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Train of Life

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Train of Life
Train of Life.jpg
original movie poster
 
Directed by
Radu Mihăileanu
Written by
Radu Mihăileanu
Starring
Lionel Abelanski,
Rufus,
Agathe de la Fontaine

Release dates
 5 September 1998

Running time
 103 minutes
Language
French, German
Train of Life (in French Train de Vie, in Romanian Trenul vieţii) is a tragicomedy film by France, Belgium, Netherlands, Israel and Romania made in 1998 in the French language. It tells the story of an eastern European Jewish village's plan to escape the Holocaust.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Background
4 Reception 4.1 Box office
4.2 Critical reception
4.3 Review quotes
4.4 Awards
5 References
6 External links

Plot[edit]
The movie starts off with a man, named Schlomo (Lionel Abelanski), running crazily through a forest, with his voice playing in the background, saying that he has seen the horror of the Nazis in a nearby town, and he must tell the others. Once he gets into town, he informs the rabbi, and together they run through the town and once they have got enough people together, they hold a town meeting. At first, many of the men do not believe the horrors they are being told, and many criticize Schlomo, for he is the town lunatic, and who could possibly believe him? But the rabbi believes him, and then they try to tackle the problem of the coming terrors. Amidst the pondering and the arguing, Schlomo suggests that they build a train, so they can escape by deporting themselves. Some of their members pretend to be Nazis in order to ostensibly transport them to a concentration camp, when in reality, they are going to Palestine via Russia. Thus the Train of Life is born.
On their escape route through rural Eastern Europe, the train sees tensions between its inhabitants, close encounters with real Nazis as well as Communist partisans, and fraternization with gypsies, until the community arrives just at the frontlines between German and Soviet fire.
The movie ends with the voice-over of Schlomo himself, who tells the stories of his companions after the arrival of the train in the Soviet Union: Some went on to Palestine, some stayed in the Soviet Union, and some even made it to America. As he is telling this, a cut to a close-up of his face happens as he says, "That is the true story of my shtetl...", but then the camera makes a quick zoom-out, revealing him grinning and wearing prisoner's clothes behind the barbed wire of a concentration camp, and he ends with, "Ye nu, almost the true story!" Thus, it is implicated that he became mad because of having seen most of his companions exterminated, having made up the whole story for himself in his lunacy.
Cast[edit]
Lionel Abelanski - Schlomo
Rufus - Mordechai
Clément Harari - le Rabbin
Michel Muller - Yossi
Agathe de la Fontaine - Esther
Johan Leysen - Schmecht
Bruno Abraham-Kremer - Yankele
Marie-José Nat - Sura
Gad Elmaleh - Manzatou
Background[edit]
In 1996, Roberto Benigni, writer-director of Train of Life's perceived competitor Life Is Beautiful, had been sent the script to Train of Life and offered the role of village idiot Shlomo by writer-director Mihăileanu, but Benigni turned it down and afterwards went to write and direct Life Is Beautiful.[1][2] Mihăileanu refuses to publically discuss whether Benigni has plagiarized his film, instead preferring to say that he and Benigni have made "two very different films".[1]
Writer-director Mihăileanu said that reporters came to ask him about Shlomo's ultimate fate which the film leaves open, whether he will perish during the war or if he will survive. Mihăileanu said, "At first, I didn't know how to answer this one. But then I found the right answer: It's up to you in the audience! If you'll forget Shlomo, he'll die. But if you'll remember him, he'll live forever."[3]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The movie was not a box office success in the USA.[4]
Critical reception[edit]
Train of Life currently holds a 64% 'Fresh' rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.[5] Assigning a more weighted average (based on 15 reviews), Metacritic assigns Train of Life with a metascore of 62, indicating "Generally favorable reviews," with the following summary: "This haunting and powerful comedy is both the story of a village's dream and a suspenseful tale of great escape."[6]
Many reviewers at the time drew comparisons between Train of Life and its contemporary competitor films Life Is Beautiful and Jakob the Liar, because all three were released to North American theaters in 1999, but Train of Life had been the first in production.[7] While Jakob the Liar was near-universally panned, critics were divided upon which out of the other two worked better as a "Holocaust comedy."
While Desson Howe of the Washington Post called Train of Life a "less-than-scintillating spin on Life Is Beautiful",[8] James Berardinelli of ReelViews found the film's comedy "too 'French' in nature — which is to say that it tends towards silliness and slapstick."[7] Rob Blackwelder of SlicedWire (while not opposed to the idea of Holocaust tragicomedies in general) found each of the three films suffering from their distinct own flaws.[9] Jim Sullivan of the Boston Globe (without mentioning Jakob the Liar) found that it "works much better"[10] than Life Is Beautiful. Jean Oppenheimer of the Dallas Observer praised Train of Life as being "far superior to either"[11] of the other two, and Henry Cabot Beck of Film.com went as far as comparing it to Spielberg's Academy Award-winning 1993 Holocaust drama, calling Train of Life "every bit as reverent as Schindler's List and no less successful" and contending about its two 1999 competitors that "neither film was as well directed or acted" as Train of Life.[12] Stefan Steinberg of the World Socialist Web Site claimed that Train of Life is "a far better film" than Life Is Beautiful, being impressed by "the immense affection and care with which Mihaileanu has recreated the life and self deprecating humour of the Jewish villagers."[1]
Several American reviewers saw a distinct similarity between Mihăileanu's filmic yarn and the mood and humor found in the writings of Isaac Bashevis Singer or Sholem Aleichem.[13][14] Many reviewers made favorable comparisons to both Ernst Lubitsch's 1942 version or Mel Brooks's 1983 version of To Be Or Not To Be (citing the same clever wit), positive and negative comparisons to Brooks's 1968 The Producers (calling it either better, worse, or "just as bad" as Brooks's farce), or negatively compared the oftentimes more buffoonish than scary Nazis in the film to the TV series Hogan's Heroes.[7][15][16][17]
Review quotes[edit]

Far superior to either Life Is Beautiful or Jakob the Liar, the French-language production has a silliness and a buffoonish humor reminiscent of Amarcord and Fellini's Roma, yet somehow it feels neither excessive nor offensive. It's no surprise to learn that the picture won the Donatello -- the Italian Oscar -- for Best Foreign Language film. [...] The underlying sense of vanity that marred Life Is Beautiful is thankfully absent here, as is the saccharine hokiness of Jakob the Liar. Instead, Mihaileanu presents a world in which optimism and fantasy coexist with grim reality. It isn't an easy balance to achieve.
 - Jean Oppenheimer: Ha-Ha-Holocaust (Dallas Observer)[11]

This is an offbeat and earnest piece of work, which focuses itself on telling its ripping yarn in a comic and poignant manner rather than drenching it in sentimentality. Mihaileanu tells the fable with a fantastical, vaguely surreal feel, that makes clever use of some standard Jewish tunes and draws neat performances from Abelanski's tragi-comic Shlomo, and De La Fontaine as the village crumpet who creates the movie's most endearing running gag by endlessly falling for the wrong man.
 Yet for all its plus points, the film isn't quite strong enough to distinguish itself from the recent rash of similarly-themed fare, and as such its appeal is unlikely to reach far beyond the arthouse. It's a likeable oddity, certainly, but in treading such well-heeled turf it also becomes an unremarkable one.
 - Empire Online: Train Of Life[18]

Mihaileanu goes to great pains to emphasize the tragedy of the circumstances, although he does so in a somewhat belated and unconventional manner. [...] An important question for viewers of Train of Life is whether a tremendous ending can redeem an otherwise mediocre motion picture. [...] For that reason, Train of Life is one of the few films that works better on subsequent viewings than on the initial one. [...] Ultimately, however, the ending is what will determine how each individual reacts to Train of Life. Someone who walks out midway through the film will have a different perspective than those who stay to the start of the closing credits, since much of what is provocative and interesting about the movie is introduced during the brief epilogue. While this is not the ideal way to structure a motion picture [...], there's no doubt that Train of Life's resolution leaves a forceful impression.
 - James Berardinelli: Train of Life (Train de Vie) (ReelViews)[7]

The Train of Life definitely isn't a bullet train or even an Amtrak on a bad day, for that matter. Yet, it's not a complete derailment either, which is surprising, given its unlikely premise and schizophrenic nature. The film contains just enough poignant moments, not the least of which is the final haunting shot, to convey at least a slight air of gravitas, thus saving a film that at times almost comes off as an unwitting sequel to Springtime for Hitler from Mel Brooks’ The Producers. Fortunately, it’s not that tasteless...but it's not that funny, either. Instead, Train of Life is a thought-provoking and subversively entertaining chronicle that sheds a quirky light on a death-black era in history.
 - Merle Bertrand: TRAIN DE VIE (TRAIN OF LIFE) (Film Threat)[15]

If Mihaileanu's movie portrays the Jews in the tradition of storytellers Sholom Aleichem and Isaac Bashevis Singer as dolts, dunces and misguided prophets, this is his wholly positive intention. [...] Shlomo's tale is mythical, a fable, a fairy story of a part with that large group of folklore designed to help make life bearable for a people subjected to persecution for thousands of years. [...] One of the oddest road movies to hit the screen in ages [...]. Each adventure could well have been the basis of tragedy, but proceeding throughout in a comic tone, Mihaileanu turns each exploit into a farcical event. [...] But if the Yiddish proverb is valid, "A gelechter hertmen veiter vi a gevain," or, "Laughter is heard further than weeping," Train of Life is all the more likely to help keep the memory of the Holocaust alive.
 - Harvey S. Karten: Train de vie (1998) (IMDB; originally posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup)[13]

Each of the three films in this genre has walked the tightrope of taste with amazing dexterity, but Life Is Beautiful was simplistic and wildly over-rated, Jakob the Liar was pretentious and dull, and Train of Life is far too dependent on antiquated stock characters (a village idiot?!?) and elementary, low-brow farce.
 The movie's heart is in the right place. It celebrates Jewish tradition and has whimsical fun with its stereotypes and a silly subplot about a communist uprising in the boxcars. But its make-you-laugh, make-you-cry, sappy, spoon-fed sentiment has little substance. It feels like a non-confrontational version of its already meek predecessors.
 - Rob Blackwelder: Another derailed Holocaust comedy (SPLICEDwire)[9]

Following in the peculiar tradition of such Holocaust dramedys as Life Is Beautiful and, to a lesser degree, Mel Brooks' version of To Be or Not to Be, this boisterous, comic film begins with a panicked flight through an Eastern European forest and ends on a note of such unexpected gravity that it's difficult to put out of your mind even weeks later. [...] When Train of Life is moving at top speed, Mihaileanu strikes an interesting compromise between portraying the flustered, anxious members of the community as they race to escape an almost certain, deadly fate, and injecting strains of flat-out vaudevillian comedy. It's a tough mix to hold together, and the two styles occasionally clash, but the film has such a bizarre, surrealistic tone to begin with that the topsy-turviness of it all manages to echo the madness of wartime to a tee. Lunacy is the name of the game, and it pays to bear in mind that this is a tale being told by a lunatic. Much of the film is frankly ludicrous, but that does little to dispel its overall power and passion. It's a comedy, it's a horror show, it's a romance, and it's a call to Communist arms -- it's such an oddball assemblage that it simply can't click all the time, but when it fires on all cylinders, it's one of the most shocking, affecting Holocaust films yet seen.
 - Marc Savlov: Train of Life (Austin Chronicle)[14]

[...] Train of Life, another phantasmagorical tale of life among the Nazis, is upon us. This one works much better. Writer/director Radu Mihaileanu shuffles humor and harsh reality, and comes up with an illuminating film with layers of conflict. Tension lingers constantly, and yet there is joy to be found. [...] Mihaileanu [...] asks you to accept a number of preposterous suppositions - from the main theme to the Fiddler on the Roof kind of joie de vivre to the idea that Shlomo can stand on top of a train car as it whizzes through the countryside - but stick with him. There are some wonderful moments - some tense, some fanciful - along the way and a gut-wrenching payoff that makes sense of it all. (Think The Sixth Sense.) [...] The fake Germans try to perfect their calls of "Sieg Heil!" to comic effect. Down the road a piece [...] the fake Nazis ride in comfort, the Jews do not - suggesting horrible things about power.
 - Jim Sullivan: On Train, life's even more beautiful (Boston Globe)[10]
Awards[edit]
Among other American and international awards, Train of Life won both the FIPRESCI Prize for Best First Feature and the Anicaflash Prize at the 55th Venice International Film Festival, the World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, and the Best Foreign Language Film Award at the Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards 1999.
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c Steinberg, Stefan. ""Not to banalise, not to rewrite, but to keep the discussion going": Radu Mihaileaunu's Train of Life". World Socialist Web Site. International Committee of the Fourth International. Retrieved 2 June 2013.
2.Jump up ^ King, Greg. Train of Life Reviews, MovieFix
3.Jump up ^ "„Ein Journalist hat mich gefragt: Überlebt Schlomo den Krieg, der ja im Film noch nicht zu Ende ist? Am Anfang hat er mich mit seiner Frage überrascht, doch dann habe ich die Antwort gefunden. Ich habe ihm gesagt: ‘Das hängt nicht von mir ab, das hängt von Ihnen und vom Publikum ab. Wenn Sie Schlomo vergessen, stirbt er, wenn sie ihn nie vergessen, wird er nie sterben.“" Zug des Lebens (2009 German review)
4.Jump up ^ "Bone Collector Makes Winning Debut". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2012-06-10.
5.Jump up ^ Train de Vie (Train of Life) (1998) on Rotten Tomatoes
6.Jump up ^ Train of Life on Metacritic
7.^ Jump up to: a b c d Berardinelli, James (1999). Train of Life (Train de Vie), ReelViews.com
8.Jump up ^ Howe, Desson (1999). Train of Life, Washington Post, November 19, 1999
9.^ Jump up to: a b Blackwelder, Rob. Another derailed Holocaust comedy, SPLICEDwire
10.^ Jump up to: a b Sullivan , Jim (1999). On "Train," life's even more beautiful, Boston Globe, November 11, 1999 (Wayback Machine snapshot, dated January 20, 2000)
11.^ Jump up to: a b Ha-Ha-Holocaust, Dallas Observer, January 6, 2000
12.Jump up ^ Train of Life: A Reverent Fairy Tale (Wayback Machine snapshot dating June 27, 2001, all later snapshots give a 302 crawling error)
13.^ Jump up to: a b Karten, Harvey S. (1999). Train de vie (1998), IMDB (originally posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup)
14.^ Jump up to: a b Savlov, Marc (1999). Train of Life, Austin Chronicle, December 24, 1999
15.^ Jump up to: a b Bertrand, Merle (2000). TRAIN DE VIE (TRAIN OF LIFE), Film Threat, March 16, 2000
16.Jump up ^ Holden, Stephen (1999). Train of Life (1998), New York Times, November 3, 1999
17.Jump up ^ Kaltenbach, Chris (1999). Train of Life never becomes Beautiful, Baltimore Sun, November 12, 1999
18.Jump up ^ Train Of Life, Empire Online
External links[edit]
Train of Life at the Internet Movie Database
Train de Vie (Train of Life) (1998) on Rotten Tomatoes
Train of Life on Metacritic
  


Categories: 1998 films
1990s comedy-drama films
Tragicomedy films
Films about Jews and Judaism
Films directed by Radu Mihăileanu
Films shot in Bucharest
French films
French-language films
French war films
Holocaust films
Rail transport films
Romanian films
Romani films


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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_of_Life





 



Train of Life

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Train of Life
Train of Life.jpg
original movie poster
 
Directed by
Radu Mihăileanu
Written by
Radu Mihăileanu
Starring
Lionel Abelanski,
Rufus,
Agathe de la Fontaine

Release dates
 5 September 1998

Running time
 103 minutes
Language
French, German
Train of Life (in French Train de Vie, in Romanian Trenul vieţii) is a tragicomedy film by France, Belgium, Netherlands, Israel and Romania made in 1998 in the French language. It tells the story of an eastern European Jewish village's plan to escape the Holocaust.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Background
4 Reception 4.1 Box office
4.2 Critical reception
4.3 Review quotes
4.4 Awards
5 References
6 External links

Plot[edit]
The movie starts off with a man, named Schlomo (Lionel Abelanski), running crazily through a forest, with his voice playing in the background, saying that he has seen the horror of the Nazis in a nearby town, and he must tell the others. Once he gets into town, he informs the rabbi, and together they run through the town and once they have got enough people together, they hold a town meeting. At first, many of the men do not believe the horrors they are being told, and many criticize Schlomo, for he is the town lunatic, and who could possibly believe him? But the rabbi believes him, and then they try to tackle the problem of the coming terrors. Amidst the pondering and the arguing, Schlomo suggests that they build a train, so they can escape by deporting themselves. Some of their members pretend to be Nazis in order to ostensibly transport them to a concentration camp, when in reality, they are going to Palestine via Russia. Thus the Train of Life is born.
On their escape route through rural Eastern Europe, the train sees tensions between its inhabitants, close encounters with real Nazis as well as Communist partisans, and fraternization with gypsies, until the community arrives just at the frontlines between German and Soviet fire.
The movie ends with the voice-over of Schlomo himself, who tells the stories of his companions after the arrival of the train in the Soviet Union: Some went on to Palestine, some stayed in the Soviet Union, and some even made it to America. As he is telling this, a cut to a close-up of his face happens as he says, "That is the true story of my shtetl...", but then the camera makes a quick zoom-out, revealing him grinning and wearing prisoner's clothes behind the barbed wire of a concentration camp, and he ends with, "Ye nu, almost the true story!" Thus, it is implicated that he became mad because of having seen most of his companions exterminated, having made up the whole story for himself in his lunacy.
Cast[edit]
Lionel Abelanski - Schlomo
Rufus - Mordechai
Clément Harari - le Rabbin
Michel Muller - Yossi
Agathe de la Fontaine - Esther
Johan Leysen - Schmecht
Bruno Abraham-Kremer - Yankele
Marie-José Nat - Sura
Gad Elmaleh - Manzatou
Background[edit]
In 1996, Roberto Benigni, writer-director of Train of Life's perceived competitor Life Is Beautiful, had been sent the script to Train of Life and offered the role of village idiot Shlomo by writer-director Mihăileanu, but Benigni turned it down and afterwards went to write and direct Life Is Beautiful.[1][2] Mihăileanu refuses to publically discuss whether Benigni has plagiarized his film, instead preferring to say that he and Benigni have made "two very different films".[1]
Writer-director Mihăileanu said that reporters came to ask him about Shlomo's ultimate fate which the film leaves open, whether he will perish during the war or if he will survive. Mihăileanu said, "At first, I didn't know how to answer this one. But then I found the right answer: It's up to you in the audience! If you'll forget Shlomo, he'll die. But if you'll remember him, he'll live forever."[3]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The movie was not a box office success in the USA.[4]
Critical reception[edit]
Train of Life currently holds a 64% 'Fresh' rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.[5] Assigning a more weighted average (based on 15 reviews), Metacritic assigns Train of Life with a metascore of 62, indicating "Generally favorable reviews," with the following summary: "This haunting and powerful comedy is both the story of a village's dream and a suspenseful tale of great escape."[6]
Many reviewers at the time drew comparisons between Train of Life and its contemporary competitor films Life Is Beautiful and Jakob the Liar, because all three were released to North American theaters in 1999, but Train of Life had been the first in production.[7] While Jakob the Liar was near-universally panned, critics were divided upon which out of the other two worked better as a "Holocaust comedy."
While Desson Howe of the Washington Post called Train of Life a "less-than-scintillating spin on Life Is Beautiful",[8] James Berardinelli of ReelViews found the film's comedy "too 'French' in nature — which is to say that it tends towards silliness and slapstick."[7] Rob Blackwelder of SlicedWire (while not opposed to the idea of Holocaust tragicomedies in general) found each of the three films suffering from their distinct own flaws.[9] Jim Sullivan of the Boston Globe (without mentioning Jakob the Liar) found that it "works much better"[10] than Life Is Beautiful. Jean Oppenheimer of the Dallas Observer praised Train of Life as being "far superior to either"[11] of the other two, and Henry Cabot Beck of Film.com went as far as comparing it to Spielberg's Academy Award-winning 1993 Holocaust drama, calling Train of Life "every bit as reverent as Schindler's List and no less successful" and contending about its two 1999 competitors that "neither film was as well directed or acted" as Train of Life.[12] Stefan Steinberg of the World Socialist Web Site claimed that Train of Life is "a far better film" than Life Is Beautiful, being impressed by "the immense affection and care with which Mihaileanu has recreated the life and self deprecating humour of the Jewish villagers."[1]
Several American reviewers saw a distinct similarity between Mihăileanu's filmic yarn and the mood and humor found in the writings of Isaac Bashevis Singer or Sholem Aleichem.[13][14] Many reviewers made favorable comparisons to both Ernst Lubitsch's 1942 version or Mel Brooks's 1983 version of To Be Or Not To Be (citing the same clever wit), positive and negative comparisons to Brooks's 1968 The Producers (calling it either better, worse, or "just as bad" as Brooks's farce), or negatively compared the oftentimes more buffoonish than scary Nazis in the film to the TV series Hogan's Heroes.[7][15][16][17]
Review quotes[edit]

Far superior to either Life Is Beautiful or Jakob the Liar, the French-language production has a silliness and a buffoonish humor reminiscent of Amarcord and Fellini's Roma, yet somehow it feels neither excessive nor offensive. It's no surprise to learn that the picture won the Donatello -- the Italian Oscar -- for Best Foreign Language film. [...] The underlying sense of vanity that marred Life Is Beautiful is thankfully absent here, as is the saccharine hokiness of Jakob the Liar. Instead, Mihaileanu presents a world in which optimism and fantasy coexist with grim reality. It isn't an easy balance to achieve.
 - Jean Oppenheimer: Ha-Ha-Holocaust (Dallas Observer)[11]

This is an offbeat and earnest piece of work, which focuses itself on telling its ripping yarn in a comic and poignant manner rather than drenching it in sentimentality. Mihaileanu tells the fable with a fantastical, vaguely surreal feel, that makes clever use of some standard Jewish tunes and draws neat performances from Abelanski's tragi-comic Shlomo, and De La Fontaine as the village crumpet who creates the movie's most endearing running gag by endlessly falling for the wrong man.
 Yet for all its plus points, the film isn't quite strong enough to distinguish itself from the recent rash of similarly-themed fare, and as such its appeal is unlikely to reach far beyond the arthouse. It's a likeable oddity, certainly, but in treading such well-heeled turf it also becomes an unremarkable one.
 - Empire Online: Train Of Life[18]

Mihaileanu goes to great pains to emphasize the tragedy of the circumstances, although he does so in a somewhat belated and unconventional manner. [...] An important question for viewers of Train of Life is whether a tremendous ending can redeem an otherwise mediocre motion picture. [...] For that reason, Train of Life is one of the few films that works better on subsequent viewings than on the initial one. [...] Ultimately, however, the ending is what will determine how each individual reacts to Train of Life. Someone who walks out midway through the film will have a different perspective than those who stay to the start of the closing credits, since much of what is provocative and interesting about the movie is introduced during the brief epilogue. While this is not the ideal way to structure a motion picture [...], there's no doubt that Train of Life's resolution leaves a forceful impression.
 - James Berardinelli: Train of Life (Train de Vie) (ReelViews)[7]

The Train of Life definitely isn't a bullet train or even an Amtrak on a bad day, for that matter. Yet, it's not a complete derailment either, which is surprising, given its unlikely premise and schizophrenic nature. The film contains just enough poignant moments, not the least of which is the final haunting shot, to convey at least a slight air of gravitas, thus saving a film that at times almost comes off as an unwitting sequel to Springtime for Hitler from Mel Brooks’ The Producers. Fortunately, it’s not that tasteless...but it's not that funny, either. Instead, Train of Life is a thought-provoking and subversively entertaining chronicle that sheds a quirky light on a death-black era in history.
 - Merle Bertrand: TRAIN DE VIE (TRAIN OF LIFE) (Film Threat)[15]

If Mihaileanu's movie portrays the Jews in the tradition of storytellers Sholom Aleichem and Isaac Bashevis Singer as dolts, dunces and misguided prophets, this is his wholly positive intention. [...] Shlomo's tale is mythical, a fable, a fairy story of a part with that large group of folklore designed to help make life bearable for a people subjected to persecution for thousands of years. [...] One of the oddest road movies to hit the screen in ages [...]. Each adventure could well have been the basis of tragedy, but proceeding throughout in a comic tone, Mihaileanu turns each exploit into a farcical event. [...] But if the Yiddish proverb is valid, "A gelechter hertmen veiter vi a gevain," or, "Laughter is heard further than weeping," Train of Life is all the more likely to help keep the memory of the Holocaust alive.
 - Harvey S. Karten: Train de vie (1998) (IMDB; originally posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup)[13]

Each of the three films in this genre has walked the tightrope of taste with amazing dexterity, but Life Is Beautiful was simplistic and wildly over-rated, Jakob the Liar was pretentious and dull, and Train of Life is far too dependent on antiquated stock characters (a village idiot?!?) and elementary, low-brow farce.
 The movie's heart is in the right place. It celebrates Jewish tradition and has whimsical fun with its stereotypes and a silly subplot about a communist uprising in the boxcars. But its make-you-laugh, make-you-cry, sappy, spoon-fed sentiment has little substance. It feels like a non-confrontational version of its already meek predecessors.
 - Rob Blackwelder: Another derailed Holocaust comedy (SPLICEDwire)[9]

Following in the peculiar tradition of such Holocaust dramedys as Life Is Beautiful and, to a lesser degree, Mel Brooks' version of To Be or Not to Be, this boisterous, comic film begins with a panicked flight through an Eastern European forest and ends on a note of such unexpected gravity that it's difficult to put out of your mind even weeks later. [...] When Train of Life is moving at top speed, Mihaileanu strikes an interesting compromise between portraying the flustered, anxious members of the community as they race to escape an almost certain, deadly fate, and injecting strains of flat-out vaudevillian comedy. It's a tough mix to hold together, and the two styles occasionally clash, but the film has such a bizarre, surrealistic tone to begin with that the topsy-turviness of it all manages to echo the madness of wartime to a tee. Lunacy is the name of the game, and it pays to bear in mind that this is a tale being told by a lunatic. Much of the film is frankly ludicrous, but that does little to dispel its overall power and passion. It's a comedy, it's a horror show, it's a romance, and it's a call to Communist arms -- it's such an oddball assemblage that it simply can't click all the time, but when it fires on all cylinders, it's one of the most shocking, affecting Holocaust films yet seen.
 - Marc Savlov: Train of Life (Austin Chronicle)[14]

[...] Train of Life, another phantasmagorical tale of life among the Nazis, is upon us. This one works much better. Writer/director Radu Mihaileanu shuffles humor and harsh reality, and comes up with an illuminating film with layers of conflict. Tension lingers constantly, and yet there is joy to be found. [...] Mihaileanu [...] asks you to accept a number of preposterous suppositions - from the main theme to the Fiddler on the Roof kind of joie de vivre to the idea that Shlomo can stand on top of a train car as it whizzes through the countryside - but stick with him. There are some wonderful moments - some tense, some fanciful - along the way and a gut-wrenching payoff that makes sense of it all. (Think The Sixth Sense.) [...] The fake Germans try to perfect their calls of "Sieg Heil!" to comic effect. Down the road a piece [...] the fake Nazis ride in comfort, the Jews do not - suggesting horrible things about power.
 - Jim Sullivan: On Train, life's even more beautiful (Boston Globe)[10]
Awards[edit]
Among other American and international awards, Train of Life won both the FIPRESCI Prize for Best First Feature and the Anicaflash Prize at the 55th Venice International Film Festival, the World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, and the Best Foreign Language Film Award at the Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards 1999.
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c Steinberg, Stefan. ""Not to banalise, not to rewrite, but to keep the discussion going": Radu Mihaileaunu's Train of Life". World Socialist Web Site. International Committee of the Fourth International. Retrieved 2 June 2013.
2.Jump up ^ King, Greg. Train of Life Reviews, MovieFix
3.Jump up ^ "„Ein Journalist hat mich gefragt: Überlebt Schlomo den Krieg, der ja im Film noch nicht zu Ende ist? Am Anfang hat er mich mit seiner Frage überrascht, doch dann habe ich die Antwort gefunden. Ich habe ihm gesagt: ‘Das hängt nicht von mir ab, das hängt von Ihnen und vom Publikum ab. Wenn Sie Schlomo vergessen, stirbt er, wenn sie ihn nie vergessen, wird er nie sterben.“" Zug des Lebens (2009 German review)
4.Jump up ^ "Bone Collector Makes Winning Debut". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2012-06-10.
5.Jump up ^ Train de Vie (Train of Life) (1998) on Rotten Tomatoes
6.Jump up ^ Train of Life on Metacritic
7.^ Jump up to: a b c d Berardinelli, James (1999). Train of Life (Train de Vie), ReelViews.com
8.Jump up ^ Howe, Desson (1999). Train of Life, Washington Post, November 19, 1999
9.^ Jump up to: a b Blackwelder, Rob. Another derailed Holocaust comedy, SPLICEDwire
10.^ Jump up to: a b Sullivan , Jim (1999). On "Train," life's even more beautiful, Boston Globe, November 11, 1999 (Wayback Machine snapshot, dated January 20, 2000)
11.^ Jump up to: a b Ha-Ha-Holocaust, Dallas Observer, January 6, 2000
12.Jump up ^ Train of Life: A Reverent Fairy Tale (Wayback Machine snapshot dating June 27, 2001, all later snapshots give a 302 crawling error)
13.^ Jump up to: a b Karten, Harvey S. (1999). Train de vie (1998), IMDB (originally posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup)
14.^ Jump up to: a b Savlov, Marc (1999). Train of Life, Austin Chronicle, December 24, 1999
15.^ Jump up to: a b Bertrand, Merle (2000). TRAIN DE VIE (TRAIN OF LIFE), Film Threat, March 16, 2000
16.Jump up ^ Holden, Stephen (1999). Train of Life (1998), New York Times, November 3, 1999
17.Jump up ^ Kaltenbach, Chris (1999). Train of Life never becomes Beautiful, Baltimore Sun, November 12, 1999
18.Jump up ^ Train Of Life, Empire Online
External links[edit]
Train of Life at the Internet Movie Database
Train de Vie (Train of Life) (1998) on Rotten Tomatoes
Train of Life on Metacritic
  


Categories: 1998 films
1990s comedy-drama films
Tragicomedy films
Films about Jews and Judaism
Films directed by Radu Mihăileanu
Films shot in Bucharest
French films
French-language films
French war films
Holocaust films
Rail transport films
Romanian films
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The Grey Zone

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

For the 1997 Italian film, see The Grey Zone (1997 film).

The Grey Zone
Greyzonethe.jpg
Theatrical release poster
 
Directed by
Tim Blake Nelson
Produced by
Avi Lerner
 Danny Lerner
 Pamela Koffler
Christine Vachon
 Tim Blake Nelson .
Written by
Tim Blake Nelson
Based on
Auschwitz: a Doctor's Eyewitness Account
 by Miklós Nyiszli and
The Grey Zone
 by Tim Blake Nelson
Starring
David Arquette
Steve Buscemi
Harvey Keitel
Mira Sorvino
Allan Corduner
Daniel Benzali
Natasha Lyonne
Music by
Jeff Danna
Cinematography
Russell Lee Fine
Edited by
Michelle Botticelli
 Tim Blake Nelson

Production
 company

Millennium Films
 The Goatsingers
Killer Films
 
Distributed by
Lionsgate

Release dates

September 13, 2001 (TIFF)
October 18, 2002 (United States)
 

Running time
 108 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Box office
$517,872[1]
The Grey Zone is a 2001 film directed by Tim Blake Nelson and starring David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Mira Sorvino, and Daniel Benzali. It is based on the book Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account written by Dr. Miklós Nyiszli.[2]
The title comes from a chapter in the book The Drowned and the Saved by Holocaust survivor Primo Levi.[3] The film tells the story of the Jewish Sonderkommando XII in the Auschwitz concentration camp in October 1944. These prisoners were made to assist the camp's guards in shepherding their victims to the gas chambers and then disposing of their bodies in the ovens.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production and release
4 Awards
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Plot[edit]
The film opens in October 1944, in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. A small group of Sonderkommandos, prisoners assigned to dispose of the bodies of other dead prisoners, are plotting an insurrection that, they hope, will destroy at least one of the camp's four crematoria and gas chambers. They are receiving firearms from Polish citizens in the nearby village and gunpowder from the UNIO munitions factory; the female prisoners who work in the UNIO are smuggling the powder to the men’s camp among the bodies of their dead workers. When the women's activity is eventually discovered by the Germans, they are savagely tortured, but they don't reveal the plot.
Meanwhile, a Hungarian-Jewish doctor, Miklós Nyiszli (Allan Corduner), who works for the Nazi scientist Josef Mengele in an experimental medical lab, has received permission from Mengele himself to visit his wife and daughter in the women’s labor camp. Nyiszli is quite concerned about the safety of his family and believes that Mengele’s orders will keep them from the gas chambers.
A new trainload of Hungarian Jewish prisoners arrives and all are immediately sent to the gas chambers. As the group is given instructions about "delousing," a fearful, angry man in the group begins shouting questions at one of the Sonderkommandos, Hoffman (Arquette), who has been issuing the instructions. Hoffman beats him to death in an outburst of frustration, in an attempt to make the man stop talking. After the gassing of this same group, a badly shaken Hoffman finds a young girl alive beneath a pile of bodies. He removes her from the chamber, and, after informing the leader of the insurgency, Schlermer (Daniel Benzali), takes her to a storage room and summons Nyiszli, who revives her. The group decides to hide her in the children’s camp. While the prisoners hide her in a dressing room, SS-Oberscharführer Eric Muhsfeldt (Keitel) suddenly walks in. Noticing that one of the prisoners present, Abramowics (Buscemi), is there illegally, he shoots him, prompting the girl to scream and to be discovered. Nyiszli then takes Muhsfeldt outside and tells him about the uprising, but cannot tell him where or when it will begin. Muhsfeldt agrees to protect the young girl after the uprising is suppressed.
The insurrection begins and Crematoria IV is destroyed with the smuggled explosives. All the Sonderkommandos who survive the explosions and gunfights with the SS are captured. They are held until the fire in the crematorium is extinguished—after which, they are executed. Hoffmann and a fellow prisoner, Rosenthal (David Chandler), conclude that the girl will not be set free after she is forced to watch the executions. After all captives are shot, the girl is allowed to flee toward the main gate of the camp. Before she can run very far, Muhsfeldt draws his handgun and shoots her. The film closes with a voice-over recitation by the dead girl.
Cast[edit]
David Arquette as Hoffman
Steve Buscemi as "Hesch" Abramowics
David Chandler as Max Rosenthal
Allan Corduner as Dr. Miklós Nyiszli
Daniel Benzali as Simon Schlermer
Mira Sorvino as Dina
Natasha Lyonne as Rosa
Michael Stuhlbarg as Cohen
Harvey Keitel as Oberscharführer Eric Muhsfeldt
Kamelia Grigorova as the Girl
Velizar Binev as Otto Moll
Henry Stram as Josef Mengele
Lee Wilkof as Man with Watch
Jessica Hecht as Man's Wife
Hristo Shopov as Halivni
Brian F. O'Byrne as Gestapo Interrogator
Production and release[edit]
The film was based upon Nelson's own play, adapted from Nyiszli's book.[citation needed]
A 90 percent scale "model" of the Birkenau camp was built near Sofia, Bulgaria for the production of the film using the original architectural plans.[citation needed]
The film was first released on DVD on March 18, 2003.[citation needed] It was released on DVD in the UK, in 2008.[citation needed]
Awards[edit]
The film received the 2002 National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award.[4]
See also[edit]
List of Holocaust films
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "The Grey Zone (2002)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved July 6, 2011.
2.Jump up ^ Nyiszli, Miklós (April 1, 2011). Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account (Overdrive Read epub ed.). Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. ISBN 9781611450118.
3.Jump up ^ Levi, Primo. The Drowned and the Saved. Einaudi (Italian 1986), Summit Books (English 1988). ISBN 0-349-10047-0.
4.Jump up ^ "Freedom of Expression Award". Newmarket Press. Retrieved February 7, 2011.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Grey Zone
The Grey Zone at the Internet Movie Database
The Grey Zone at Rotten Tomatoes
The Grey Zone at Box Office Mojo


[hide]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Tim Blake Nelson

 
Eye of God (1997) ·
 O (2001) ·
 The Grey Zone (2001) ·
 Leaves of Grass (2009) ·
 Anesthesia (2015)
 
 


Authority control
VIAF: 215960630 ·
 GND: 4779985-7
 

  


Categories: 2001 films
English-language films
2000s drama films
American films
American war films
Films directed by Tim Blake Nelson
Films set in Poland
Films set in the 1940s
Holocaust films
Fiction narrated by a dead person
Films about Jews and Judaism
Lions Gate Entertainment films
Nu Image films
Films shot in Bulgaria
Books about death
Films produced by Christine Vachon







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The Grey Zone

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

For the 1997 Italian film, see The Grey Zone (1997 film).

The Grey Zone
Greyzonethe.jpg
Theatrical release poster
 
Directed by
Tim Blake Nelson
Produced by
Avi Lerner
 Danny Lerner
 Pamela Koffler
Christine Vachon
 Tim Blake Nelson .
Written by
Tim Blake Nelson
Based on
Auschwitz: a Doctor's Eyewitness Account
 by Miklós Nyiszli and
The Grey Zone
 by Tim Blake Nelson
Starring
David Arquette
Steve Buscemi
Harvey Keitel
Mira Sorvino
Allan Corduner
Daniel Benzali
Natasha Lyonne
Music by
Jeff Danna
Cinematography
Russell Lee Fine
Edited by
Michelle Botticelli
 Tim Blake Nelson

Production
 company

Millennium Films
 The Goatsingers
Killer Films
 
Distributed by
Lionsgate

Release dates

September 13, 2001 (TIFF)
October 18, 2002 (United States)
 

Running time
 108 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Box office
$517,872[1]
The Grey Zone is a 2001 film directed by Tim Blake Nelson and starring David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Mira Sorvino, and Daniel Benzali. It is based on the book Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account written by Dr. Miklós Nyiszli.[2]
The title comes from a chapter in the book The Drowned and the Saved by Holocaust survivor Primo Levi.[3] The film tells the story of the Jewish Sonderkommando XII in the Auschwitz concentration camp in October 1944. These prisoners were made to assist the camp's guards in shepherding their victims to the gas chambers and then disposing of their bodies in the ovens.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production and release
4 Awards
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Plot[edit]
The film opens in October 1944, in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. A small group of Sonderkommandos, prisoners assigned to dispose of the bodies of other dead prisoners, are plotting an insurrection that, they hope, will destroy at least one of the camp's four crematoria and gas chambers. They are receiving firearms from Polish citizens in the nearby village and gunpowder from the UNIO munitions factory; the female prisoners who work in the UNIO are smuggling the powder to the men’s camp among the bodies of their dead workers. When the women's activity is eventually discovered by the Germans, they are savagely tortured, but they don't reveal the plot.
Meanwhile, a Hungarian-Jewish doctor, Miklós Nyiszli (Allan Corduner), who works for the Nazi scientist Josef Mengele in an experimental medical lab, has received permission from Mengele himself to visit his wife and daughter in the women’s labor camp. Nyiszli is quite concerned about the safety of his family and believes that Mengele’s orders will keep them from the gas chambers.
A new trainload of Hungarian Jewish prisoners arrives and all are immediately sent to the gas chambers. As the group is given instructions about "delousing," a fearful, angry man in the group begins shouting questions at one of the Sonderkommandos, Hoffman (Arquette), who has been issuing the instructions. Hoffman beats him to death in an outburst of frustration, in an attempt to make the man stop talking. After the gassing of this same group, a badly shaken Hoffman finds a young girl alive beneath a pile of bodies. He removes her from the chamber, and, after informing the leader of the insurgency, Schlermer (Daniel Benzali), takes her to a storage room and summons Nyiszli, who revives her. The group decides to hide her in the children’s camp. While the prisoners hide her in a dressing room, SS-Oberscharführer Eric Muhsfeldt (Keitel) suddenly walks in. Noticing that one of the prisoners present, Abramowics (Buscemi), is there illegally, he shoots him, prompting the girl to scream and to be discovered. Nyiszli then takes Muhsfeldt outside and tells him about the uprising, but cannot tell him where or when it will begin. Muhsfeldt agrees to protect the young girl after the uprising is suppressed.
The insurrection begins and Crematoria IV is destroyed with the smuggled explosives. All the Sonderkommandos who survive the explosions and gunfights with the SS are captured. They are held until the fire in the crematorium is extinguished—after which, they are executed. Hoffmann and a fellow prisoner, Rosenthal (David Chandler), conclude that the girl will not be set free after she is forced to watch the executions. After all captives are shot, the girl is allowed to flee toward the main gate of the camp. Before she can run very far, Muhsfeldt draws his handgun and shoots her. The film closes with a voice-over recitation by the dead girl.
Cast[edit]
David Arquette as Hoffman
Steve Buscemi as "Hesch" Abramowics
David Chandler as Max Rosenthal
Allan Corduner as Dr. Miklós Nyiszli
Daniel Benzali as Simon Schlermer
Mira Sorvino as Dina
Natasha Lyonne as Rosa
Michael Stuhlbarg as Cohen
Harvey Keitel as Oberscharführer Eric Muhsfeldt
Kamelia Grigorova as the Girl
Velizar Binev as Otto Moll
Henry Stram as Josef Mengele
Lee Wilkof as Man with Watch
Jessica Hecht as Man's Wife
Hristo Shopov as Halivni
Brian F. O'Byrne as Gestapo Interrogator
Production and release[edit]
The film was based upon Nelson's own play, adapted from Nyiszli's book.[citation needed]
A 90 percent scale "model" of the Birkenau camp was built near Sofia, Bulgaria for the production of the film using the original architectural plans.[citation needed]
The film was first released on DVD on March 18, 2003.[citation needed] It was released on DVD in the UK, in 2008.[citation needed]
Awards[edit]
The film received the 2002 National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award.[4]
See also[edit]
List of Holocaust films
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "The Grey Zone (2002)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved July 6, 2011.
2.Jump up ^ Nyiszli, Miklós (April 1, 2011). Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account (Overdrive Read epub ed.). Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. ISBN 9781611450118.
3.Jump up ^ Levi, Primo. The Drowned and the Saved. Einaudi (Italian 1986), Summit Books (English 1988). ISBN 0-349-10047-0.
4.Jump up ^ "Freedom of Expression Award". Newmarket Press. Retrieved February 7, 2011.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Grey Zone
The Grey Zone at the Internet Movie Database
The Grey Zone at Rotten Tomatoes
The Grey Zone at Box Office Mojo


[hide]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Tim Blake Nelson

 
Eye of God (1997) ·
 O (2001) ·
 The Grey Zone (2001) ·
 Leaves of Grass (2009) ·
 Anesthesia (2015)
 
 


Authority control
VIAF: 215960630 ·
 GND: 4779985-7
 

  


Categories: 2001 films
English-language films
2000s drama films
American films
American war films
Films directed by Tim Blake Nelson
Films set in Poland
Films set in the 1940s
Holocaust films
Fiction narrated by a dead person
Films about Jews and Judaism
Lions Gate Entertainment films
Nu Image films
Films shot in Bulgaria
Books about death
Films produced by Christine Vachon







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Life Is Beautiful (soundtrack)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


La vita è bella
Life Is Beautiful cd.jpg
Soundtrack album by Nicola Piovani

Released
1997
Genre
Classical
Label
Virgin Records America
Producer
Nicola Piovani
Nicola Piovani chronology

The Impostor
 (1997) La vita è bella
 (1997) Acts of Justice
 (1998)
 

Professional ratings

Review scores

Source
Rating
SoundtrackNet 4.5/5 stars link
Life is Beautiful is the original soundtrack album, on the Virgin Records America label, of the 1997 Academy Award-winning film Life is Beautiful (original title: La vita è bella), starring Roberto Benigni (who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as "Guido Orefice" in this film), Nicoletta Braschi and Giustino Durano. The original score was composed by Nicola Piovani, with the exception of a classical piece which figures prominently: the "Barcarolle" by Jacques Offenbach.
The album won the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score and was nominated for a Grammy Award: "Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media", but lost to the score of A Bug's Life.
Track listing[edit]
1.Buon Giorno Principessa 3:29
2.La vita è bella 2:46
3.Viva Giosuè 1:19
4.Grand Hotel Valse 1:57
5.La notte di favola 2:32
6.La notte di fuga 3:49
7.Le uova nel capello 1:07
8.Grand Hotel Fox 1:55
9.Il treno nel buio 2:19
10.Arriva il carro armato 1:04
11.Valse Larmoyante 2:03
12.L'uovo di struzzo-danza etiope 1:53
13.Krautentang 2:46
14.Il gioco di Giosuè 1:45
15.Barcarolle 3:54
16.Guido e Ferruccio 2:26
17.Abbiamo vinto 3:03
Total Time: 40:07

Awards
Preceded by
Titanic Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score
 1998 Succeeded by
Best Original Score:
Le violon rouge
 (The Red Violin)



Stub icon This soundtrack-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




  


Categories: 1997 soundtracks
Classical music soundtracks
Film soundtracks
Virgin Records soundtracks
Concept albums
Soundtrack stubs






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Life Is Beautiful (soundtrack)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


La vita è bella
Life Is Beautiful cd.jpg
Soundtrack album by Nicola Piovani

Released
1997
Genre
Classical
Label
Virgin Records America
Producer
Nicola Piovani
Nicola Piovani chronology

The Impostor
 (1997) La vita è bella
 (1997) Acts of Justice
 (1998)
 

Professional ratings

Review scores

Source
Rating
SoundtrackNet 4.5/5 stars link
Life is Beautiful is the original soundtrack album, on the Virgin Records America label, of the 1997 Academy Award-winning film Life is Beautiful (original title: La vita è bella), starring Roberto Benigni (who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as "Guido Orefice" in this film), Nicoletta Braschi and Giustino Durano. The original score was composed by Nicola Piovani, with the exception of a classical piece which figures prominently: the "Barcarolle" by Jacques Offenbach.
The album won the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score and was nominated for a Grammy Award: "Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media", but lost to the score of A Bug's Life.
Track listing[edit]
1.Buon Giorno Principessa 3:29
2.La vita è bella 2:46
3.Viva Giosuè 1:19
4.Grand Hotel Valse 1:57
5.La notte di favola 2:32
6.La notte di fuga 3:49
7.Le uova nel capello 1:07
8.Grand Hotel Fox 1:55
9.Il treno nel buio 2:19
10.Arriva il carro armato 1:04
11.Valse Larmoyante 2:03
12.L'uovo di struzzo-danza etiope 1:53
13.Krautentang 2:46
14.Il gioco di Giosuè 1:45
15.Barcarolle 3:54
16.Guido e Ferruccio 2:26
17.Abbiamo vinto 3:03
Total Time: 40:07

Awards
Preceded by
Titanic Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score
 1998 Succeeded by
Best Original Score:
Le violon rouge
 (The Red Violin)



Stub icon This soundtrack-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




  


Categories: 1997 soundtracks
Classical music soundtracks
Film soundtracks
Virgin Records soundtracks
Concept albums
Soundtrack stubs






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This page was last modified on 8 June 2014, at 14:43.
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Life Is Beautiful

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the 1997 Italian film. For other uses, see Life Is Beautiful (disambiguation).
"La vita è bella" redirects here. For other uses, see La vita è bella (disambiguation).
For the album by Freebass, see It's a Beautiful Life (album).


 
This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Italian. (May 2014) Click [show] for important translation instructions. [show]




 

Life Is Beautiful
Vitaebella.jpg
Theatrical release poster
 
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
Horst Buchholz
Music by
Nicola Piovani
Cinematography
Tonino Delli Colli
Edited by
Simona Paggi

Production
 company

Cecchi Gori Group
 
Distributed by
Miramax Films

Release dates

20 December 1997 (Italy)
23 October 1998 (United States)
 

Running time
 116 minutes[1]
Country
Italy
Language
Italian
 German
 English
Budget
$20 million[2]
Box office
$229.2 million[3]
Life Is Beautiful (Italian: La vita è bella [la ˈviːta ɛ ˈbɛlla]) is a 1997 Italian tragicomedy comedy-drama film directed by and starring Roberto Benigni. Benigni plays Guido Orefice, a Jewish Italian book shop owner, who must employ his fertile imagination to shield his son from the horrors of internment in a Nazi concentration camp. Part of the film came from Benigni's own family history; before Roberto's birth, his father had survived three years of internment at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
The film was a critical and financial success, winning Benigni the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 71st Academy Awards as well as the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Awards
4 Reception
5 Soundtrack
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

Plot[edit]
In 1939 Italy, Guido Orefice is a young Jewish man who is leaving his old life and going to work in the city where his uncle lives. Guido is comical and sharp, making the best from each situation he encounters. From the start he falls in love with a girl Dora. Later he sees her again in the city where she is a teacher. Dora is set to be engaged to a rich but arrogant man. He is a local government official with whom Guido has run-ins from the beginning. Guido is still in love with Dora and performs many stunts in order to see her. Guido sets up many "coincidental" incidents to show his interest. Finally Dora sees Guido's affection and promise and gives in against her better judgement. He steals her from her engagement party on a horse, humiliating her fiancé and mother. Soon they are married and have a son, Giosuè.
Through the first part, the film depicts the changing political climate in Italy: Guido frequently imitates members of the National Fascist Party, skewering their racist logic and pseudoscientific reasoning (at one point, jumping onto a table to demonstrate his "perfect Aryan bellybutton"). However, the growing Fascist wave is also evident: the horse Guido steals Dora away on has been painted green and covered in antisemitic insults. Later during World War II, after Dora and her mother have reconciled, Guido, his Uncle Eliseo and Giosuè are seized on Giosuè's birthday. They and many other Jews are forced onto a train and taken to a concentration camp. After confronting a guard about her husband and son and being told there is no mistake, Dora volunteers to get on the train in order to be close to her family. However, as men and women are separated in the camp, Dora and Guido never see each other during the internment. Thus, Guido pulls off stunts, such as using the camp's loudspeaker, to send messages, symbolic or literal, to Dora to assure her that he and their son are safe. Eliseo is executed in a gas chamber shortly after their arrival. Giosuè barely avoids being gassed himself as he hates to take baths and showers, and did not follow the other children when they had been ordered to enter the gas chambers.
In the camp, Guido hides their true situation from his son. Guido explains to Giosuè that the camp is a complicated game in which he must perform the tasks Guido gives him. Giosuè is at times reluctant to go along with the game, but Guido convinces him each time to continue on. Guido sets up the concentration camp as a game for Giosuè. Each of the tasks will earn them points and whoever gets to one thousand points first will win 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 extra points. Guido uses this game to explain features of the concentration camp that would otherwise be frightening for a young child: the guards are mean only because they want the tank for themselves; the dwindling numbers of children (who are being killed in gas chambers) are only hiding in order to score more points than Giosuè so they can 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, and need only wait a short while before they can return home with their tank. Guido eventually buys additional time by intentionally getting Giosuè mixed in with nearby German schoolchildren, and briefly working as a servant for the same kids in order to help keep the other officials from noticing that Giosuè is actually Italian.
Despite being surrounded by the misery, sickness, and death at the camp, 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 of shutting down the camp as the Allied forces approach, he tells his son to stay in a sweatbox until everybody has left, this being the final competition before the tank is his. As the camp is in chaos Guido goes off to find Dora, but while he is out he is caught by a German soldier. An officer makes the decision to execute Guido. Guido is led off by the soldier to be executed. While he is walking to his death, Guido passes by Giosuè one last time, still in character and playing the game. The next morning, Giosuè emerges from the sweatbox, just as a U.S. Army unit led by a Sherman tank arrives and the camp is liberated. Giosuè is elated and is convinced he has won the game and the prize. The captives in the concentration camp also emerge from hiding. The prisoners travel to safety, accompanied by the Americans. While they are traveling, the soldiers allow Giosuè to ride on the tank with them. Giosuè soon spots Dora in the procession leaving the camp. Giosuè and Dora are reunited and are extremely happy to see each other. In the film, Giosuè is a young boy; 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.
Cast[edit]
Roberto Benigni as Guido Orefice
Nicoletta Braschi as Dora
Giorgio Cantarini as Giosuè
Giustino Durano as Uncle Eliseo
Horst Buchholz as Doctor Lessing
Marisa Paredes as Dora's mother
Sergio Bustric as Ferruccio
Amerigo Fontani as Rodolfo
Awards[edit]
Life is Beautiful was shown at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, and went on to win the Grand Prix.[4] 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.[5]
Reception[edit]
Life is Beautiful became commercially successful. After Miramax Films released the film on 23 October 1998 in the United States, the film went on to gross $57,563,264 in North America, and $171,600,000 internationally, with a worldwide gross of $229,163,264.[3] It is the highest grossing movie to be made in Italy, and the second highest grossing foreign film in the United States.
The film also received mostly positive reviews, with the film aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes giving the film a "Fresh" 80% rating.[6] Despite its acclaim, actor-director Roberto Benigni received criticism for its comedic elements incorporated into the backdrop of the Holocaust. Roger Ebert gave the film 3 1/2 stars, stating, "At Cannes, it offended some left-wing critics with its use of humor in connection with the Holocaust. What may be most offensive to both wings is its sidestepping of politics in favor of simple human ingenuity. The film finds the right notes to negotiate its delicate subject matter."[7]
Soundtrack[edit]
Main article: Life Is Beautiful (soundtrack)
The original score to the film was composed by Nicola Piovani, with the exception of a classical piece which figures prominently: the "Barcarolle" by Jacques Offenbach. The soundtrack album won the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score and was nominated for a Grammy Award: "Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media", but lost to the score of A Bug's Life.
See also[edit]
Positive psychology
The Day the Clown Cried (1972), an unreleased film by Jerry Lewis
Train of Life (1998), by Radu Mihaileanu
Hotel Lux (2011), a tragicomedy by Leander Haußmann
Schindler's List (film) (1993), by Steven Spielberg
The Grey Zone (2001), by Tim Blake Nelson
The Pianist (2002), film by Roman Polanski
Man's Search for Meaning (1946), book by concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl
SurvivorsJoseph Schleifstein, real-life child survivor of Buchenwald
Stefan Jerzy Zweig, real-life child survivor of Buchenwald
Further readingGrace Russo Bullaro, Beyond "Life is Beautiful": comedy and tragedy in the cinema of Roberto Benigni, Troubador Publishing Ltd, 2005, ISBN 1-904744-83-4 / ISBN 978-1-904744-83-2
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "LA VITA E BELLA (LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL) (12A)". Buena Vista International. British Board of Film Classification. 26 November 1998. Retrieved 23 August 2013.
2.Jump up ^ Box Office Information for Life is Beautiful. The Wrap. Retrieved 4 April 2013
3.^ Jump up to: a b Life is Beautiful Box Office Mojo Retrieved 28 December 2010
4.Jump up ^ "Festival de Cannes: Life is Beautiful". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 1 October 2009.
5.Jump up ^ Life is Beautiful The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Retrieved 28 December 2010
6.Jump up ^ Life is Beautiful Rotten Tomatoes Retrieved 2010-12-28
7.Jump up ^ "Ebert". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 6 May 2013.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Life Is Beautiful
Official website
Life Is Beautiful at the Internet Movie Database
Life Is Beautiful at the TCM Movie Database
Life Is Beautiful at AllMovie
Life Is Beautiful at Box Office Mojo
Life Is Beautiful at Metacritic
Life Is Beautiful at Rotten Tomatoes
Life Is Beautiful at the Arts & Faith Top 100 Spiritually Significant Films list
Filming locations with real photos


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Categories: 1997 films
1990s comedy-drama films
Best Foreign Film César Award winners
Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award winners
English-language films
Films about children
Films directed by Roberto Benigni
Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award winning performance
Films set in Tuscany
Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award
German-language films
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Is_Beautiful






 



Life Is Beautiful

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the 1997 Italian film. For other uses, see Life Is Beautiful (disambiguation).
"La vita è bella" redirects here. For other uses, see La vita è bella (disambiguation).
For the album by Freebass, see It's a Beautiful Life (album).


 
This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Italian. (May 2014) Click [show] for important translation instructions. [show]




 

Life Is Beautiful
Vitaebella.jpg
Theatrical release poster
 
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
Horst Buchholz
Music by
Nicola Piovani
Cinematography
Tonino Delli Colli
Edited by
Simona Paggi

Production
 company

Cecchi Gori Group
 
Distributed by
Miramax Films

Release dates

20 December 1997 (Italy)
23 October 1998 (United States)
 

Running time
 116 minutes[1]
Country
Italy
Language
Italian
 German
 English
Budget
$20 million[2]
Box office
$229.2 million[3]
Life Is Beautiful (Italian: La vita è bella [la ˈviːta ɛ ˈbɛlla]) is a 1997 Italian tragicomedy comedy-drama film directed by and starring Roberto Benigni. Benigni plays Guido Orefice, a Jewish Italian book shop owner, who must employ his fertile imagination to shield his son from the horrors of internment in a Nazi concentration camp. Part of the film came from Benigni's own family history; before Roberto's birth, his father had survived three years of internment at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
The film was a critical and financial success, winning Benigni the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 71st Academy Awards as well as the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Awards
4 Reception
5 Soundtrack
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

Plot[edit]
In 1939 Italy, Guido Orefice is a young Jewish man who is leaving his old life and going to work in the city where his uncle lives. Guido is comical and sharp, making the best from each situation he encounters. From the start he falls in love with a girl Dora. Later he sees her again in the city where she is a teacher. Dora is set to be engaged to a rich but arrogant man. He is a local government official with whom Guido has run-ins from the beginning. Guido is still in love with Dora and performs many stunts in order to see her. Guido sets up many "coincidental" incidents to show his interest. Finally Dora sees Guido's affection and promise and gives in against her better judgement. He steals her from her engagement party on a horse, humiliating her fiancé and mother. Soon they are married and have a son, Giosuè.
Through the first part, the film depicts the changing political climate in Italy: Guido frequently imitates members of the National Fascist Party, skewering their racist logic and pseudoscientific reasoning (at one point, jumping onto a table to demonstrate his "perfect Aryan bellybutton"). However, the growing Fascist wave is also evident: the horse Guido steals Dora away on has been painted green and covered in antisemitic insults. Later during World War II, after Dora and her mother have reconciled, Guido, his Uncle Eliseo and Giosuè are seized on Giosuè's birthday. They and many other Jews are forced onto a train and taken to a concentration camp. After confronting a guard about her husband and son and being told there is no mistake, Dora volunteers to get on the train in order to be close to her family. However, as men and women are separated in the camp, Dora and Guido never see each other during the internment. Thus, Guido pulls off stunts, such as using the camp's loudspeaker, to send messages, symbolic or literal, to Dora to assure her that he and their son are safe. Eliseo is executed in a gas chamber shortly after their arrival. Giosuè barely avoids being gassed himself as he hates to take baths and showers, and did not follow the other children when they had been ordered to enter the gas chambers.
In the camp, Guido hides their true situation from his son. Guido explains to Giosuè that the camp is a complicated game in which he must perform the tasks Guido gives him. Giosuè is at times reluctant to go along with the game, but Guido convinces him each time to continue on. Guido sets up the concentration camp as a game for Giosuè. Each of the tasks will earn them points and whoever gets to one thousand points first will win 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 extra points. Guido uses this game to explain features of the concentration camp that would otherwise be frightening for a young child: the guards are mean only because they want the tank for themselves; the dwindling numbers of children (who are being killed in gas chambers) are only hiding in order to score more points than Giosuè so they can 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, and need only wait a short while before they can return home with their tank. Guido eventually buys additional time by intentionally getting Giosuè mixed in with nearby German schoolchildren, and briefly working as a servant for the same kids in order to help keep the other officials from noticing that Giosuè is actually Italian.
Despite being surrounded by the misery, sickness, and death at the camp, 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 of shutting down the camp as the Allied forces approach, he tells his son to stay in a sweatbox until everybody has left, this being the final competition before the tank is his. As the camp is in chaos Guido goes off to find Dora, but while he is out he is caught by a German soldier. An officer makes the decision to execute Guido. Guido is led off by the soldier to be executed. While he is walking to his death, Guido passes by Giosuè one last time, still in character and playing the game. The next morning, Giosuè emerges from the sweatbox, just as a U.S. Army unit led by a Sherman tank arrives and the camp is liberated. Giosuè is elated and is convinced he has won the game and the prize. The captives in the concentration camp also emerge from hiding. The prisoners travel to safety, accompanied by the Americans. While they are traveling, the soldiers allow Giosuè to ride on the tank with them. Giosuè soon spots Dora in the procession leaving the camp. Giosuè and Dora are reunited and are extremely happy to see each other. In the film, Giosuè is a young boy; 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.
Cast[edit]
Roberto Benigni as Guido Orefice
Nicoletta Braschi as Dora
Giorgio Cantarini as Giosuè
Giustino Durano as Uncle Eliseo
Horst Buchholz as Doctor Lessing
Marisa Paredes as Dora's mother
Sergio Bustric as Ferruccio
Amerigo Fontani as Rodolfo
Awards[edit]
Life is Beautiful was shown at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, and went on to win the Grand Prix.[4] 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.[5]
Reception[edit]
Life is Beautiful became commercially successful. After Miramax Films released the film on 23 October 1998 in the United States, the film went on to gross $57,563,264 in North America, and $171,600,000 internationally, with a worldwide gross of $229,163,264.[3] It is the highest grossing movie to be made in Italy, and the second highest grossing foreign film in the United States.
The film also received mostly positive reviews, with the film aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes giving the film a "Fresh" 80% rating.[6] Despite its acclaim, actor-director Roberto Benigni received criticism for its comedic elements incorporated into the backdrop of the Holocaust. Roger Ebert gave the film 3 1/2 stars, stating, "At Cannes, it offended some left-wing critics with its use of humor in connection with the Holocaust. What may be most offensive to both wings is its sidestepping of politics in favor of simple human ingenuity. The film finds the right notes to negotiate its delicate subject matter."[7]
Soundtrack[edit]
Main article: Life Is Beautiful (soundtrack)
The original score to the film was composed by Nicola Piovani, with the exception of a classical piece which figures prominently: the "Barcarolle" by Jacques Offenbach. The soundtrack album won the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score and was nominated for a Grammy Award: "Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media", but lost to the score of A Bug's Life.
See also[edit]
Positive psychology
The Day the Clown Cried (1972), an unreleased film by Jerry Lewis
Train of Life (1998), by Radu Mihaileanu
Hotel Lux (2011), a tragicomedy by Leander Haußmann
Schindler's List (film) (1993), by Steven Spielberg
The Grey Zone (2001), by Tim Blake Nelson
The Pianist (2002), film by Roman Polanski
Man's Search for Meaning (1946), book by concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl
SurvivorsJoseph Schleifstein, real-life child survivor of Buchenwald
Stefan Jerzy Zweig, real-life child survivor of Buchenwald
Further readingGrace Russo Bullaro, Beyond "Life is Beautiful": comedy and tragedy in the cinema of Roberto Benigni, Troubador Publishing Ltd, 2005, ISBN 1-904744-83-4 / ISBN 978-1-904744-83-2
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "LA VITA E BELLA (LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL) (12A)". Buena Vista International. British Board of Film Classification. 26 November 1998. Retrieved 23 August 2013.
2.Jump up ^ Box Office Information for Life is Beautiful. The Wrap. Retrieved 4 April 2013
3.^ Jump up to: a b Life is Beautiful Box Office Mojo Retrieved 28 December 2010
4.Jump up ^ "Festival de Cannes: Life is Beautiful". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 1 October 2009.
5.Jump up ^ Life is Beautiful The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Retrieved 28 December 2010
6.Jump up ^ Life is Beautiful Rotten Tomatoes Retrieved 2010-12-28
7.Jump up ^ "Ebert". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 6 May 2013.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Life Is Beautiful
Official website
Life Is Beautiful at the Internet Movie Database
Life Is Beautiful at the TCM Movie Database
Life Is Beautiful at AllMovie
Life Is Beautiful at Box Office Mojo
Life Is Beautiful at Metacritic
Life Is Beautiful at Rotten Tomatoes
Life Is Beautiful at the Arts & Faith Top 100 Spiritually Significant Films list
Filming locations with real photos


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
The films of Roberto Benigni

 











 





 


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Academy Award for Foreign Language Film Winners

 












 























 




























 

















 


 


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Foreign Language Film

 






 











 






 


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix

 






























 

























 










 


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
César Award for Best Foreign Film

 



























 



















 


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
European Film Award for Best Film

 





























  


Categories: 1997 films
1990s comedy-drama films
Best Foreign Film César Award winners
Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award winners
English-language films
Films about children
Films directed by Roberto Benigni
Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award winning performance
Films set in Tuscany
Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award
German-language films
Holocaust films
Italian comedy films
Italian drama films
Italian films
Italian-language films
Miramax films
Tragicomedy films
War drama films
Screenplays by Vincenzo Cerami









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Create account
Not logged in
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Српски / srpski
Suomi
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Zazaki
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Edit links
This page was last modified on 11 September 2015, at 20:10.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
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Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki 
  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Is_Beautiful