept him alive. Dora, Guido's wife, shows persistent hope which ultimately leads to being reunited with Joshua. In both stories the hope that of rescue and the love that for each other gets the main characters through terrible times.
Every camp and killing center forced each prisoner to send home cards that state they are living well and the authorities from the camp make sure the film used propaganda to cover up all the mass murders (“Nazi Propaganda”). One sided propaganda didn’t let out info on how the Jews were massacred and out into gas chambers to suffer (“The Role…”).
The mind is such a beautiful part of the body that wills us to endure and survive even in the harshest circumstances. This willpower of the human mind was especially put to the test by the victims of the Holocaust. This was evident through their sufferings, while prisoners in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. In addition to the majority of prisoners not being able to escape death, their desire to survive also faded in time. Both survivor Victor Frankl and fictional character Guido Oreface found reasons to persevere while in confinement. Neither man could control what happened in his life; whether actual life or in the fictional rendering. Yet each man, through his strength of mind was able to control his feelings and will to survive.
Life is Beautiful is a unique movie. At first, I did not think that I would enjoy it because it was filmed a long time ago. Later as I started watching it, the movie started to grab my attention and got me wondering what is happening next. Roberto Benigni started the movie with his great sense of humor making viewers laugh every time he opens his mouth. Sadly, the movie ended in a horrible sadness as he was shot in the concentration camp because he was trying to save his wife and son. I totally recommend this movie to viewers who like watching comedy, romantic or drama films. Although the movie is old, it has a great meaning and draws the viewer’s attention. The movie is a great example of a loving father, a beautiful family and discriminations.
This progressive history and the facts revolving around the most widely discussed concentration camp from the Holocaust offer the reader something to relate to. Because Auschwitz is referred to most c...
We watch death explore the beauty and ugliness of the human race in Markus Zusak’s book The Book Thief. We watch as Liesel, Hans, and Rosa do everything they can to help out a group of people who were treated with such disrespect during this time period. This group, the Jews, were beaten for taking food that was given to them, and when they died no one would even care. But, these few people gave them food, a place to hide, a sense of belonging, and and a reason to live. They have to work day and night, and do everything they can. Even though people aren’t so beautiful at all times, there is still hope. As we have learned in this book that even when 99 percent of humans aren’t so marvelous there is still that one percent that is to delightful that it would touch anyones heart.
The story seeks to make the argument that children are not born with prejudice and hate, but they are instead taught those ways of thinking. However, to make this point the story suspends much of reality in order to bring about an unlikely friendship between Bruno and Shmuel. However, even though the message is clearly a good one, it severely misrepresents the life during the Holocaust and could mislead uneducated viewers about the level of danger and cruelty in the camps. This begs the question: is it moral to use the Holocaust to teach a lesson if in the process the truth of the Holocaust is muddled and softened? Do these inaccuracies not give the viewer the impression that a child could survive fairly well in a camp and possibly escape? This does not do justice for the one and a half million children who perished during the Holocaust. Furthermore, it paints the Nazi family in a light that offers them plausible deniability. This seems to pass all responsibility to the SS officers in charge. Despite the fact that not every German knew of the activities in concentration camps, the whole of the German people share a responsibility for the atrocities of the Holocaust, from which the movie seems to absolve
This camp was designed to kill every Jew in Europe. Hundreds, even thousands, of people were packed tightly into small cattle trains for days. Many of people died on the train rides. When they arrived to Auschwitz they were still being greatly deceived because music was playing at the stations to make them feel welcomed. Working men and children were separated; the sick, elderly, and woman were taken in another direction, right to the showers. As they were getting ready to go into the shower they were continuously being lied to by the Nazi. They were being told to remember the clothespin number and that the shower would delouse them. The Jews instead of showering were gassed and taken out in massive numbers. This is a horribly painful and extremely inhuman way to
Society is fascinated with suffering. Haunted houses, horror movies, documentaries based on the greatest tragedies—a culture has been built around the human enthrallment with misery. Fear, lies, and regret all tragedies that cause human suffering. As youth, one learns of the great disasters that these immoralities have caused in hopes of preventing them. Many have attempted to comprehend such atrocities through the art of film, the holocaust is no exception to this phenomenon. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a faithful embodiment of the pain suffered during the Holocaust. It personifies these human vices leaving the viewer in a state of near emotional collapse Viewers of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas can sense the impurities of fear, lies,
Bomba explained how people would walk through the “gate” and was never seen again. His job, along with sixteen or so other prisoners was to clean up the place so that when the next transport comes in, they would not see what was going on. His experience is very similar to the experience described by Mr. Mueller. Although they were in different camps, they were the experiencing the same torment. Ms. Farkas was deported to the Auschwitz camp where she worked in the kitchens to receive extra food. She was deported to another camp and later forced on a death march. Her experience is also very similar to Mr. Mueller’s. Toward the end of the war, he describes how he and other prisoners were forced on a death march. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas indirectly shows that there is no survival from the camp. Shmuel tells Bruno how his grandparents died shortly after arriving at the camp and later asks Bruno to help him look for his father because he hadn’t seen him a few days. Unbeknownst to Shmuel and Bruno, his father had already suffered the fate of the gas chamber. I cannot imagine the pain and suffering Mr. Mueller, Mr. Bomba and Ms. Farkas endured to live to tell their stories. It is hard to believe the cruelty they experienced at hands of other human beings. When faced in difficult situations, it is the survival of the fittest and I would like to think that I could be as strong in order to