| Life Is Beautiful | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Roberto Benigni |
| Produced by | Gianluigi Braschi Elda Ferri |
| Written by | Roberto Benigni Vincenzo Cerami |
| Starring | Roberto Benigni Nicoletta Braschi Giorgio Cantarini Giustino Durano Sergio Bini Bustric |
| Music by | Nicola Piovani |
| Cinematography | Tonino Delli Colli |
| Editing by | Simona Paggi |
| Studio | Cecchi Gori Group |
| Distributed by | Miramax Films |
| Release date(s) | 20 December 1997 |
| Running time | 116 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Italian |
| Box office | $229,163,264 |
Life Is Beautiful (Italian: La vita è bella) is a 1997 Italian film which tells the story of a Jewish Italian, Guido Orefice (played by Roberto Benigni, who also directed and co-wrote the film), who must employ his fertile imagination to help his family during their internment in a Nazi concentration camp.
At the 71st Academy Awards in 1999, Benigni won the Academy Award for Best Actor and the film won both the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
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The first half of the movie is a whimsical, romantic, somewhat slapstick comedy set in the years before World War II. Guido Orefice (Roberto Benigni), a young Italian Jew, arrives in Arezzo, where he plans to set up a bookstore, taking a job as a waiter at his uncle's hotel.
Guido is both funny and charismatic, especially when he romances a local school teacher, Dora (portrayed by Benigni's actual wife Nicoletta Braschi), saying she is beautiful like the morning sunrise. Dora, however, comes from a wealthy, aristocratic, non-Jewish Italian family. Dora's mother wants her to marry a well-to-do civil servant, but Dora falls instead for Guido where he ends up stealing her away at her engagement party from her aristocratic and arrogant fiancé.
Several years pass in which Guido and Dora marry and have a son, Giosuè (Giorgio Cantarini).
Dora and her mother (Marisa Paredes) are estranged due to the unequal marriage. Later on, a reconciliation takes place just prior to Giosuè's fourth birthday.
In the second half of the film, World War II has already begun. Guido, Uncle Eliseo and Giosuè are forced onto a train and taken to a concentration camp on Giosuè's birthday. Despite being a non-Jew, Dora demands to be on the same train to join her family and is permitted to do so.
In the camp, Guido hides his son from the Nazi guards, sneaks him food and tries to humor him. In an attempt to keep up Giosuè's spirits, Guido convinces him that the camp is just a game, in which the first person to get 1,000 points wins a tank. He tells him that if he cries, complains that he wants his mother or says that he is hungry, he will lose points, while quiet boys who hide from the camp guards earn points.
Guido convinces Giosuè that the camp guards are mean because they want the tank for themselves and that all the other children are hiding in order to win the game. He puts off Giosuè's requests to end the game and return home by convincing him that they are in the lead for the tank. Despite being surrounded by rampant misery, sickness and death, Giosuè does not question this fiction because of his father's convincing performance and his own innocence.
Guido maintains this story right until the end when, in the chaos caused by the American advance, he tells his son to stay in a sweatbox until everybody has left, this being the final test before the tank is his. Guido goes off to look for Dora but is caught and shot to death by a Nazi soldier.
Giosuè manages to survive and thinks he has won the game when an American tank arrives to liberate the camp. In the film, Giosuè is four and a half years old; however, both the beginning and ending of the film are narrated by an older Giosuè recalling his father's story of sacrifice for his family.
Life is Beautiful was shown at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, and went on to win the Grand Prize of the Jury.[1] At the 71st Academy Awards, the film won awards for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score, and Best Foreign Language Film, with Benigni winning Best Actor for his role. The film also received Academy Award nominations for Directing, Film Editing, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture.[2]
Life is Beautiful became commercially successful. After its release on October 23, 1998, the film went on to gross $57.24 million in North America, and $171.60 million internationally, with a worldwide gross of $229,163,264.[3]
The film also received mostly positive reviews, with the movie aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes giving the film a "Fresh" 80% rating.[4]
| Awards and achievements | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by The Sweet Hereafter |
Grand Prix, Cannes 1998 |
Succeeded by Humanité |
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