Hacker Cinema
Life Is Beautiful
La vita è bella
1997 · Film · 116 min
Directed by Roberto Benigni
A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.
14 positive1 mixed12 neutralfrom 27 commenters
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1997 was an absolutely phenomenal year for movies. Life Is Beautiful, Boogie Nights, Jackie Brown, Titanic, Donnie Brasco, The Fifth Element, Good Will Hunting, As Good as It Gets, Austin Powers International Man of Mystery, Gattaca, LA Confidential, Men in Black, Liar Liar, Amistad, The Game, Con Air, Contact.
There was a lot to do in 1997, just not as much to do without leaving home. We went to movies because they were affordable and great movies were being released.
Also, that was the era where new multiplex theaters were being built with great sound systems, so it was worth going to a theater for the high-quality experience. While quality consumer electronics are more readily available today than ever before, I feel like the vast majority today only watch media with headphones, TV speakers, or maybe a 2.1 stereo+sub setup.
Is it?
> In 1997, Italian director Roberto Benigni won Oscars for “Life is Beautiful,” about a father who uses humor to comfort his young son when they are imprisoned in a concentration camp. ”Benigni stole the idea from me, but he did it well,” Lewis adds.
https://qz.com/613084/jerry-lewis-has-broken-a-40-year-silence-about-his-disaster-of-a-holocaust-movie-on-german-tv
I feel like a movie can be a good time, but I wouldn't rewatch it.
For example, I just watched the Gorge. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't rewatch it. I don't think it necessarily deserves a bad grade though.
Now, some great movies I wouldn't rewatch. La vita e bella and grave of the firefly are beautiful, I just cannot rewatch them.
It's definitely a limited metric tho.
Family therapy > Summary of theories and techniques: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_therapy#Summary_of_theories_and_techniques
Expressive therapies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressive_therapies
Systemic therapy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemic_therapy :
> Based largely on the work of anthropologists Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, this resulted in a shift towards what is known as "second-order cybernetics" which acknowledges the influence of the subjective observer in any study, essentially applying the principles of cybernetics to cybernetics – examining the examination.
"What are the treatment goals?"
Clean Language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_language
...
In "Jack Ryan" (TV Series) Season 1 Episode 1, the children suffer from war trauma in their upbringing and that pervades their lives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ryan_(TV_series)#Season_1_(2018)
In "Life is Beautiful" (1997) Italian children are trapped in war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Is_Beautiful
Magneto from X-Men (with the helmet) > Fictional character biography > Early life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto_(Marvel_Comics)#Early_life
"Chronicles of Narnia" (1939-1949) > Background and conception: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia#Background_and_conception
I suppose because it is film it is okay that some of these are fictional? "Casablanca", "Life is Beautiful" ... these aren't factual so I'm struggling a bit to see the narrative or purpose of the project.
But that's just me and I in no way want to come across as slighting the work you created. I enjoyed watching the trailer and just seeing if I could guess the film, ha ha.
I assumed initially the project was to put in a chronology actual war (stock) footage — or newsreels, etc.
Then I thought the project would cover films actually made during WWII itself (to perhaps get a sense of the changing sentiment of the times).
(I guess I jump to too many conclusions too fast.)
The Notebook (one of the few films that have made me cry). Also, Life Is Beautiful (1997).
These kind of posts always remind me of a quote from the movie “life is Beautiful”…
“There is nothing as necessary as the unnecessary…”
Schindler's list is pathetic. It was a good movie until the scene where Schindler leeds the people with a flag in its hands. This was desgusting.
La vita e bella - i have to rewatch it. My impression (20 years ago) was that tried to see some tragic moments with a comical note.
Pianist is ok.
What I actually got from the article is that if simply running a movie theater is wildly expensive just to achieve the status quo, so the only way to get enough butts into seats is to really show lowest common denominator movies that will actually turn a profit. The only way to even release the films you'd like to see is to have your tent pole films.
And not all movies need the advanced tech to tell a good story. It's been 25 years since Life Is Beautiful came out (my opinion: a masterpiece). I guess theaters can show the movie now if they get a digital transfer of it, but none of the extremely costly upgrades in the theaters will do anything to make the experience of watching that movie really any better. But I want to watch the next Life is Beautiful.
I feel like Life is Beautiful is art, and I'm asking to see an art exhibition at an amusement park. I have to think I'm the one with the misaligned expectations.
Holocaust was not taught to me growing up in India. It is quite shameful, I learnt about it watching movie (life is beautiful).
It's not that people only go for theme park rides, they'll also go for "kino" movies. That's why Tarantino can still do it. His movies are all about completely immersing the audience in the movie's world and making use of tech and techniques that make for an epic viewing experience.
No one wants to go to the theater for a "basic" (maybe intimate?) movie where the cinematography doesn't really matter, the sound and visual effects aren't interesting, there's no grand cinematic vibe, etc. Don't get me wrong, it might be a great movie, but why would I want to see it in theater instead of at home?
People will go to theaters for Spartacus and 2001: A Space Odyssey, not for Life Is Beautiful or The Pianist.
A more modern example: I'm really stoked to watch The Whale, but I will absolutely watch it at home. I don't see any point in going to the theater for it.
> The same way free-to-air TV pays for itself - adverts. Either a couple of ad breaks in the film, or rotating watermarks on screen throughout the film.
Please no. Watching La vita è Bella[1] or a Clockwork Orange[2] and being interrupted by an ad for toothpaste or a theme park would muddy the experience. That model would make most good films unpalatable. Were that the only legal way to consume movies, piracy would continue to exist for cuts without ads.
Do note that the US model of having ad breaks during an episode of a TV show isn’t in use all over the world. In Portugal, breaks happens between episodes but are longer.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Is_Beautiful
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange_(film)
Life is beautiful is a similar movie
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118799/
Life is Beautiful is a great movie, except the end which is bland, typical, and (for me of course) ruined most of the feelings.
Yeah life is beautiful is such a good film. I seen someone saying Schindler list as a film that brings home the brutality of the Holocaust. But life is beautiful is better as it shows actually things don't work out and it's brutal. Where as Schindler's you know it's going to be ok.
The boy in striped pyjamas too has a brutal ending
Life is beautiful (1997, 'La vita e bella' with Roberto Begnini) No other film made me laugh and cry like this one. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118799/?ref_=nm_knf_i1
Little Big Man (1970) and Dance with wolves (1990) . I saw them many times when I was a kid. It made me understand early that the adult world would be tough. I was also amazed with the landscapes. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065988/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099348/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
Un Prophète (2009 by J. Audiard). A weird gangster movie that makes you realize that even in the worst situation, even if you reached the bottom, there is a path to get out... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1235166/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
Ghost Dog (1999). I was obsessed for months by the music and by the scene when Withaker steals the car... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165798/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
“There is nothing as necessary as the unnecessary” - from the movie Life is Beautiful.
There is also this Italian movie about a kid in a nazi concentration camp and his father making everything possible to pretend they are just playing a game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Is_Beautiful
I'm french, we have one of the weakest offer in the netflix world. It's still way, way more content I could (sanely) consume in my entire life.
I think the problem comes from something else.
Regularly I watch movies with friends: they can't appreciate many good movies anymore. They need fast attention catching stuff. Otherwise they get bored, they loose focus (even watch their phone), and it snowballs since they miss pieces of the movie used to construct it that eventually gives it life.
I see plenty of netflix watchers that do it on the side, while browsing the web, in the background of a social activity, or even watching another movie (!).
You cannot taste "Scott Pilgrim", "The Shawshank redemption", "12 monkeys", "Forest Gump", "Pain and Gain" and "Life is beautiful" if you watch them the way you gulp "Rogue 1", get drunk on "Avengers" or skim "Transformers". Just like you don't eat a burger and osters the same way if you want to enjoy both of them.
In fact, you can't appreciate anything special that way. The problem here is not netflix. It's that the way many people consume things now will always leave them unsatisfied.
Also, there is a quantity effect. You can now watch more than you should, and many do. But it will make you numb.
And to finish on a more positive note, the fact we have watched so many things now also educated us more to what's quality and what is not. It's fair we have now higher expectations.
>No, it's a problem of target audience. If you produce films for a Dutch audience, you have two options: either appeal to a sense of Dutch pride or history, or go for something so generic that a decent swath of the population will like it; otherwise you won't have enough of an audience to make a profit. This is what they do, so Dutch films are generally about about our navy in the 16th to 18th century, about WWII, a romcom or some adaptation of a Dutch Children's book. You cannot locally produce a film about something which lies outside of the realm of interest of most Dutch people; Hollywood can, since they have a larger audience, and therefore do have the ability to target niche markets.
Well, EU has 400 million people. One can very well create a movie that appeals to EU audiences. We have lots of shared sensibility and modern problems and history (and it doesn't have to be BS like "16th century dutch navy" or "17th century french villagers").
Movies like Blow Up or Dolce Vita or For a Fistful of Dollars etc where shown successfully all over Europe at one time (and we still have films by people like Lars Von Trier, Almodovar, and so on).
Just because you make something that has a Dutch or Swedish or French etc sensibility, it doesn't mean it can't have pan-European (or even global) appeal. Trainspotting is as British as it gets, for example, but hit Europe big, as did La Haine, La vita e bella, Amelie, and others.
Besides, not all movies have to be blockbusters and multi 100 million dollar productions. Even from the US, I'd rather have the chance to watch some Hal Hartley or Jarmusch, or Cronneburg, that barely pushed 5-10 million dollars in the box office than the nth repeatitive formulaic shit from Hollywood.
> was the first ever, and so far only, movie that has brought me to tears
What about "Life is Beautiful" and/or "It's a Wonderful Life"?
The list of good movies is incredibly long, but IMO most are just that good movies are not really in the running for best movie. Take Life Is Beautiful it turned a 20m budget and 10x that at the box office in large part because it's a good movie, but not really 'the best'. Rocky horror picture show is a very different move though again popular, but not really in the running for 'the best movie of all time'.
So, while I don't think you can get a definitive list, you could get 7/10 on most peoples top ten lists out of perhaps a few hundred movies though I suspect significantly less than that.
> Asking them five times is almost certainly harassment.
Yet this behavior is romanticised is popular culture, and has been from the dawn of time up to and including the present: Oddyseus and Helen of Troy, Shakespeare's "The taming of the shrew", tons of Fred Astaire movies, as well as modern movies like "Ghost", "Life is beautiful", "Chasing Amy", TV shows like "Sex and the city"... I could go on. Lucikly I don't need to, since TVtropes has a site dedicated to this character (the "dogged nice guy"). And note that many of these are targeted at, and very popular with, women (who are usually at the receiving end of the initially-unwarranted attention). Apparently this behaviour can walk a thin line between illegal and very very romantic.
Eugenics means curing the disease by killing the patient-- sometimes literally. That's the opposite of improving the human condition. It's also terribly totalitarian, and posits that some committee has the ability (let alone the right) to dictate what constitutes fitness or improvement. Committees of bureaucrats are demonstrably unable to centrally plan economies, so why should they be able to centrally plan a species? Even if eugenics were moral and desirable, doing it well would involve answering questions a lot harder than "how many light bulbs should be manufactured in July?" and states like the USSR failed consistently at that.
I don't advocate eugenics at all. We shouldn't get rid of "inferior" people. We should empower them to improve themselves in the manner of their choosing. Actually we already do this. If I have no legs I can get a wheelchair. So all I advocate really is going further... a whole hell of a lot further. Radical transhumanism is really nothing more than the radical advocacy of medicine, so much so that I doubt the need for a new term.
Guaranteed minimum income might actually be a stepping stone here, since it would empower those whose abilities are no longer economically valuable with both money and time. Some will waste it playing Halo and watching TV and drinking beer, sure, but some won't. What will they do with their free time? When interesting things are discovered by a few pioneers they spread virally through populations. It will also prevent the collapse of the modern economy due to collapsing monetary velocity. The Hunger Games is an almost accurate portrayal of a post-labor world that still clings to the Puritan work ethic, but for one detail: I doubt such a society could maintain high technology for long.
I do wonder sometimes if our periodic freak-outs about "decline" (e.g. Naziism) aren't at some level psychotic reactions to un-shielded glimpses of the true reality of our condition. Coping mechanisms exist for a reason. When they break down at an individual level, things like suicide and psychotic breaks sometimes result. Historically humanity was utterly powerless to alter its condition, and when you're powerless coping is all you can do. The eugenics fervor of the early 20th century happened as religion started to break down and as we started to comprehend the nature of our "alien god": http://lesswrong.com/lw/kr/an_alien_god/
(Not a total fan of Less Wrong but that article is brilliant.)
Another great film in the genre of Dark City is Life is Beautiful, which is an excellent allegory for the role of religion in human existence. We all live in a death camp called nature, and we have people like priests and philosophers who tell us it's all just a game and if we do real well we'll win a tank... or a trip to heaven. I believe humanity has historically used "gnostic" themed fiction like this as a safe way to examine its condition without truly "seeing" it.
Don't forget Isao Takahata another founder of Studio Ghibli and director of Grave of the Fireflies, Only Yesterday, Pom Poko and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. Yet have to see The Tale of the Princess Kaguya which is discussed in the article but the drama Grave of the Fireflies is a masterpiece to me. The only truly beautiful film in my memory which I bitterly regret having watch. To me the best movie to give you the feels of World War II, even more than acclaimed titles like "The Pianist" or "Life is Beautiful". A must see.
IMHO Isao Takahata is the primary reason why an end to Studio Ghibli doesn't make sense despite Miyazaki bitter vision of the Studios. For those who know Miyazaki's temperament it's not a big deal. My interpretation is that he would have wanted the Studios to be as true, ambitious and fantastic as a Ghibli movie. Well by visiting/knowing the Studios, I bet most of us would be quite taken aback by the lovely people and the atmosphere reigning there.
* Life is beautiful
* Last Train Home
* Brokeback mountain
* Slumdog Millionare
* Aftershocks (Tangshan dadizhen)
* Bus 174
* Moon
* The Wire (TV series)
* Zorba the greek
* City of God
Sneakers (http://www.themovietracker.com/movies/8710). The film's aged a little, but it's nice to watch a fairly funny hacking film that doesn't dress up hacking into 3D flying GUIs, Hack the Planet or hacking a TLA with a gun put to your head, while getting head.
Brewster's Millions always cheers me up around Christmas, as does Trading Places (http://www.themovietracker.com/movies/9749), both of which are slightly business related (although not exactly real-world related).
Someone else posted the pursuit of happyness (http://www.themovietracker.com/movies/7605), when I stick that on it comes across as a bit schmaltzy for me but has a good message.
A beautiful mind (http://www.themovietracker.com/movies/1112) is another great film about an incredibly smart but tortured genius who makes a massive contribution to economics.
Catch me if you can (http://www.themovietracker.com/movies/1798) is based on the true story of a fraudster who ripped off banks for tons of money and did all kinds of amazing things with it. It's a great romp and I'd highly recommend a first watch.
Life is beautiful (http://www.themovietracker.com/movies/5583) is hardly an uplifting film but is incredible and if it doesn't make you thankful for what you have, then I'd question whether or not you have a soul.
Yes, amazingly happy; I have a functioning brain, and it's transport vehicle is in full working order. =) <3 :D =p
Appreciation.
All people face difficulties. Though they may be characteristically different, they all are the same in a relativistic sense. That is one's bout with cancer might be relativistically equivalent to my inability to make friends. It may sound stupid but people respond differently to different things. And therein lies the point. We can control our response to all things. A cancer patient who is able to appreciate his life is likely a lot happier than any human inable to appreciate his non-cancer life.
If we can appreciate all things, we give ourselves the opportunity to eliminate stress and free ourselves to be happy. Humility, laughter, positivity; these all come from a root sense of appreciation. Yes it CAN be funny to go bankrupt during your first startup attempt - that's life!
To stress my point, this has nothing to do with money in any capacity. The most dirt poor nation in the world still has an opportunity to be happy. "Life is Beautiful" is perhaps the most cheesy movie I've ever seen. But it is also an amazingly beautiful movie in my eyes. If you've never seen it, it's a comedy about the holocaust. It's beautiful.
All you need to be happy you have right now.