There are Holocaust films that are unexpectedly much cheerier than most Holocaust films. There is a never ending comedic feel in Life Is Beautiful that the main character offers with his entertaining and spontaneous personality. His creativity helped keep the story light when it was in reality a grueling subject. The success of Benigni's Life Is Beautiful seemed to mark the beginning of a new trend: holocaust comedies. The comedic aspect of Life is Beautiful brought out a different perspective of the holocaust that could make interpreting the holocaust in a less biased form. It was followed by Jacob the Liar with Robin Williams, the remake of the old GDR Cinema classic about the owner of a small shop in the ghetto who pretends to have a hidden radio-receiver and regularly tells his terrified fellows uplifting news about approaching German defeat that he allegedly learned from the radio. Throughout segments of the film, humor is carefully interwoven into dialogue and scenes to lighten the dark backdrop that the Holocaust stages for the film viewers, similar to the film Life is Beautiful. By using an actor widely known for his talent for humor, it is success to portray a less somber view of Holocaust events than what are typically documented. In the context of a storyline that focuses upon imparting how a ray of hope in darkness can make all the difference in the lives of those for whom the ray shines on, the use of humor would certainly work. Significantly, both films are centralized on a lie that allows the vulnerable Jews to survive the ordeal. Holocaust comedies are able to create a sense of balance in emotions that help the viewing audience see how laughter in a grave matter can benefit their understanding of the subject.
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...ithout comic relief, the audience is forced to only feel horrified by what they are seeing when in reality such atrocious things never happened. The directors who dared to infuse comedy into their works all had the common goal to help the people watching the films understand the Holocaust more profoundly. Comedy can help display how the victims of the Holocaust truly were as innocent people, and further emphasize the level of repulsion that actually went on in these situations. In each Holocaust comedy there is a perfect combination between humor and grief that stays with us from the first to the last line.
Works Cited
Geldzahler, Justin. “We Laugh So We Don't Cry: The Humor in Holocaust Films.” Splitsider.
N.p., 31 May 2012. Web. 02 Mar. 2014.
Zizek, Slavoj. “Laugh Yourself to Death: The New Wave of Holocaust Comedies!” N.p., 15 Dec. 1999. Web. 05 Mar. 2014.
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” (Elie Wiesel) The Holocaust is a topic that is still not forgotten and is used by many people, as a motivation, to try not to repeat history. Many lessons can be taught from learning about the Holocaust, but to Eve Bunting and Fred Gross there is one lesson that could have changed the result of this horrible event. The Terrible Things, by Eve Bunting, and The Child of the Holocaust, by Fred Gross, both portray the same moral meaning in their presentations but use different evidence and word choice to create an overall
Roberto Benigni, the director of Life is Beautiful (1997), explores the sacrifice of people during war . Through the use of Foreshadowing, Mood, and Characterization, film audiences are challenged to Imagine the struggles of the those in the holocaust.
By 1945 over 6 million Jews were killed as a result of the genocide launched by Nazi Germany. The Holocaust has been documented and depicted by various visual images revealing the atrocities of this tragic period. The film posters of Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful produced in 1997 and Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List produced in 1993 utilize various rhetorical appeals to present starkly different visual arguments about the Holocaust. For the purpose of this rhetorical analysis, viewing these images from the standpoint of a viewer who is exposed to these posters for the first time, with the acute knowledge that these posters are related to the holocaust is necessary. From this standpoint, it is clear to see how images that depict that
Elie Weisel once said this: “I know and I speak from experience, that even in the midst of darkness, it is possible to create light and share warmth with one another; that even on the edge of the abyss, it is possible to dream exalted dreams of compassion; that it is possible to be free and strengthen the ideals of freedom, even within prison walls; that even in exile, friendship becomes an anchor.” Compassion is not something that is easy to understand, or even easy to show sometimes. The Holocaust was a difficult time to comprehend: how could one man have so much power and hate towards a society of people that he started a genocide? There may never be the right emotional explanation to describe the disturbing events that happened during the Holocaust, but Elie Weisel was able to share his. His message was that compassion and friendship can refrain someone from sinking so deep into a dark sea like the Holocaust.
For many educated people learning about the Holocaust can send them feelings of sorrow or deep remource. Not only for the meaning of the word, but why it is called that. The pure evil of the final solution created thought of and created by none other than Adolf Hitler will never stop haunting people more than half a decade later. One of the prominat things that everyone missed in his highly sold auto-biography "My struggle". The thought of solid hatrid found within the cover of the horiable book will always burn in the souls that it harmed from the day it began till the dawn of today.
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As inappropriate as it sounds, humor was used in an attempt to cheer up the soldiers. Humor is a way to temporarily relieve the pain or stress of an ongoing issue. Laughter, or even just smiling can have positive effects on the body. O’Brien explains in an interview with Patrick Hicks on why he used humor in his story as part of a coping mechanism. He stated, “It 's very important to me when I 'm writing tragedy to have humor in it, and vice-versa. The world is not uni-dimensional. It 's not all sad or all happy. I remember reading Man 's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl 's book, and Primo Levi on the concentration camps, and even their humor was a way of coping and dealing with the world--it 's called gallows humor. It was rampant in Vietnam (Hicks, 2005).” Being in Vietnam and fighting this whole war was unpleasant, so he used humor in hopes of making things somewhat
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, McMurphy often uses the power of laughter to overcome what is going on in the world around him. Laughter lightens the feeling in the book, and at times gives it a warmer feeling. It also helps develop, and shape the characters throughout the entire story.
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