Seniors #3 journal --Life is Beautiful

One of the themes expressed in Life is Beautiful is the ability of man to find hope and beauty even in the midst of the most trying of times. Certainly that notion is personified in the character of Guido Orifice, and perhaps more directly, in the person who is Roberto Benigni, the actor who portrayed Guido and who wrote the screenplay for this award winning film. With a Schopenhauer will of steel and a heart of Italian gold, Benigni's Guido displays an imagination and undying hope in the most unlikely setting of the Nazi concentration camp.

Benigni's Holocaust fable makes no attempt to realistically depict the horrors of the concentration camp. Instead, his film focuses more on the sudden change that was inflicted on Jews like Guido who were living the beautiful life one day but sent to the camps the next. The Tuscany period of the film is vibrant with colors, music, gags and goofs. It is Guido's spirit, though, his industrious imagination, that is behind every high note and funny caper. His abilities to make people smile (even a serious German doctor), make end runs around officious clerks and inspectors, and to woo and win a woman way out of his league are skills Schopenhauer could only hope to possess. His life is beautiful because he lives his life in a beautiful way, and nothing can deter him from making the best out of the whatever situation falls into his path.

Guido's beautiful life is put to the test as his family and the film move to the concentration camp. Faced with the potential loss of his family and his life, he doesn't despair, but with his comic spirit intact, he cleverly reduces the concentration camp experience to a "fun" game. Within the film, the game serves as a ruse to hide the cruel reality of the camp experience from Joshua.

But the true purpose of Guido's game is for us. We can win points in our own Game of Life by maintaining a sense of humor when confronted with arrogance and bigotry , by not "crying for our mommies" when the mean guys yell, and by being satisfied with a plain piece of bread when we'd really like bread and jam. If this behavior seems too submissive, too silly, too unmanly, well, let's consider how acting any differently would have benefited Guido. Likewise, when faced with challenges as daunting as his, do we always have to arm wrestle them to the ground? Sometimes, we can kill with kindness, too.

Guido jokingly uses Schopenhauer like magic to get Dora to face him in the opera and to get the dogs away from Giouse in the camp. In reality, there is no magic in Schopenhauer's philosophy, for he suggested that a great power can be gained from one's will. The brain can be mightier than the sword. Schopenhauer himself said, "Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see."

Guido's willpower to keep his family alive and intact represents "real" Schopenhauer willpower, not silly magical conjuring. In Tuscany, Guido shelters Giouse from the Nazi bigotry by joking about banning spiders and Visigoths from his bookstore. In the camp, Guido risks his life to pronounce his love to Dora over the camp loudspeakers, to play the Offenbach opera for her, and to save her at the end of the film before the Nazis can truck her away to her death. And Guido winks, smiles, and goosesteps off to his death so that Giouse can continue to believe in his father's game .

Oh, no, you say. I could never be this heroic. Well, you could, and maybe you have been, especially if you have ever really cared for someone. Real heroes, like Guido, realize "life is beautiful" when they are willing to love and to take chances for others.

Consider these four situations that might apply to you and your beautiful "heroic" life. Complete any one for your TAKE HOME TEST and also to hand in with your journal at the end of the quarter.

Choose any one (minimum of 200 words).

1. Describe a trying personal situation in which you were able to persevere, especially if you did so for the sake of someone else. How did you keep thinking positively and how did this help?

2. Relate a situation where you (or someone who know) were able to prevent a potentially troublesome situation from boiling over by using a good sense of humor or some other means.

3. Tell about a situation where someone (parent, sibling, friend, etc.) risked his own safety or reputation to protect you. Or vice versa. Whom did you save?

4. In your best imitation of a David Letterman Top Ten List, write a either a serious or mildly comic (but NOT mean spirited) Top Ten Reasons Why Life is Beautiful at St. Mark's High School. This option might not speak to your personal heroism, but it will make you consider the blessings you've been given already. Let's avoid "sarcasm," please.

Option #5--Tell us about some historical or well-known heroic person who was able to keep his or her life "beautiful" in spite of the hatred, war, poverty, racism, sexism, etc. all around him or her.