the m0vie blog

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Ethan Shattock and Gerard Rooney from Disconnected Talk, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.

This time, continuing our Summer of ’99 season, Roberto Benigni’s La Vita è Bella.

1999 was a great year for movies, with a host of massively successful (and cult) hits that would define cinema for a next generation: The Matrix, The Blair Witch Project, The Sixth Sense, 10 Things I Hate About You, Fight Club. The Summer of ’99 season offers a trip through the year in film on the IMDb‘s 250.

In mid-century Italy, lovable fool Guido embarks on a courtship of the beautiful Dora, a woman far outside of his station. As Italy descends into fascism, Guido hopes that his optimism will allow himself – and his family – to endure in the face of unimaginable evil.

At time of recording, it was ranked 26th on the Internet Movie Database‘s list of the best movies of all-time.

Show Notes:

• Recorded 20th July 2019.
• Life is Beautiful at The Internet Movie Database.
• The IMDB 250 as it appeared at time of recording.
• Note: Life is Beautiful was originally released in Italy in December 1997. It enjoyed a late awards-qualifying run in New York and Los Angeles in October 1998. However, it would not open wide until February 1999. So we’re absolutely cheating and counting it as part of this season.
• Listen to Ger and Ethan on their Disconnected Talk podcast.
• Everest at the IMDb, March 1998.
• Karl Cohen at Animation World News on the millennial Imax boom, December 2000.
• Roberto Benigni is profiled at The New York Times, October 1998.
• Roberto Benigni talks to The Guardian about making Life is Beautiful, January 1999.
• Robert W. Welkos at The Los Angeles Times on Hollywood’s embrace of Benigni, March 1999.
• Kenneth Turin at The Los Angeles Times on the “improbable success” of Life is Beautiful, October 1998.
• Roberto Benigni collects the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, March 1999.
• Roberto Benigni collects the Academy Award for Best Actor, March 1999.
• Alessandra Stanley at The New York Times reports on the importance of Benigni’s awards success to Italy, March 1999.
• Richard Boudreaux reports in The Los Angeles Times on the celebrations of Benigni’s victory in his hometown, March 1999.
• Roberto Benigni talks to The New York Times about life after his awards success, November 2002.
• Nathan Rabin at The A.V. Club on the grand folly of Roberto Benigni’s Pinocchio, October 2007.
• Keith Phipps reviews Roberto Benigni’s Pinocchio at The A.V. Club, January 2003.
• Ruth Ellen Gruber at The New York Times on the controversial success of Life is Beautiful in Italy, January 1998.
• Harry D. Wall at The New York Times on the relationship between Italy and its Jewish population, April 2019.
• Historian Marcello Pezzetti talks to Haaretz about consulting with Benigni on Life is Beautiful, October 2018.
• Mel Brooks talks to Der Spiegel about the use of the Holocaust in Life is Beautiful, March 2006.
• Leslie Epstein complains to The Atlantic about the trivilisation of the Holocaust in Life is Beautiful, October 1999.
• Tom Tugend at The Los Angeles Times on the history of using humour to explore the Holocaust, September 1999.
• Bruce Handy at Vanity Fair on the French film critic who has seen and loved The Day the Clown Cried, August 2017.
• Richard Brody at The New Yorker offers a brief history of The Day the Clown Cried, August 2013.
• Peter Tonguette at The New York Times on the possible release of The Day the Clown Cried, December 2018.
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl at Amazon.co.uk, January 1946.
• Henry Barnes at The Guardian reports on plans to adapt Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning into a film, June 2015.
• David Wroe at The Telegraph on the manipulation of Nietzsche’s writings (and legacy) by his sister to package them for the Nazis, January 2010.
• Scotty Hendricks at Big Think on the legacy of Nietzsche’s association with the Nazis, December 2017.
• A.O. Scott at The New York Times on the abundance of Holocaust-related awards fare, November 2008.
• Bernard Weinraub at The New York Times on the wave of Second World War nostalgia sweeping culture in the late nineties, February 1999.
• Kate Connolly at The Guardian on the controversy over the portrayal of the Holocaust in Poland in Defiance, March 2009.
• Lisa Klug at The Atlantic discusses Son of Saul and the types of Holocaust films to which survivors respond, January 2016.
• Chris Wisniewski and Michael Koresky at Reverse Shot discuss the complications of Steven Spielberg’s Munich, April 2012.
• Heather Morris at The Irish Times discusses The Tattooist of Auschwitz, January 2018.
• Danny Bloom at The Times of Israel on the controversies around The Tattooist of Auschwitz, December 2018.
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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: comedy, concentration camp, Disconnected Talk, Ethan Shattock, evil, film, Gerard Rooney, holocaust, La Vita è Bella, Movie, nazis, robert benigni, summer of '99, The 250, the day the clown cried |