LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL
In the diddle of the movie it portrays to the viewers what most individuals would see as an ‘ideal’ life e. G. The house Guide, his wife and son live in. TO enhance the notion of ‘Life is Beautiful’ in the scene when Guide and his family are riding on the bike all of their faces portray big smiles which means they are happy. But when they are in a concentration camp the faces of the parents are depressed but the sons is happy because he is under the belief that he is going to win a tank. It shows to the viewer how quickly a life of happiness and safety can be turned into a life of sadness and insecurity.
Exploring The Film Sassy view the film, answer the questions. The film has been divided into scenes as they occur in the narrative. INNER JOURNEY ESSAY QUESTIONS ‘All of us experience an inner journey at some time in our lives’. How have the composers of the texts you have studied conveyed these journeys? ‘Inner journeys come in many forms and have a range of results for those who experience them’. How have the texts you have studied differed in presenting inner journeys and their results? ‘An inner journey involves more than just experiencing changes in life’. Do you agree?
How are the features of the inner journey presented in the texts you have studied? You have been asked to write a feature article for your school magazine. The topic is ‘Journeys of the Mind and Spirit. Write the article using the texts you have studied. You are the host of a radio program called ‘Modern Day Journeys’. Interview the composer of your prescribed text and other texts about how they have tried to resent the process and consequences of the inner journey. Imagine a radio station is running a program about journeys and their consequences. It has invited an expert on your prescribed text to appear on the show.
The expert is to discuss how the composer has represented the inner journey and its consequences in the text. Write the script for the radio program. In your answer refer to the other texts you have studied. How has the composer of your prescribed text conveyed their beliefs about inner journeys? How has the composer of your prescribed text conveyed their beliefs about inner journeys? (Look at stylistic techniques such as exaggeration; contrast; conflict; imagery; symbolism and motif; humor; tone; structure; costume; lighting; camera shots and angles; movement and gesture etc. How have the intent and intended audience affected the way the text has addressed the issue of the inner journey? A magazine for adults generally is running a series of articles about the inner journeys people make in their lives. The series is exploring the importance of such journeys. Write a feature article that could be included from your study of your focus area. ‘Life is a series of journeys. They are inevitable and should be relished’. To what extent is this true of the texts you have studied? A brochure is being written to inform the general public about the way inner journeys affect the lives people lead.
Write the reoccur and include a short description of a graphic this would accompany the text. You should also refer to other texts. ‘This was the gift my father game me’. What was the gift Guide gave his son? Discuss this statement making close reference to the gift and how it was given. Write a feature article in which you explore the beauty that exists in the human condition. Else the film as the basis of your article, sharing with your readers the inner journey which you took as you viewed the film and other related materials.
SAMPLE ESSAY RESPONSE Question: ‘A journey is more than just movement from one place to another. It is about learning and growth’. What have you learned about the importance Of journey from your study of inner journeys? Question: How has your study of journey shaped your understanding of the factors which will bring about an Inner journey? Factors that can bring about an inner journey are change. Change can be a factor because change can cause an individual to be really happy or depressed, depending on the type of change.
Change can be forced and it can also be intended change. Question: You have been asked to interview the composer of your prescribed text on the topic ‘Journey for our Times’ for the TV show Arts Today. Write the interview. Question: You are the guest speaker at an exhibition entitled The Journey. In your speech, discuss the ways in which the ‘journey concept is represented in the broad range of exhibits. Sample Question How has your understanding of the Focus Area of Inner Journeys been developed and expanded by the techniques used by different composers in your Focus Area.
In your answer you should refer to the ideas and techniques of your prescribed text, ONE text from the prescribed Stimulus Booklet Journeys, and at least TWO other related texts of your own choosing. Sample Answer The concept of inner Journeys has been developed significantly by the film Life is Beautiful, which uses a number of techniques to convey its message. Roberto Benign, the composer, not only co-wrote the screenplay, he also directed the film. Filming techniques used to highlight the film’s themes include the use of music, humor and parody.
The film as a medium is an effective way to treat this very serious subject. It is unusual to see the topic treated with humor. Chandler’s List and Home are related texts that deal with personal and inner Journeys, and the text ‘Blood On The Tracks’ from the Board of Studies Stimulus Booklet Journeys looks at the road as a metaphor for the choices we make in life. The opening of the film is a very poignant moment. The audience is unaware of the significance of the opening scene. We see a man shrouded in mist carrying a child. A narrator’s voice introduces the film as a fable.
This fable told by the narrator produces contrasting emotions of sorrow and wonder and of happiness. The camera focus of the opening scene is muted and grey. The responder will learn of the significance of this scene later in the film. This contrasts with the next scene as the car moms down the road toward us with laughing companions in scenery dominated by bright colors. In contrast to the earlier scene there is now a gaiety. The comedy sequences which are liberally sprinkled throughout the whole film serve different purposes on different occasions.
Initially the humor is light-hearted and reflects the happy events of the film. As the film moves into the darker subject matter, humor is often used as a counter balance to the grim reality. The comic routines are seldom without significance or merely incidental. They either serve to further the plot or they re a commentary on the more serious themes. One example is the series of scenes involving a hat. Initially they involve Ferocious employer’s hat. The hat takes on a different significance when Guide accidentally puts eggs in Mr. Rodeo’s hat.
These sequences are part of the romantic comic Italian style referred to earlier. They serve to show the responder that Guides life really was rich and beautiful. They are contrasting images which highlight the harshness of later times and the tragic changes in Guides personal journey. The horse called Robin Hood is a whimsical tribute to freedom and an older ay of life. However, in a scene where the horse has been covered with anti- Jewish graffiti it is also a reminder of the racist views of some fanatics and of ever present danger.
The riddles that Guide shares with Doctor Leasing help establish Dry Leasing as a good, warm and caring man who takes just one flower Of those offered to give to his wife. They also establish what a quick witted and intelligent man Guide is. This has great importance, for later in the film when Guide is in the concentration camp the doctor despairingly asks him for help in solving a riddle. Of course there is no way that Guide can help Leasing and the great irony of the fact that it is Leasing asking for help is not lost on the audience.
However, like his uncle’s instinctive offer of help to the female German soldier who slips in the gas chamber, Guides compassion and emotional response are studied carefully by the camera. The use of close-up shots is particularly effective to convey the changing emotions where there is no dialogue. The brief hope that perhaps Guide would be saved is crushed by the absurdity of the doctor asking him for help. The use of music as a form of communication between the lovers is an important quinine in the film. Guide arranges to meet Dora at the opera by Offenbach, for which she has previously said she has tickets.
At this stage she is in the company of another. At the opera Guide uses the Schopenhauer technique to make her aware that he is in the theatre. In the prison camp Guide communicates to Dora by playing Offenbach through the loudspeakers. It is the only medium he has for showing his love for her and his family. It is comical that he is able to succeed in playing the music when it is considered that he is in a concentration camp, but most importantly it is belly touching that he should make this dangerous gesture. References to the Schopenhauer technique occur frequently in the film, in comedy routines and in more serious moments.
For example, near the end of the film when a dog threatens to discover Issue in his hiding place, Guide uses the Schopenhauer technique that Frederic has taught him to turn the dog away. What had been regarded by the responder as a comical action becomes a life one. The responder is no longer laughing at Guide; rather he/she is greatly relieved that in this scene the Schopenhauer technique has saved his son’s life. The film Chandler’s List is a different treatment of the imprisonment of Jewish people in a concentration camp. The film seeks to celebrate the lives of those who survived as well as Oscar Chandler’s.
Chandler’s personal journey is the main theme in the film. His motivations are complex. He is a womanlier and a wealthy man, but he wishes to help save the lives of as many people as possible. At the end of the film he breaks down and sobbingly regrets that he has not been able to save more people. The sadism of one of the central figures gives the film a sharp edge. The atmosphere is serious and controlled, ND Ben Kinsley in a central role is a counterpoint to Lima Meson’s more flamboyant Oscar Schneider. In Karen Shoehorn’s poem ‘Home’ she gives stark meaning to the title of the poem.
She builds an atmosphere of fear. She is a German Jew. She is terrified that the world is insecure and uncertain and that what happened once might happen again. She knows what has been done in the past. She realizes that she played with people in her youth who years later would have been part of a regime that persecuted Jewish people. She cannot think her children’s future safe. This is a very sad poem. Her arsenal inner Journey is now tainted with fear. In ‘Blood on the Tracks’ the road is discussed as a metaphor for self discovery.
It is the path takes us to the ‘borders’ of our ‘respective identities’. We are all on a road, an inner Journey. We intersect with other roads and we press on affected to some extent by the meeting as are the characters in Life is Beautiful and the related texts. In all the texts there is an affirmation that individuals make choices but they can be swept up in movements bigger than themselves. Everyone is participating in their own inner Journey. Some of these journeys will have costive consequences, and other won’t. Some journeys will experience great fear such as in Karen Shoehorn’s poem ‘Home’.
What is truly significant is how the individual chooses to steer a course that defines him or her. It is to be hoped that the individual will press on in the face of insurmountable odds as did Guide and Schneider. Perhaps the individual’s journey is just taking him or her on a path of self-discovery as is the case in ‘Blood on the Tracks’. Inner Journeys Some areas you could look at in terms of this Area of Study are: Guide Orifice says from the opening credits says ‘free in the end I am. ‘ And in his Rooney through life he is just that, free.
It is inability to see the pitfalls and social conventions that restrict most journeys that makes him the lovable and affable protagonist we admire. The initial metaphor of the car out of control no brakes as the car screams down the mountain side out intrepid travelers hold on and not only survive but are hailed mistakenly as ‘kings’ on the way. This foreshadows Guides life – we can count a number of instances where we assume he will ‘die’ emotionally or socially – when he poses as the education inspector from Rome, when he flirts with the bride to be at the engagement inner, when he wrecks the car (and the silk) etc.
He journeys through life as a runaway car with no brakes – the distinction is that he can brake but his joyous nature does not allow him to – it is a personal choice that defines his journey and his life. Odor’s horrific choice is to journey with her family when they are interned for being Jewish. She is shown away from the place where Guide, Elision and Joshua are taken and is shown at the train station; she asks if there is some mistake and told no that she could go home. She demands to be taken with her family – to a camp where she faces death, yet she chooses o journey with her.
No movement is too great to not be with her family, it is what drives her. There is incredible irony and pathos created when the attempt to be together is cruelly thwarted as the car she is on is not the same as her family and once disembarking they are separated into male and female camps, artistically shown with the panoramic crane shot of the two sides of the train separated by the massive structure of the engine and cars. In a symbolic sense the images of movement dominate the film.
From the car sequence already mentioned, we also see the bicycle, the train, walking, inning, the horse, the truck that takes them away are all used repeated to reinforce the idea that this is a journey, a life in progress. All of these tie the film and the central character to the concept of journey. You can also tie this use of motif to the structural use of episodes. It assumes we understand the passage of both time and event along the path that is the life we follow. The use of humor in the most devastating situations is a part of the journey and how Guide copes with the trials and tribulations along the way.
There are a number of types of humor – the slapstick elements from early in the film, the eggs, falling flower pot etc, the ironic satire of the banning of spiders and Visigoths, the black humor of Guide in his ‘game’ to win the tank and keep Joshua innocence and hope alive (brutally juxtaposed with the parody of Guides translation of the German officer camp rules) to the light hearted romantic images of the knight in somewhat less than shining armor as he spirits away the lady in the engagement episode.
Possibly the most devastating combination of black humor and foreshadowing (the responder prays for it to be foreshadowing) is when Joshua confronts Guide in the actors as the other children have been taken to the ‘showed. We recall the earlier scene of him refusal to take a real shower for his mother – now the obstinacy we hope will save his life – the humor of the earlier refusal ringing in our ears. Time also represents a sense of journey. It is a linear journey where we assume that day follows day in a journey we cannot avoid, at least in a simplistic sense.
This political world of the film, with its death and diminishing elements, bears little resemblance to the lightness of Guides mood early in the film. The irony is that human nature has remained a instant. The timeless struggle against tyranny seems another constant factor. Despite the new physical and time context, nothing has really changed. This is another aspect that you must not ignore: that you may journey to other physical environments but you can always control your own humanity.
Thus you may travel to other physical places yet the inner journey can remain constant. The journey is also imbued in the loss of loved ones – for Dora the search through the clothes of those killed in the shower is one of immense and unimaginable dread – if her journey takes her to the clothes of Joshua, he knows he is dead. Just as Guide knows he must keep Joshua hidden if he is remain alive to have a journey that is or will be his life. This made more poignant by the use of a child.
