The Representation of Evil in Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful

• Published in: The journal of popular film and television Vol. 28; no. 2; pp. 74 - 79
• Main Author: Celli, Carlo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, D.C Taylor & Francis Group 2000; HELDREF Publications; Taylor & Francis Inc
• Subjects: Benigni, Roberto; De Sica, Vittorio (1901-1974); Evil; Feature films; Film theory; Good & evil; Holocaust; Humor; Italian Cinema; Italian literature; Laughter; Motion picture criticism; Motion picture directors & producers; New York; United States > US
• ISSN: 0195-6051; 1930-6458
• DOI: 10.1080/01956050009602825

When the subject of Life Is Beautiful (La vita è bella) public knowledge, there was apprehension because of Roberto Benigni's reputation as a comedian that he might not approach the subject of the Shoah with appropriate sobriety and respect. The film adopted a visual and thematic strategy contrary to the norm in contemporary commercial cinema because of the lack of scenes of horror or violence. Criticism focused on the film's historical veracity and suspension of disbelief. For example, Daniel Vogelmann, an Italian Jew who lost family members at Auschwitz, rejected the idea of presenting the evil of Holocaust in a manner that might mislead new generations into regarding the film as factual. In the United States, critic David Denby led the protest against the film by panning the film as "unconvincing" and "self-congratulatory" and accusing Benigni of perpetrating a Holocaust denial (Denby 96). A cartoon of a despairing concentration camp prisoner holding an Oscar statuette accompanied Denby's New Yorker review. Art Spiegelman, the author of the Holocaust comic book series Maus, drew the cartoon and called the film a "banalization" of the Holocaust (Polese 1).