A relentlessly cheerful Jewish Italian man uses jokes and made-up stories to shield his young son from the reality of a Nazi concentration camp. He convinces the boy that the whole thing is an elaborate game. In this film, love is a way of fighting back, and imagination is how you survive.
Life is Beautiful is a 1997 comedy, drama and war film directed by Roberto Benigni. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (2 narrative, 1 psychology and 1 cinematography), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, The Apartment uses several of the same techniques.
Giving a film 2 very different tones, such as comedy and tragedy, often split into halves. Each makes the other hit harder, and the film never blends them into 1.
How this film uses it
The first half is a romantic comedy, where Guido wins over Dora with one elaborate scheme after another. The second half is a concentration camp survival story. The comedy doesn't disappear when the tragedy starts. It has made the love feel so real that the tragedy becomes unbearable.
Where to see it
The jump from the bookshop years to the deportation. You are with the same characters in a completely different world.
Having a character invent and keep up a false version of reality to shield someone they love, or themselves, from a truth too painful to bear. The lie is a way to survive.
How this film uses it
Guido tells his son the camp is a competition, with the camp's rules as the rules of the game and a tank as the prize. He has to keep this story going under impossible pressure. Every new horror needs a new explanation, and Guido's genius is that he makes each one up on the spot. The lie is absurd and heroic at once.
Where to see it
Guido translating the guard's instructions into game rules. This scene sets the rules of the lie.
Putting jokes and comic performance inside dangerous or desperate situations. The humor works as a way of resisting, and you never forget what the characters are laughing through.
How this film uses it
When Benigni does comedy in the camp, the danger is real for his character. If Giosué stops playing along or the guards catch on to the joke, both of them are killed. The comedy never makes light of the camp. Every joke is risky and made up on the spot, and what drives it is a father's total determination to keep his son innocent.
Where to see it
Guido's translation scene. He jokes in front of the guards, one slip away from death.
Keeping the worst violence outside the frame. You hear it or see its effects and other people's reactions, and your imagination does the rest.
How this film uses it
You never see the camp's mass murder on screen. You see the smoke and hear the sounds, and you can work out what is happening. Benigni refuses to show it directly and keeps the camera at the level of what a child would notice. The horror is still there, seen through an innocent boy's eyes.
Where to see it
The smoke from the crematorium. This is the one thing Guido cannot explain away, and nobody explains it.
Questions
Life is Beautiful: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Life is Beautiful use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Life is Beautiful (1997): Tonal Bifurcation, Protective Fiction, Comedy Under Duress and Off-Screen Atrocity.
Who directed Life is Beautiful?
Roberto Benigni directed Life is Beautiful, released in 1997.
What films are similar to Life is Beautiful?
Films that share techniques with Life is Beautiful include The Apartment (1960), Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Psycho (1960), The Elephant Man (1980).
