Almost God-Like
Although for various generations dramatic forms of tragedy and comedy were universally comprehensible and their subsequent embodiment in various literary and expressive art works were clear, contemporary world perception had changed to the extent that reality became so complicatedly tragicomic that narrative art had to review the very essence of tragedy and comedy and pay more attention to their mixture. Various cinema critics might argue that classical Hollywood perception of tragedy and comedy remains the same and does not violate the rules of those dramatic forms. However, contemporary cinematograph witnesses the phenomenon of Roberto Benigni’s comedy and subsequent controversy it causes. Among numerous famous comedies of Roberto Benigni, the most controversial film is Life is Beautiful (1997). The aim of the present paper is to examine to which dramatic form this film belongs to, meaning principles of which dramatic form prevail in the narration. On the basis of those findings, specific Benigni’s acting style will be examined and the meaning of his technique in the overall impact of the movie explained.
Comedy /tragedy discourse in political/thematic controversy.
The main problem of the Life is Beautiful is the duality of its dramatic composition and diversity of its expressiveness. From the first glance, it is difficult to give the exact answer whether the film is tragedy or comedy. Critics often argue that the film can be interpreted as a comedy of Holocaust or tragedy of one Jewish life taken in concentration camp (Logan). In the first case, it is often argued that the topic of Holocaust is not the matter of laughter even with the final death of the main hero; that comic acting did not change the horrible reality, and human desire to abstract from reality could not be conducted through laughter and simple game of will (Viano 50). In the second case, the film is criticized for not being tragic enough in its attitude to the topic of Holocaust and severity of the reality for Jewish Italians (Logan). In this context, the main conclusion of criticism is that irrespective of the identification of the dramatic form of the movie, it still remains incredibly inappropriate in depiction of the Holocaust tragedy (Viano 52).
The reason why the aforementioned criticism was outlined is in the fact that it shows the political aspect of movie’s reception in theatrical and socio-political environment, and it also shows why the actual dramatic form of the film became even vaguer than Benigni meant it to be (Viano 49). The first mistake of the political criticism is that it concentrated on the issue of Holocaust which was not central for the movie. According to Nicoletta Braschi, wife of Benigni and the leading actress of the film, “the movie is not about Holocaust, the movie is a love story, and its special character, Guido, is a father who is able to translate into the language of his child the world around that is a night mare” (Logan). Indeed, the first part of the movie is devoted to the love affair between Guido and his Principessa Dora. The second concentrates on the relationship between father and son in the concentration camp – fantasy tricks in the name of son’s survival.
The second mistake of the political criticism was assumption that Benigni was referring to the serious topic of Holocaust carelessly and unrealistic. First of all, Benigni did not pay enough attention to Holocaust because that was not his main aim. He did not chose Holocaust as the central theme of the movie, but used it as a focal point for the development and actual explanation of his character’s depth – supremacy of paternal instinct over self-preservation, which was the central idea of the narrated story (Viano 51). In one of the interviews on the topic, Benigni emphasized: “I respect this tragedy [Holocaust] so I stayed far away from it. It is more strong if you evoke. I do not use tomato soup; I do not make fake blood” (Logan). In this regard, concentration camp is used rather as a pick of hero’s misfortune and challenge of his survivability, mainly because Holocaust was and remains the worst thing human beings could to their own kind. Concerning unrealistic depiction of the actual events in the camp, they were not supposed to be entirely authentic, since audience knew perfectly well what was happening in those camps and the very phrase could bring the atmosphere of grief. This atmosphere was enough to evoke human interpretations and start thinking about surrealism of the world depicted in the movie.
Theatrical aspect of comedy/tragedy discourse.
The aforementioned political perspective of movie’s criticism was outlined in order to show the difficulty of identifying dramatic form in the general literature due to the possible socio-political implications for both director and critics. From the first glance, the most obvious answer to the dramatic form would be – both. Thus, the movie would have to be viewed as two-part series or two separate stories told about the same family (Viano 52). In this case, the first part would have been characterized as a light comedy of Chaplin style – full of ridiculous coincidences, irrationality, satire on Italian lifetime of the time, good fortune of the main hero, expressiveness of his comic gestures and face grimaces and, of course, happy ending. The second tragic part, would have been described in dull colors, more static in motion, disillusion as the misperception of reality would have been inevitably reveled proving the depth of tragedy or anagnorisis as its crucial element; character’s behavior would have been characterized by depression and internal struggle (Dancyger 210).
Although all those features are characteristic for each part respectively, Benigni combined them by one idea – father’s sacrifice for his son, survivability of life irrespective of the environment. Due to this central idea, the movie gains integrity and makes it difficult to explain its exact dramatic form. However, it gives an opportunity to analyze the movie as one integral unit. In order to give exact answer, the main principles of tragedy and comedy should be examined. The first feature of the classic Hollywood style comedy is its irrationality and ridiculous nature of comic situations (Neale and Krutnik 75). According to Stephen Neale and Frank Krutnik, “comedy is a prime site for all manners for unlikely actions – and all manners of unlikely forms of justification for their occurrence” (32).In this case, Guido follows the pattern only partly. His irrationality is described through his clumsiness and inborn inclination for loud and “Italian-style” behavior (Logan). In the movie, it was shown on the examples of the pot thrown out of window right on the bureaucrat, denying crucial signature, hat full of eggs, contextual irrationality of wedding party and showing his belly button (Benigni). From the point of unlikely actions occurrence and their amusing origin and implications, the movie is definitely a comedy.
On the other hand, the main distinction between unlikelihood of events in comedy and tragedy is motives of those events and their unity for the final outcome of the story. In this context, comedy “does not seem to require a particular regime of motivation to bind together the events in its stories or the components in its structure” (Stephen and Krutnik 31). Irrespective of the general comic nature of Guido’s behavior, his motives for actions are completely rational in both parts of the movie. All his actions are conditions by noble motives and quite realistic world perception. He knew perfectly well that without that signature, he would not succeed, just as he knew if he was not be cheerful and invented game for his son, Giosue would have died as all other children in the camp (Viano 55). Thus, the main feature of the movie is comic behavior of Guido rather than irrationality of his motives.
Another aspect which violates comedy principle of structure is the interconnectivity of events in Benigni’s movie. None of the events are separated from the realistic chain of events leading the hero from lonely existence to the fulfillment of the most meaningful act of his life – protection of his family and sacrifice of his life in exchange for survival of his son (Viano 56). Unlike Chaplin’s movie construction style, which was based on sporadic events usually without any specific connection, Benigni’s events are well-connected starting from the Guido’s disastrous attempt to open his bookstore, which led to his acquaintance with Dora, their marriage and their son; his seemingly accidental acquaintance and joking with German doctor resulted in his fatal ending in the concentration camp (Benigni). Unlike regular comedy, Benigni’s Life if Beautiful is driven by real power of fate, rather than simple ridiculous coincidence of events just for fun of the audience (Viano62). Whether this doom of fate is tragic or simply human reality and how comic it might be is the matter of personal perception. However, from the point of characterization of the film as comedy, fate and connectivity of events contributes to its tragic characterization.
Concerning the simplicity of composition, the immediate observation would be that two-part structure of the movie violates this principle of the comedy. In fact, the structure of the movie is even more complicated than that. The initial scene of Guido carrying his sleeping son showed in the beginning of the movie and then repeated in its end with further revealing of dead bodies in the concentration camp and actual narrator of the story – Giosue, gave the integrity and showed the central idea of the movie as a whole, which was not in irrationality and amusement of Guido’s behavior, but the story of his sacrifice for the benefit of the next generation (Viano 57). Such complexity of composition violates comic form. In this context, it can be argued that the movie is rather a tragedy than comedy, due to its complexity and attention paid to the central idea in the beginning and ending (Viano 59).
The actual ending of the movie is of particular importance for the form argument. The crucial essence of comedy is in happy ending and final success or at least neutrality of consequences for the protagonist (Viano 55). In this regard, Maurizio Viano characterized Benigni’s movie’s ending “to repropose schizophrenia by first violating then upholding the rules of comedy” (56). In this context, the first violation of comedy is actual death of the main hero, who was the beholder of the comic element of the story. The whole story and its representation in the movie was calling for Guido to stay alive and audience was expecting his survival due to some supernatural reason, but he died as reality required (Benigni). Irrespective of actual violation of the happy ending rule of comedy, where everyone even antagonists lived happily ever after, the ending has still less tragic outcome than might have been expected.
The positive outcome of the whole story was achieved by the shift from Guido, as the main narrator of the story, to his son as a continuation of Guido. In this case, Benigni did not only showed the survivability of Guido through his son, as sacrifice of one generation for the life of another one, but also, from strictly story-telling perspective, showed continuation of Guido’s comic life-perception and story-telling in Giosue’s telling the story of his heroic and humoristic father. In this context, return to the law of comedy is in positive ending of the movie. On the other hand, it can be argued how positive or happy the ending might be when the hero of the story dies in the end. From one point, this judgment is entirely of a subjective matter. From strictly theatric perspective, this dubious character of the ending can be identified as tragicomic rather than entirely tragic or comic feature.
The argument in favor of the tragic form of the movie would be based on the classic principle of tragedy – anagnorisis, meaning disillusioning of the main mystery of the story and hero’s eventual comprehension of the reality (Dancyger 210). While the ending can be interpreted in various ways, the anagnorisis principle cannot be identified as nothing else but an element of tragedy. In this context, the surrealism of the whole narration embodied in the application of fable, fairy principle of good and evil, winning the hand of the fair lady and “white-horse chivalry romance” and the game in the concentration camp were disrupted by Guido’s death as surreal fable and human hope meeting the cold reality of human existence in this world (Dancyger 211). This statement might be completely true in case when the aim of the film is to depict reality in all its details. However, Benigni applied surreal approach to the description of reality and human life. In this context, trivial things have their hidden meaning, and symbolism of objects make audience distinguish reality through the chain of associations (Viano 58). In this context, Guido’s death can be also interpreted as philosophical message from Benigni, suggesting that in between past and the future there is just a moment and this moment is present – death of past and birth of the future, (Dancyger 210). Thus, anagnorisis might be either positive or negative; nevertheless, it still remains an essential part of the tragedy.
Benigni’s acting style as a central element of comedy.
First of all, Benigni is famous for his non-verbal expressiveness of thoughts and attitudes. In this regard, every scene featuring was attracting audience’s curiosity mainly to his character and his unique perception of the world. This was achieved through the integrity of facial mimic, expressive body language (waving hands, ridiculous jumping, even manner of walking were both expressive and changeable depending on the situation and tone of the scene). In this context, body language and ability to express emotions without a single word created the target atmosphere better than even the most sophisticated dialogue in the world (Viano 63). In this regard, the atmosphere of the whole movie, created by Benigni alone, was the atmosphere of joy and appreciation of life the way it was – beautiful. Benigni’s character was not just optimistic through the whole movie; he was a comic and a person with humorous attitude to life (Viano 62).
The best example of this was duality of Guido’s face expression in the second part of the movie – his body language was expressing grief and exhaustion, but, unlike all other prisoners, he had hope and that hope together with joy were lighting his face and eyes every time he saw his son. From one point, it can be argued that he was trying to be convincing for the child not to be worried by his fears. From another point, he appreciated life and considered it to be beautiful already because he was seeing son alive and not starved to death or a gas camera (Dancyger 211). From paternal perspective, child’s life is the greatest joy, irrespective of the circumstances. This kind of interpretation is the main feature of Benigni’s movies – comprehension of his acting style, body language and its Italian specifics are the main key to understanding and interpretation of the whole movie and its particular scenes.
Another feature of Benigni’s acting, is that he did not have to act outside his convictions and pretend – it is extremely difficult to distinguish where Benigni actor, director and the main hero Guido can be separated. The main impression of the audience is that Guido and Benigni from the real life are the same people. This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that as an actor and director, he was the only person to know what and how was supposed to be played and shown. On the other hand, Benigni’s acting is the matter of personality and undeniable personal attitude to each role, particularly this one. Thus, it is only Benigni’s intention of the narrated story which can explain the duality of the movie:
“to laugh and to cry comes from the same point of the soul, no? I am a storyteller:
the crux of the matter is to reach beauty, poetry, it does not matter if that is comedy or
tragedy, They are the same if you reach the beauty” (Logan).
Benigni’s technique’s contribution to the impact of the movie.
Benigni’s technique in Life is Beautiful was well-summarized in Ken Dancyger’s book. In this interpretation, the central idea of son’s survival was placed into the context of all-overwhelming power of love (209). As it was mentioned above the distinctive feature was surrealistic and fable tone of narration, which could be also characterized by formal and fantastic attitude of the narrator as a child believing into the story told by a parent (Dancyger 209). Fable style has specific impact on the set pieces, fairy-tale structure, where the main hero was hopeful and enthusiastic about something, then his hopes were disrupted by the supreme power beyond his control, and finally he manages to achieve good fortune (Dancyger 209).
The first set piece referred to Guido’s loss of dreamt career opportunity, but brought him to his adored Dora. The second set piece was their wedding, which was ruined by Dora’s family but was repaid with her love for him and willingness to follow him wherever he wanted. The third site piece was his imprisonment, which deprived him of desired freedom, but eventually he managed to regain life and freedom for his son. Thus, the main morale of the movie is that “goodness and love prevail in spite of personal loss of economic status, freedom, even life itself” (Dancyger 210).
The main contribution of Benigni’s technique and his unique acting style on the general movie’s impact on the audience is in creating a modern fable of the beauty and its achievement regardless of circumstances. This fable is unique, because of the wide variety of its interpretations depending on the age and specific ethno-cultural background of the audience. Those interpretations would be based on one central concept – universal beauty of life is in love and mutually-acceptable interpersonal relations or family.
Overall, it can be concluded that Life Is Beautiful is an example of the modern philosophic or allegorical cinematograph which makes the audience cry and laugh at the same time; but, what is the most important, it makes people think and create their own interpretations of the story and gain their own personal experiences and lessons from the movie. Irrespective of the politico/thematic criticism of the movie, just as Charlie Chaplin’s movies, Benigni’s works are remarkably educational and universally human in their nature, techniques, aims and methods of interactions with the audience. From certain perspective, they are above political manipulations and division of art into low and high, because their topics and intentions are entirely humanistic rather than particularly ethno-cultural or politico-social.
Comedy indeed is the best way to achieve tragic effect and reach people’s hearts and minds, because people open themselves emotionally through the comedy and become more empathic for the further emotionality of further sufferings of the main heroes. Commonality of the emotional experience contributes to personification of the learned lessons and further development of personal thoughts. According to Benigni, “the point where comedy and tragedy meet, when you laugh and cry at the same time, is almost God-Like” (Logan).
Works Cited
Benigni, Roberto, dir. Life Is Beautiful. Miramax Film, 1997. Print.
Dancyger, Ken. The Technique of Film and Video Editing: History, Theory, And Practice. 4th
Edition. Oxford, OX: Elsevier. 2007. Print.
Logan Brien, “Does this man really think the Holocaust was a big joke?” The Guardian,
29 January 1999. Web. 4 May 2012.
< http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/1999/jan/29/awardsandprizes>.
Neale, Stephen and Krutnik, Frank. Popular Film and Television Comedy. London, LD:
Routlegde. 1990. Print.
Viano, Maurizio. ““Life Is Beautiful”: Reception, Allegory, and Holocaust Laughter”, Jewish
Social Studies, New Series, 5.3 (Summer 1999): 47-66. Print.
