Fascist Italy In The Film Life Is Beautiful

Life in Italy in the 1930’s caused difficulty to some Italians during that time period. During the 1930’s a large number of Italians who had opposed the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini arrived in the United States. After the news spread in Italy about the bombing of Pearl Harbour almost all Italians supported the war against Benito Mussolini. At this point, Italy was slowly becoming under the Nazi rule, the significance of a woman’s role in Italy was emphasised as they were expected to accept the fascist ideology. Girls were expected to get married and conceive lots of children. Many young women in Italy felt the pressures of politics that were dominated by men and felt that women’s rights were disappearing

These factors contribute to the next technique: innocence. This technique is heavily portrayed in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas but is also shown in Life is Beautiful. Because of the perspective of a nine year old, there are many accounts of misunderstanding and obliviousness. For example, innocence is demonstrated through Bruno’s mispronunciation of words such as Auschwitz and The Führer (Hitler); instead, he alters them into “Out-With” and “The Fury.” This shows Bruno’s unawareness that Auschwitz is actually a slaughterhouse built especially for the Jews and that The Führer is the leader of the Nazi Party, the one who started all this. Life is Beautiful contains a slightly different version of innocence. Guido uses his childlike innocence and imagination to protect his own son’s innocence. This is shown particularly well when Guido uses this game (in the camp) to explain features of the concentration camp, for instance, when Guido explains to his son that “The guards are mean only because they want the tank for themselves.”

During the 1930’s when Fascism was at it height, populist art fought against the domination of fascism by diverting the fashionable ideals of fascism with the ideas of populism. The US was producing popular art in its populous country to share the rest of the world as an attempt to ward off the Fascists. They decided to distract everybody from Fascism by art, film, dance, etc. that appealed to the similar but different enough ideals of populism and democracy.

     ?Life Is Beautiful? gives the audience a vivid look into what happened during the Holocaust. Roberto Benigni plays a very upbeat, carefree bookstore owner. His wife, who is not Jewish, and his

Life can be very beautiful. In contrast, life for many people during World War 2 was not so beautiful. During this time, the world was at war. Gladly, during all the madness, in 1945 innocent people broke free, and concentration camps were liberated. The film Life is Beautiful, Guido demonstrated the three qualities; Inherent thoughtfulness and emotionality, expressive coherence, and wholeness and unity.

Along with the Fascist Party, came the idea of a "perfect" race of man, and persecution. Hitler’s idea of a non-Jewish race appealed to Mussolini. Before the war began, Benito Mussolini and his army started their persecution of the Jews in Italy. This did not last long, however, because Mussolini’s popularity began to fall. As his popularity among his people began to decline, so did his relations with many European nations. Much of Italy’s foreign relations depended solely on treaties and pacts. (5) As Germany and Italy moved together towards a uniform society, the strength and honor of the treaties were in jeopardy.

As well as this, the novel signifies indifference of the will to live, whereas the film hardly mentions it among the Jews. As the end of the story grows near, Elie notes the indifferent attitude of those simply forcing themselves to go on, to survive during a Winter march: “Beneath our feet there lay men, crushed, trampled underfoot, dying. Nobody paid attention to them” (89). Yet again, indifference is illustrated because of how they no longer had the will to push themselves. Instead, the Jews started following orders out of habit and lacked the will to object. Lastly, the novel shows little to no opposition from the Germans, demonstrating Nazi indifference. When the officers at the camp separate the men and women. Elie says these officers declare orders in “words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion” (29). In other words, the Nazi officers are simply carrying out orders to avoid exhibiting that they are against anti-Semitic norms that most Germans have adopted. In the film however, although Bruno’s father is a Nazi general, his mother and grandmother still demonstrate a strong opposition toward the Nazi party’s anti-Semitism the more they are exposed to it. For example, while the mother gets into a big argument with her husband, the grandmother refuses to show up at her son’s house for a visit (Boy in Striped Pajamas). Unlike the Nazis in the novel, this clearly

In Elie’s story, it mostly focuses on his view and what is happening just to him. “During the alert, I had followed the mob, not taking care of him. I knew he was running out of strength, so close to death, and yet I had abandoned him.” (page 106) said Elie. Elie started to only think about himself and not his loved ones. While Life is Beautiful shows what happens to all of the characters. Elie’s story begins very close to the beginning of the Holocaust, Guido’s story before the Holocaust takes up half of the movie.

Overall, the fascist experiment in Italy was a failure. Benito Mussolini aimed to make the world safe for the middle class, small business owners, property owners, and people in the agricultural area. Through this, Mussolini gained support of the majority of the population. There is no doubt that most of the support was actually the work of propaganda and rhetoric rather than the ‘real thing'. The government made desperate attempts to significantly increase the birthrate in Italy. In 1927, Mussolini launched the "Battle for births". The task of young women was to get married quickly and have a lot of children. And the more children they get, the more benefits they get from the government. Mussolini's population policy failed to produce

    First and foremost, Mussolini was extremely anti-semitic. His mistress recorded a remark by him in which he said “These disgusting Jews, I must destroy them all,” (The Economist 34). This shows that Mussolini was very against the Jewish

Finally, there remains perhaps the most basic and yet most profound idea present in the entire doctrine; being the notion that life is a struggle. The entire doctrine constantly discusses this concept, and in fact Mussolini uses it to justify the entire doctrine. Mussolini states that, “fascism wants a man to be active and absorbed in action with all his energies,” a desire which he considers synonymous with fascism’s own desire to be constantly progressing. Italians were not only encouraged to frequently be taking action, but it was considered their “duty to conquer out of life what was really worthy to them.” Mussolini is essentially stating that he believes that a virtuous Italian should be constantly struggling with his life, never becoming complacent and always fighting to better himself. Fascism, being an extension of the human spirit, naturally mirrored these qualities.

The state of Mussolini’s Fascist Italy and Hitler’s Nazi Germany, can be highly comparable in their policies and ideologies. Fascism is a political ideology, in which the country is to be racially and culturally pure. Mussolini said himself that “Fascism desires the state to be strong and organic and to always be prepared for conflict”. Fascism includes things such as nationalism, hostility to democracy, racism, the love of symbols such as uniforms, parades and army discipline. It is a totalitarian philosophy which worships the state and nation. Fascism is an extreme right-wing that celebrates the nation or race as a pure community which exceeds all other loyalties and expectations (Downing, 2001). Most of the time it celebrates masculinity and male supremacy, rarely it will promote female solidarity (De Grand, 1995). Fascist aims are to prepare for conflict and violence and to prepare and educate the youth. Both were able to gain support from military associations,

World War I began in August of 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo, in what is now Yugoslavia. Following this period Italy was in a state of civil war, with the parliament incapable of providing effective leadership. There was a rise in social tension, as well as economic problems. This resulted in a new, more aggressive breed of Italian politicians. They followed a violent anarchic political credo, also known as fascism. Although Italy’s economy was weak, following World War I, it was effected more by political factors, such as the rise of fascism, and social factors as seen through the newspaper, Il Popolo d’Italia.

The film opens with a depiction of barbaric executions of Jews by Nazis in which the Italian protagonists are forced to consider their own culpability as Italians, Germany 's allies in the war. Wertmüller, like Benigni, was criticized for profaning the Holocaust in the scenes of Pasqualino 's copulation with the camp commandant and Pasqualino 's later insistence on procreation as a means to ensure survival (V. Pezzetti 1-20).

How far do you agree, that the Bienno Rosso was the most important reason for Mussolini and Fascism’s rise to power in Italy, 1919-22?