Satire In Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful

Title Throughout the history of film, there have been many genres for screenplays including the historical genre. Focusing on the historical genre, there are many different ways to make a film based on a historical event. Some directors only use facts when talking about a historical event, making it a serious film. Few put their own twist into the historical event, making it entertaining for the audience. Others have made it in a sort of satirical way where there is humor included in the film. An example of a historical film that is satirical is the film Life is Beautiful directed by Roberto Benigni. In Melanie J. Wright’s essay “‘Don’t Touch My Holocaust’: Responding to Life is Beautiful,” the author is ultimately trying to explain that

Wright says this because critics suggest the film is not historically accurate when talking about the camp life. Melanie Wright’s purpose of her statement is to explain that Life is Beautiful is not supposed to be accurate as it is impossible to reenact the Holocaust. As Wright says, “Even The Last Shop, indisputably one of the most ‘authentic’ of Holocaust films, demonstrates the impossibility of re-creating the Shoah (25). Wright claims that Life is Beautiful played a much needed part in the Nazi project. The film is is related to the Nazi propaganda as they both do not fully tell the truth and are one sided. Wright states this because “the Propaganda Ministry requested German companies to produce films that would make future efforts to implement a final solution to the ‘Jewish problem’ palatable to the general public” (26). The purpose of Wright’s statement is to demonstrate the similarity between the Nazi propaganda and the film Life is Beautiful. Melanie Wright explains that film is similar to fascism. Just like a film, a fascist government and the Nazis have set rules on how things should go and there is no room for change. Wright makes this claim because Life is Beautiful has no room for imagination because everything is, already set on how it is supposed to be. The purpose of Wright’s statement is to further prove how film is like a fascist government. Melanie Wright shares that Holocaust movies combine many words together just as the Nazis did with the Jews. As Omer Bartov said, “many Holocaust films are troubling because they share with the camps themselves the willingness to combine ‘detachment and brutality, distance and cruelty, pleasure and indifference’” (28). Wright makes this claim because many words are combined to define Life is Beautiful just as they did with concentration camps. The purpose of Wright’s statement is to explain how similar Holocaust