film resource

8/3/2019 Film Resource

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FILMWALL-E A U T H O R

Emily Paul

E D I T O R

Tania Asnes

A L P A C A - I N - C H I E F

Daniel Berdichevsky

A World

Transformed II:

World in Flux

2 0 1 2

FILM

the WorldScholars Cup

CELEBRATING6PWAA-TASTICYEAR

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YEARS


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Film Resource

2012: A World in Flux

Table of Contents

Preface: Lights, Camera, Look Out! .......................................................... 2I. Pixar: To Infinity and 3D .......................................................................... 4

Objectives ............................................................................................... 4Pixars Story ............................................................................................. 3

A113 ............................................................................................................ 5The Key(frame) to G ood Storytelling ................................................ 5

II. Bots and BNL Customers: Characters in Wall E .............................. 7

Objectives ................................................................................................ 7The Basics of Character ........................................................................ 7Wall E ...................................................................................................... 7

Eva ............................................................................................................ 8The Captain ............................................................................................. 8Auto .......................................................................................................... 8

III. Robots in Love: Wall E s Plot and Structure .................................. 9Objectives ............................................................................................... 9Act One .................................................................................................... 9

Act Two .................................................................................................. 10Midpoint (where the film changes direction) ................................ 10Act Two, Continued .............................................................................. 11

Act Three ................................................................................................. 11IV. Trash, Robots, and Love: Themes of Wall E ................................... 12

Objectives .............................................................................................. 12Robots Are People, Too ...................................................................... 12Future Friending ................................................................................... 13Trash Planet ........................................................................................... 14

Love and Compromise ......................................................................... 15V. Producing Life is Beautiful: From the Circus to the Oscar............. 16

Objectives .............................................................................................. 16Influences ............................................................................................... 16

Influences................................................................................................ 17The Beautiful Life of Life Is Beautiful...............................................17

VI. Characters in Life Is Beautiful............................................................ 18Objectives .............................................................................................. 18

Guido....................................................................................................... 18Dora ......................................................................................................... 18Joshua ..................................................................................................... 19

Eliseo ....................................................................................................... 19Dr. Lessing ............................................................................................. 19

VII. La Vita Organized: Plot and Structure ........................................ 20

Objectives ............................................................................................. 20Act One ................................................................................................. 20Act Two ................................................................................................... 21

Midpoint.................................................................................................. 21Act Two Continued .............................................................................. 22Act Three ............................................................................................... 22

VIII. Horror and Humor: Themes of Life Is Beautiful........................... 23Objectives .............................................................................................. 23Inconceivable! ....................................................................................... 23

Silence and Goodness as Power ....................................................... 24Life Is Beautiful and FunnyAgainst all Odds .............................. 25The Trickster ......................................................................................... 25Once Upon a Time ............................................................................... 26

Arrivederci .................................................................................................... 27Works Consulted ......................................................................................... 28

About the Author ........................................................................................ 29About the Editor .......................................................................................... 29

About the Alpaca-in-Chief ........................................................................ 29

by

Emily PaulNew York University B.A. 03

New York University TischAsia M.A. 11

edited by

Tania AsnesBarnard College B.A. 05

Dedicated to the Robot Alpaca Project at the University of Cuzco.

DemiDec and The World Scholars Cup are registered trademarks of the DemiDec Corporation.


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Preface:

Lights, Camera, Look Out!In 1895, a French audience sat down in the dark to watch one of

the very first movies, The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station.Directors Auguste and Louis Lumire1 hoped to thrill audiences by

capturing a moving train headed towards the camera. As legendtells it, the thrill was too much. People feared the train was real

and fled the theater.

Once audiences overcame their fear, they craved moreaction and adventure. They wanted movies to takethem from the depths of the sea to the heights of themoon. Technology developed rapidly to keep up withaudiences appetites. The first feature length talkies

(movies with sound) hit theatres in 1927. Snow White,the first animated feature film, followed it in 1937. In1940, studios solved the problem of showing actors inimaginary placessuch as flying through space. Theyrealized they could film actors in a studio against ablue or green screen and later replace the screens withany background they desired.2

Our appetites for entertainment and innovation keepgrowing, and today companies like Pixar continuebreaking new movie-making ground (and their

budgets) to satisfy them.

Films are sometimes set in the futureand, more often than you would expect, they even predict it.In 1968, 2001: A Space Odysseyimagined an artificially intelligent computer, HAL, with a vocalinterface3. Apple added Siri, a vocal interface with substantial artificial intelligence4, to its populariPhoneputting HAL-like interactions in the hands of millions. Also in the 1960s, Star Trekforesaw5 mobile phones and interracial kissing. Today, you probably have a better mobile phone thandid Captain Kirk6.

Films also document the past. United 93 (2006) captured memories and perceptions of what 9/11was like in America. Life, Above All (2010) brought audiences into the heart of the ongoing AIDS

crisis in South Africa. Gandhi (1982) embodied the life of Indias great 20th

century leader. FromHollywood to Bollywood, movies make us laugh, cry, wonder, and eat popcorn.

1 But not Mrs. Potts.2 Also called chroma keying, this technique is common in TV weather forecasts. That big map the weather man isalways pointing atits not actually there.3 And a full measure of murderous rage.4 But not as much murderous rage (as yet).5 It did less well with the blue-skinned aliens.6 This resource will not speculate as to your interracial kissing.


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The two films we will explore each fit into one of these categories. WallE(2008) is at the cuttingedge of animation, and uses the trademark storytelling tools and styles ofHollywood, the mainstreamfilm industry of the United States. It looks toward a future in which the world is a wreck and robotshave lives of their own. Life Is Beautiful(1997) is a product of Italy.7 This films writer, director, andlead actor is a physical comedian, informed by the traditions of theater as well as by great Italiandirectors of the past. It borrows Italian filmmaking traditions to comment on the countrys experienceof World War II.

Though set in the future and the past, WallEand Life Is Beautifulalso cast a light on the present day.They hint at truths about society that remain constant even as the world changes.

Emily Paul

7 So is pizza margherita. If youre ever in Naples, dont miss out on yummy pizza margherita!


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I. Pixar: To Infinity and 3DA famous African8 proverb states, It takes a whole village to

raise a child.When your child is a feature film, it takes adirector, a room full of writers, and countless animators and

editors.9 When your child is a Pixar film, it takes a revolution. We

can enjoy and studyWallEtoday (not to mention laugh at theantics of a certain green ogre10) because the visionaries of Pixar

have reimagined (and reinvented!) animation over the last twentyyears.

Objectives

By the time you complete this chapter, you should be able to answer the following questions.

Which key players contributed to the computer animation revolution?

How did WallEs creative team members prepare for their career at Pixar?

How has Pixar changed animation?

When You Wish Upon a Pixar

Before Buzz Lightyear first soared to infinity and beyond,most animators doubted the value of computerizedanimation. They believed animation was too nuanced tobe done by computersthat computer-animatedcharacters could not express emotions the way hand-drawn ones could. Computer animation was fine forspaceships and special effects, but not for the characters atthe heart of a film.

In the 1970s, computer scientist Ed Catmull faced a longbattle to prove otherwise. He assembled a group oftalented researchers who shared his vision. Moving fromthe New York Institute of Technology to Lucasfilm (aproduction company founded byStar Warsproducer George Lucas) and, finally, to a spin-off namedPixar, the group and its goal remained constant.

Catmull and his team made a series of breakthroughs in imaging technology, including computer

painting and texture mapping, but they knew they needed more than technology to make computer-animated feature films. They needed artists who knew how to tell a story.

Enter a great storyteller, John Lasseter. Lasseter used Pixars technology to develop computer-animated short films. Not only were his films technological breakthroughs, but they told strongstories. Soon, his films earned accolades like the 1989 Academy Award for Best Short Film, leading to

8 And favorite Hillary Clinton.9 And interns to bring them all coffee.10 Shrek(2001) was not a Pixar film. But it was certainly inspired by Pixars new approach to animation.


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a distribution deal with Disney. Pixar was to make three computer-animated feature films, whichDisney would market and distribute.

Toy Story, the first 3D computer-animatedfeature film, premiered on July 22, 1995.Not only did the quality of animationsilence the naysayers, but Toy Story soonsurpassed Disneys The Lion King as the

worlds highest-grossing animated film. Catmulls dream had come true.

A113

WallEs writer/director Andrew Stanton trained asan animator at the California Institute of the Arts(CalArts for short) before being hired as a writeron the TV cartoon Mighty Mouse, the New

Adventures11. Pixar hired Stanton and anotheranimator, Pete Docter12, in the early 1990s to helpmake computer-animated commercials.13

Three writers are credited for WallEs screenplay:Stanton, Docter andJim Reardon. Reardon worked

with Stanton onMighty Mousebefore going on todirect more than 30 episodes of The Simpsons, ashow you will be studying in this years music guide.

CalArts was an animator factory; each year, Disney and Pixar (and their less-acclaimed rivals) hiredanimators upon their graduation. Freshman year at CalArts, everyone took a rigorous, rudimentaryanimation class in a windowless room named A113including Stanton, Docter and Reardon. As atribute to this shared experience, A113 has found its way into every Pixar feature film. In WallE, it

is the secret code ordering Auto not to return to Earth.14

The Key(frame) to Good Storytelling

At Disney, an animator is assigned acharacter, for which he or she drawsthe keyframes for an entire film.Lasseter launched a new approach atPixar, in which animators areassigned individual shotscalledkeyframesrather than characters

they follow for the entire film.A keyframe is an image of a characterin a certain position15. In traditionalhand-drawn animation, a junior animator draws the frames between the keyframes, which make the

11 Here he comes to save the day! And he will prove that crime will never pay!12 Later the director ofMonsters, Inc. and Up.13 The mouthwash Listerine and candy Life Savers were clients.14 Animators like to encode inside jokes into their work. Reportedly, every episode ofSouth Parkincludes an alien visitor.15 For instance, Taz the Tasmanian devil in mid-spin, tongue hovering 6 inches out of his mouth.

Watch it on YouTube

John Lasseters first computer-animated film with the team at Pixar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Taq9LFbcvxE

Mini-Directed Research Area: Pixar

Now part of the Walt Disney Company, Disney

Where and how was Pixar launched?

How did Steve Jobs become involved with Pixar?

How are Pixar movies made? Be sure to check outwww.pixar.com/howwedoit/index.html.

Read about the unofficial Pixar motto.

How and when did Pixar become part of the WaltDisney Company?


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character seem to move realistically onscreen. In computer animation, the computer creates those in-between frames automatically16.

Computer animators can modify keyframes by manipulating avars. Avars are the digital equivalent ofall the miniscule muscles in our body that, engaged in different combinations, allow us to move. Pixaranimators typically program at least a hundred avars onto a characters face alone.

Each element of a scene, from the

characters to the background and lighting,must be created separately. The process ofconsolidating these elements into oneframe is called rendering. It takesextraordinary computing power to render, so Pixar has over 5,000 computer processors on sitein

what they call their render farm17.

Pixar has succeeded, however, not because it renders great animation. It renders great stories.

16 Junior animators, you have been made obsolete.17 And on that farm they had an intergalactic robot, E-I-E-I-O.

Watch it on YouTube

Andrew Stanton is interviewed about WallE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85Sc92fzOiU


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II. Bots and BNL Customers:Characters in WallE

Perhaps the Borg18 would be less inclined to destroy human

civilization if they could fall in love with some Borgettes. When wecompare a person to a robot, we mean he or she is unable to thinkindependently or creatively. WallE and Eva, on the other hand, are

robots that we might be tempted, on some level, to call people.Despite their programmed directives, they change in order to make

each other (and thus themselves) happy19. In some ways, they aremore human than the humans in WallE20. In this chapter, we enter a world in which

humanity has devolved to become antisocial, while robots long for each others company.

Objectives


What are the leading traits of each character?

What is each characters story purpose?

Why does Auto have no friends?

The Basics of Character

Andrew Stanton, along with other leading writers at Pixar,has said that Robert McKees guidance informs his

screenplays. McKee is one of many popular screenwritinggurus. One of his suggestions to beginning writers: to list theadjectives that describe a given characters behavior. Eachcharacter, he says, should be assigned a leading trait.

A films characters are driven by their goals and desires,termed their story purposes. Many writers are taught storypurposes must be simple, so that an audience to identify

with them more easily. WallE has one of the most adorablestory purposes ever: to hold hands with Eva.

Wall

EWallE is a robot trash compactor living alone on anabandoned Earth. That might be boring for most creatures,but not for WallE. He is playful. He loves to dance, andfinds wonder in the smallest thingsa quality that hasprobably kept him functioning. Every other WallE robot on Earth has long since stopped working.

18 The Borg are a powerful cyborg species in the Star Trekuniverse. Their story purpose was to assimilate.19 As Barbara Streisand might have sung, Robots who need robots are the luckiest robots in the world.20

They are certainly in better shape.


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WallE watches and listens to music from the 1969 moviemusical Hello, Dolly! to combat his loneliness. He is fixatedon a scene in which the characters hold hands and sing, Thatis all that loves about. WallE likes to imitate the movie byholding his own hands, but what he really wants is to holdsomeone elses hand.

Eva

Eva is an Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator (EVE) probesent to Earth with the directive to find flora and/or fauna.

WallE is dirty and metallic, Eva sleek, clean, and plastic.Directive? is the first question she asks of WallE. Herdirective, which is also her story purpose, is her wholeidentity. It drives her actions for the first two acts of themovie. In act three, Eva meaningfully puts aside her directivein order to prioritize WallEs repair.

Eva begins as a tough character, one who follows ordersrather than thinking for herself.21 When WallE attempts tointroduce himself, she shoots at him. However, it is impliedthey are a good match when she starts dancing in the firstact.22 Eventually, WallE teaches Eva to think for herself.

The Captain

At first, the Captain wants only to do his job well, despite hisincompetence. He even turns back the clock on the shiprather than miss making his morning announcements. Whenhe learns about Earth, his story purpose becomes to lead hisshipmates there.23 He imagines that the Axioms passengers

will admire and celebrate him when they arrive on Earth.24

Like WallE, the Captain is motivated by a need to beappreciated by others.

Auto

Auto is the ships robot autopilot.He has been in control of the Axiomfor the last seven hundred years.

Centuries ago, he was ordered totake over the ship and never to allowhumans to return to Earth. Autoantagonizes the films heroes, doingall in his power to prevent Eva and WallE from returning the Axiom to Earth.

21 In other words, she is robotic.22 In a good movie, the audience is not told who the love interest is, but is instead invited to match-make.23 Maybe his real name is Starbuck.24

They like me! They really like me!

Character Leading Trait Story Purpose

WallE Romantic To hold hands with EvaEva Career-driven To deliver the plant

TheCaptain A leader To be a good ships captainAuto Obedient To follow orders


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III. Robots in Love:

WallEs Plot and Structure

When we say someone is down to earth, we mean they have

realistic expectations. In WallE, humanity has not only left theEarth, but become totally detached from reality. Instead of

noticing one another or admiring their surroundings, the humanson the Axiom stare at advertisements all day. Our robot hero and

heroine end up not only bringing humanity back down to Earthliterallybut reintroducing them to what it means to be human.

Like most Hollywood films, WallEfollows a three-act structure. Framing the films threeacts are WallEs actions in pursuit of the moment when he finally fulfills his story purpose

and holds Evas hand.

Objectives


What actions determine the act breaks?

What is the films midpoint?

Is WallE a strong protagonist?

Act One

Opening shot: space, the final frontier. The music isappropriately epic. As we descend through Earths

atmosphere, it grows as playful as our protagonist. The jolly music contrasts with the Earth that comes intoview. Piles of trash reach higher than the emptyskyscrapers. The BNL logo dominates the landscape.

The music is emanating from WallE, a trash compactorrobot who presses garbage into cubes. He discovers a hubcap.Fascinated, he adds it to his collection of human refuse25. Heis particularly captivated when he finds a plant. We see

WallE watch the characters in the movie musical Hello, Dolly!as they sing about love and hold hands.

The only other inhabitants of Earth are cockroaches. Thehumans all escaped in a BNL space ship, the Axiom, oncepollution left the Earth uninhabitable700 years ago.

One day, a spaceship lands. Its technology is far moreadvanced than that of any machine on Earth. The ship drops off a robot named EVE and departs.

25

Unfamiliar with human priorities, Wall

E throws away a diamond ring but keeps its box.

BNL

Buy and Large, or BNL, is a fictional companythat monopolizes all the services humans need.We see a BNL gas station, BNL moneyeven a

BNL President of the United States.


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Act Two, Continued

WallE and Eva return to the Axiom. Drunk with love, WallE reaches out his hands to Evabutshe is dedicated to recovering the plant.

The Captain views Evas recordings of her time on Earth, and is disheartened to learn Earth istrashed33. Seeing the recordings for the first time, Eva discovers how tenderly WallE took care of her

when she was shut down. She holds her own hands together, imagining holding hands with WallE.

Enter the films antagonist: Auto, the ships autopilot. Seven centuries ago, BNL sent Auto a secretmessage: the Axiom must never return to Earth. Auto is determined to keep the Axiom in space, butthe Captain asserts his authority and orders the plant delivered to a device called the holodetector,

which will trigger the ships return to Earth.

Auto takes control back from the captain, and Eva and WallE are hurled into the garbage airlock.

WallE is injured, but his first thought is of Eva. He has, once again, saved the plant 34, but Eva tossesit aside and changes her directive35. She reaches her hand out to WallE, literally handing him hisstory purpose, but he declines. The plant is now a priority for both of them. Once Eva understands

WallE needs to return to Earth for solar power36, they decide on a common goal: reach Earth at anycost.

Act Three

Eva and WallE burst free of the garbage airlock. They andthe misfit robots unite against Auto. The Captain wrestles

with Auto and activates the holodetector. Auto shuts downthe holodetector, but WallE body-blocks the device fromclosing, giving the Captain a chance to stand on his own twofeet for the first time37. The Captain turns Auto off, and Evaputs the plant in place.

Success! But alas, the rigor of holding the machine open wastoo much for WallE. He shuts down.

As soon as the ship returns to Earth, Eva bursts out, carrying WallE. She repairs him and refills hisbatteries. WallE reboots, only he is not the WallE Eva knew. He bears no trace of his oldpersonality and does not remember her. It is only when broken-hearted Eva reaches out to hold hishand that his personality returns.

In a 2D epilogue, we see WallE and Eva live happily ever after, rebuilding Earth with their newhuman and robot friends, hand-in-hand. In a universe where Earth is uninhabitable and humanityhas lost its desire for human contact, two robots in love have changed the course of history.

33 Well, it is also somewhat trash compacted, thanks to WallE.34 Though not yet the planet.35 Quite directly, as is appropriate for a robot. She holds out her hand and states, directive.36 Just wonderingshouldnt solar power just require being near the sun?37 Usually the phrase on ones own two feet is a figure of speech, meaning to act independently but in this case, its

literal; the Captain and all the humans on the Axiom have spent their entire lives seated.


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IV. Trash, Robots, and Love:

Themes ofWallESuppose gerbils were a menace to society. You might write a

science fiction film about a future hero who must defeat a mutantgerbil overlord. WallEwriter and director Andrew Stanton is

worried about something more abstractand insidiousthangerbils: consumerism, and the effects of technology on how

humans lead their lives. The real villain in WallEis not Auto: it isour Internet-enabled, convenience-centered way of life.

Objectives

By the time you complete this chapter, you should be able toanswer the following questions.

How do robots teach us about humanity?

How does technology distance us from each other?

Is our planet becoming overrun with trash?

How does WallEdemonstrate Hollywoods evolvingperceptions of true love?

Robots Are People, Too

[\][chao][elaoz][aarr]!

You might not know how to respond to the abovethe first statement that Kismet the robot madeall by itself. Dr. Cynthia Breazeal of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developedKismet in the 1990s. She has a vision of robots that interact with and assist humans, much like

WallE and Eva38. To that end, Breazeal, as well as other robot researchers, are learning about people.

To fulfill her vision of robots acceptedinto our homes, Dr. Breazeal believesrobots must exhibit emotional behavior.For that reason, Kismet expresses a rangeof emotions, including happiness, sadness,

anger, and surprise.39

In addition tobuilding Kismet, Breazeals team at MIT built Autom, a diet and exercise coaching robot. Automprovides lifestyle guidance, and even cheers you on, much like the beautician robot in WallE.

To build robots like Autom that can interact with us40, researchers must first study people and theirsocial traits, such as empathy. How we interpret each others eye contact, for example, shapes how thescientists program a robots eye movements.41

38 And C-3PO and R2-D2.39 I wonder if he can be programmed to become verklempt.40 And robots like Auto, that can antagonize us.41

Robots can, in other words, be taught to flirt.

Watch it on YouTube

Watch Dr. Breazeals robot Leo learn to fear Cookie Monster, acharacter from the popular childrens TV show Sesame Street:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilmDN2e_Flc&feature=related


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While Breazeal focuses on the sociability of robots, scientist Douglas Lenat works on another problem with human/computer interaction: common sense. So many concepts that are intuitive to us arebrand new to a computer. For example, a computer does notknow that people smile when they are happy42. Lenats CYCproject based in Austin, Texas has been cataloguing commonsense information, fact by fact. Since 1984, CYC has programmedapproximately six million pieces of information into its database.

Elsewhere, scientists are pursuing machine learning. Watson,the I.B.M. computer that recently competed against humancontestants on the TV game showJeopardy, built up its I.Q. bymachine learning. Watson was given many different examples ofthe same thing, like different recordings of a spoken word. Themachine identified patterns and learned to sort through them byitself.

[The idea] that robots could be living creatures is going to be hard for us, but were going to cometo accept it over the next fifty years or so, says Rodney Brooks, a former MIT robotics professor. As

we build robots with greater abilities to learn, emote and communicate, robots as self-aware as Wall

Eand Eva will cease to be science fictionperhaps within those same fifty years.

Future Friending

Facebook, Skype, iPhones, Blackberriesthese technologies are designed to facilitate human contact,but critics argue they detach us from the people around us. Judging from WallE, Andrew Stantonagrees with that opinion.

In the film, humans have grown attached to their chairs the way many of us are attached to our cellphones. The first scene that features two unnamed human beings shows them side-by-side in theirhover chairs. They talk to each other, but via computer screens, not face-to-face. Their dependence

on technology separates them.

WallE bumps into John, knocking him out of his chair.Later, WallE bumps into Mary, shutting off her screen.Mary looks in amazement at the colorful world around her. Ididnt know we had a pool! she exclaims. Only John andMary notice WallE and Eva dancing in space at the filmsmidpoint, because they are the only ones not totally absorbedin their technology. They hold hands by accident, andromance ensues. Thanks to a robots bumbling quest for love,these two humans are brought together.

Sherry Turkle, professor at MIT and author of the bookAlone Together, has studied our relationship with computersfor more than thirty years. Many of us, she argues, usetechnologies such as Facebook and cell phones to combat the threat of loneliness, constantly lookingfor reassurance that others are thinking of us. We may have, on some level, lost the capacity to bealone.43

42 Or that alpacas should make you smile in the first place.43 It is hard to say whether social media has merely given us access to a level of connectivity and attention we always

longed for, or has created a new need for this connectivity and attention.


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The time has come, Turkle argues, to be more mindful of our relationship with technologyto takea step back and ask what we want that relationship to be. WallEcan be seen as a playful cautionarytale with a similar message. If we depend upon technology too much, we may come to a point when

we forget how to be human.

Trash Planet

Andrew Stanton says he never intended to make a politicalstatement through WallE. But, by depicting a worldoverwhelmed with trash, the film inevitably comments upona contentious political issue: the future of the environment.Indeed, an early working title for WallEwas Trash Planet.

Stanton is not alone in imagining we might allowconsumption to get out of hand, stripping the planet ofresources. A popular YouTube video, The Story of Stuff,tracks the journey of the objects we buy from theirmanufacturing out of natural resources to their sale at stores

and on to their final rest in giant landfills. It suggests that, ifthe whole world consumed as much as just the United Statesdoes, we would need three to five planet Earths to provide thenecessary resources. We would quickly exhaust the planet

just like the humans in WallEdid.

Plastic bottles, toys, old cell phonesgarbage patches larger than somecountries44 float in almost every ocean.Marine researcher Charles Moore tookpart in a scientific expedition to research

the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patchin 2008. He reports, There is a Texas-size section of the Pacific Ocean that isirretrievably clogged with garbage and it

will never go away.

Even the look of Earth from space is changinga fact reflected in WallE. Within the first twominutes of the film, the camera descends from orbit to Earth through a brown haze. In recent years,NASA has announced the presence of a Giant Brown Cloud over South Asia and the Indian Ocean.NASA describes it as a mixed-particle hazeessentially, pollution. Studies have shown the Cloud tobe reducing rainfall and hindering agriculture.

WallE ends with a montage showing humans cleaningup the Earth and rediscovering their agricultural skills.Our piles of trash may continue to grow, but the filmleaves us with hope for a cleaner world ahead. Hopefully

we can avoid the in-between steps.

44

Singapore, were looking at you. Sorry!

Debate It

Resolved: That Trash Planet would have been just as good a titleas WallEfor the film.

Watch it on YouTube

The Story of Stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8

Debate it!

Resolved: That Andrew Stantons vision of a trashplanet is prophetic.


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Love and Compromise

In the movie, the human race has lost its way45. People have forgotten how to walk or even standupright46. They hardly look directly at each other anymore. Not one has touched the surface of aplanet for 700 years. The implication is that humans have forgotten how to fully engage in life. Theylive like babies, absorbed with whatever is placed directly in front of them. WallE is a robot, who haslearned about love from Hello, Dolly!, a relic of humanitys past. As a messenger from the past,

Wall

E the robot teaches the Captain and the Axiom passengers about themselves. His quest ends upreminding the humans about lovemost specifically, in the story of John and Mary, but also morebroadly.

WallE learns from his Hello, Dolly!video that love involvesholding hands. In Hello, Dolly!, the leading man falls in love

with the leading lady in a single day. That is all that lovesabout, they sing as they hold hands. Audiences, says AndrewStanton, have grown too cynical to accept this kind ofinnocent, fairy tale love. I wanted to wallow in that innocent

wonder and joy that you could get out of a love story in a

1950s musical, said Stanton, but I feel theres no way theworld would accept that in todays society.

As a result, he dressed the story up with modern and futuristicdetails. Stanton created a de-humanizing, dystopian world inopposition to the lead charactersinnocent love.

WallE may live in a desolate, lonelyplace, but he can love. He dreams ofaffectionate contact. Because peoplestopped loving each other, the film

implies, the world corroded. Stantonmirrors WallEs hope for love inthe little green plant that grows onthe rubbish. It constitutes hope forthe Earth.

The character of Eva also fulfills a modern audiences expectations for a female lead. She is a no-nonsense, career woman focused on her directive. Though more modern than a fairy tale princess,Eva develops the kind of innocent love featured in films like Hello, Dolly!. By the third act, WallEhas helped her realize her directive is not as important as love. She too wants to hold hands.

Andrew Stanton hoped that by contrasting the old-fashioned and the new-fangledthe fertile andthe infertilehe would give his audience permission to let their guard down, discard cynicism, andcelebrate the joy of the genre.

45 But not its appetite.46

They have evolved, or devolved, into Homo lazyus.

Mini-Directed Research Area: Luxo Jr.

Luxo Jr. was the short film that started it all for Pixar, andthe company honors its beginnings by using the films maincharacter in its logo. Directed by John Lasseter andcompleted in 1986, Luxo Jr. tells a complete story in lessthan two minutes.

Watch Pixars famous short here: http://tinyurl.com/d7z9u4f

Discuss the three-act structure of the short film and thecharacters story purposes. Then do the same with 1988Oscar Winner, Tin Toy: http://tinyurl.com/7lhpvel


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V. Producing Life is Beautiful:From the Circus to the Oscar Stage

I want to kiss everybody! Thats Roberto-Benigni-speak forthank you. After jumping on the backs of the seats in the

theater to reach the stage and accept his Academy Award, Benignigrew a bit more sober, quoting his favorite poets and dedicating

his film to those who died in the Holocaust. Then, he told theaudience he would like to be like Zeus, kidnap them, and makepassionate love to them all.47 That was in 1999. In 2000, when

Benigni was a presenter at the Oscars, host Billy Crystal took the precaution of bringing anet to capture him in case he went crazy.

Objectives

By the time you complete this chapter, you should be able toanswer the following questions:

What has shaped Roberto Benignis work?

What is one of the most influential Italian films?

From what real life experiences did Benigni draw?

Influences

When Roberto Benigni was 13 or 14, living near Prato, Italy,he worked in a circus as a magicians assistant. In return for

being hypnotized and set on fire, the circus folk taught himpantomime and gymnastics. A stronger influence on Benigni

were the circuss so-calledpoeti a braccio.

The poeti a braccio were Italian poet-performers whoimprovised eight-line, hendecasyllabic poems (containingeleven syllables per line). They would compete against oneanother, each improvising a response to the previous poetusing his or her opponents rhyme scheme.48

Roberto immersed himself in this tradition, which was rich with references to great figures in Italian literature, such asDante and Ariosto. This, and a love of reading, helpedBenigni develop an excellent understanding of literature inspite of little formal education. Today, he still engages inpoetry battles with novelist and scholar Umberto Eco.

Circus verse aside, Benigni did not intend to become a poet.After falling in love with the films of the English silent movie

47 Mythological pick up lines. Smooth.48

This tradition poses a challenge that might bring even Lil Wayne to his knees.


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star Charlie Chaplin, he set his eyes on becoming a comedian. Benigni says he was greatly influencedby Chaplins physical humor.49

Influences

In the 1970s, Benigni developed his entertaining skillsworking in the theaters of Rome and the Italian countryside.

He travelled Tuscany with a troupe of actors, improvisingfake political meetings that informed his later work.

In his late 20s, Benigni apprenticed with one of Italysgreatest filmmakers, Cesare Zavattini, best known for hiscontributions to the 1948 classic The Bicycle Thief. In 1989,Benigni acted in Federico Fellinis final film, La Voce dellaLuna. From Fellini, Benigni learned a formalistic (structure-based) approach to cinema. He returned to this structure inLife Is Beautiful.

The Beautiful Life ofLife Is Beautiful

Life Is Beautifulis the brain child of writer/director Benigni,who co-wrote the film with Vicenzo Cerami. Benigni first worked with Cerami when acting for the famous Italiandirector Pier Paolo Pasolini. Benigni and Cerami wrotetogether for the first time on the film The Little Devil in1988.

For Life is Beautiful, Benigni was inspired by his fathersstories of being interned in a Nazi labor camplike a concentration camp, but less focused on killing.The Benignis are not Jewish, but Luigi Benigni was sent to a labor camp because he was an Italian

soldier. Luigi spared his son the horrible details, not wanting to frighten him.

Critics say the film marks Benignismaturation as an artist. He admits it isunlike any of his previous films. Though acomedy50 about the Holocaust was seen asrisky by his movie-making peers, it met

with great success. Life Is Beautiful won the Grand Prix at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, andbrought Benigni the Oscar for Best Actor and Best Foreign Language Film in 1999.51

Benignis two films since, the very costly

Pinocchio (2002) and a love story setduring the Iraq War, The Tiger and theSnow (2005), have not enjoyed nearly asmuch critical or commercial success.

Perhaps they were not beautiful enough.52

49 He may also reference Greek gods and offer to make love to you.50 Because of tragic events within the film, it can be called a tragicomedy.51 The film also won an Oscar for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score.52

Or perhaps they should have featured three-dimensional computer-animated aliens.

Watch it on YouTube

Benigni at the Oscars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cTR6fk8frs&feature=relmfu

Watch it on YouTube

Benigni at the Oscars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cTR6fk8frs&feature=relmfu


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VI. Characters in Life Is

Beautiful

Tis but a scratch, claims Mercutio in Shakespeares play

Romeo and Juliet, referring to his fatal wound.

53

He refuses toaccept the seriousness of his situation. Entire populationssometimes claim that a growing problem in their midst is just ascratch when, in fact, terrible changes are afoot. Life Is Beautiful

suggests that being a hero means facing up to reality. Bravery is notacting in ignorance of danger; it is acting despite it.

Objectives


Which characters become aware of the worlds dangers, and which do not? What is Guidos moment of crisis, and how does he respond?

Guido

Guido is an educated Italian Jew living at the time of theHolocaust. He uses his sense of humor to protect his familyfrom the growing atrocities around them. At first, Guidofails or refuses to recognize the looming conflict in Italy.What could possibly happen to me? he asks. Only whenGuido sees a pile of human bodies in the concentration

camp can he can no longer convince himself everythingoreven anythingis all right. The realization spurs him toattempt to rescue his family. German soldiers murder Guidoshortly before the camp is liberatedbut his son, whom heprotected against all odds, survives. The film demonstratesthe protective power of humor and love.

Dora

Dora begins the film as a teacher engaged to a Fascist,Rodolfo. She recognizes her fiancs views are horribly

wrong and asks her prince, Guido, to take her away fromhim. He does so gladly. Dora and Guidos private world ofdomestic bliss cannot keep hatred at bay; Nazis take Doras

Jewish family. They would allow her to remain behind,because she is not Jewish, but she chooses to follow herhusband and son to the concentration camp.

53

The Black Knight inMonty Python and the Holy Grailrepeats this phrase, though quite ironically.


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Joshua

Joshua is Guido and Doras five-year-old son, whom Guidoshields from the horrors all around him. We see that he deals

with the ordeal as an adult when we learn that a full-grownJoshua narrates the film.

EliseoEliseo is Guidos uncle. Unlike most of the characters, he seesthe Holocaust coming. He tries to warn Guido when hishorse is vandalized, but to no avail. Eliseo perishes in a gaschamber in the concentration camp, but retains his goodnature to the end, even in the face of unspeakable horror.

Dr. Lessing

Dr. Lessing loses sleep over riddles, but never concernshimself with the suffering of the Jews. He does not recognize

that the Nazis are committing atrocities. Lessing is an adult ina position of power, but does not use his status to help hisfriend, Guido or anyone else.

Nazis are the films antagonists, but they do not acknowledgeGuido as an individual. Dr. Lessing is Guidos friend, makinghim a more personal antagonist. His portrayal speaks to oneof the films lasting criticismsof people who refuse toacknowledge the dangerous developments around them.


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VII. La Vita Organized:

Plot and StructureFrom Ash Ketchum vs. Team Rocket to the black-and-white

ballerinas ofBlack Swan, TV and movies often show life as abalance between good and bad, light and darkness. Life Is

Beautifulbegins in the lightin the sunshine of the Italiancountryside. The films color palette turns gray in the second half

of the film, as darkness grows more evident. Amid the comediclightness of the films first half, there is racism. In the grayness of the concentration camp,

there is humor and love.

Objectives


How does the protagonist, Guido, change?

What is the tone of the film?

How is the film structured?

Act One

This is a simple story, begins the film,but not an easy one to tell. We see aman who holds a child walking through

blue mist. This image will return later inthe film.

The tone shifts. We emerge into theItalian sunlight of 1939. On a countrydrive, Guido and his friend Orestediscover their brakes are broken. Weregoing to die! they exclaim as they bumblethrough the countryside. They careenthrough a crowd of villagers as Guido

waves for them to get out of the way. The

villagers mistake his wave for the Fascistsalute. Guido realizes the villagers mistakeas the title appears on screen. Thismoment predicts the tone of the film:funny yet ominous.

When the men stop to repair the car,Guido happens upon a teenage girl. I ama prince, he claims. Suddenly, a prettylady falls onto him from a barn window.

Do you speak movie?

Every line of work comes with its own language, terms that

everyone in the business understands. To make it in Hollywood, youwill need to know these terms:

Sequence: a series of shots or scenes functioning as anarrative unit, like a chapter in a book. Often a sequencetakes place in a single location or addresses a singlesubject. The part of Life is Beautifulthat takes place atDoras engagement party is a sequence.

Running gag: when a joke is used throughout a movie, itis called a running gag. Running gags should escalateeach time they are used. Guido stealing the hat belongingto Orestes father is a running gag.

To pay off : filmmakers sometimes place information intothe story early on and later use it in an entertaining way.When that entertaining moment arrives, the filmmaker ispaying that information off. Guido sees a man shout to awoman named Mary, asking her to throw him a key. Thatis paid off when Guido tells Dora the Mother Mary willgrant him the key to her heart. He shouts to Mary for thekey, and she throws it down.

Montage: a series of shots edited together, usually toshow the passage of time. In WallE, the scene in whichWallE looks after the dormant Eva is a montage.


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He breaks her fall, and the lady instantly becomes his principessahis princess.

Guido travels to Rome to make a living. His first stop is his uncles hotel, where he will work as a waiter. Dr. Lessing becomes Guidos best customer, loving to trade riddles with him. A genius,Lessing even calls Guido. Guido is, indeed, a man of letters, and dreams of opening a bookshop. Heapplies for permission through official channels, but the appropriate bureaucrat, Rodolfo, refuses tobe bothered. Slapstick humor ensues, leaving Rodolfo dizzy and covered in egg yolk.

Guidos professional goals do not distract him from his principessa. After visiting her several times,Guido follows her to the opera, where she is out with Rodolfo.54 Guido steals a moment with her. Asequence followstheir first date. It pays off several running gags, including Dr. Lessings riddles.

Act Two

There are three more sequences before we reach the films midpoint. The first is Doras engagementparty in anticipation of her marriage to Rodolfo.

Before the party, the horse belonging to Guidos Uncle Leos is painted with the words, Warning: Jewish horse. Uncle Eliseo warns Guido of the growingdanger to Jews.

What could possibly happen to me? Guido responds, andcontinues telling jokes as usual.

At the party, Dora meets Guido under the table and askshim to take her away from Rodolfo. Guido seizes themoment: he rides in on the vandalized horse and spirits heraway55 into the night. He has won his principessa at last.

The next sequence shows us Guidos happy family life. Fiveyears later, he has his bookshop and remains as humorous as

ever in the face of mounting hostility towards the Jews ofItaly. Now, his comedy is for the sake of both Dora andtheir five-year-old son Joshua.

The third sequence begins the familys change in fortune.Dora discovers that Guido, Uncle Eliseo, and Joshua havebeen taken away because they are Jewish. She could chooseto remain in Rome, but boards the German train holdingher family.

WallE follows Robert McKees advice and structures itsstory around events. To find the events that mark Life is

Beautifuls structure, one must find the climax of each sequence: Guido steals Dora on a horse, Guidoand his family are taken away, and Dora joins her family on the German train.

Midpoint

The train carries the family to a concentration camp. The elderly and women are separated from themen, and Guido and Joshua are sent to the mens quarters. The midpoint in Life Is Beautiful

54 What could she see in him?55 But not into a mysterious, animated world of suburban Japanese monsters.


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marks a complete change in setting and tonefrom relative bliss and innocence in Rome to thehorrors of a Nazi concentration camp.

Act Two Continued

Guido begins an elaborate deception to keep Joshua from despairing. He tells his son that their wholeexperience in the concentration camp is just a game, and that the first person to earn a thousandpoints will win a military tank. He explains the rules: Joshua will lose points if he is afraid, cries, orasks for food.

In the next sequence, Uncle Eliseo is killed, and Joshua survives only because of his contempt forbathing. Now, little Joshua must hide from the Nazis, because if they know he is still alive, they willsurely kill him. Guido remains playful, against all odds. He commandeers the loud speaker to letDora know her family is safe: Buon giorno, principessa!

Dr. Lessing turns out to be the concentration campsdoctor. With hope in his eye, Guido engages the doctor in adiscussion of riddles. After Dr. Lessing recommends Guidofor the relatively easy job of waiter, Guido believes his

troubles will soon end. But Dr. Lessing is interested only inriddles. He knows what is happening to the Jewish people,but does not care enough, or is not brave enough, to take astand against the atrocities or to save Guido.

We are brought back to the image at the top of the film.When Guido carries his son back to the mens quarters, heloses his way in the fog and finds a pile of dead bodies.

Joshua does not see it, but Guido can no longer avoidacknowledging how terribly wrong the world has gone.

Act ThreeThe war is over, and the Nazis are fleeing and massacringprisoners in a panicpossibly to eliminate eyewitnesses totheir atrocities. Guido hides Joshua in an iron box, andthen infiltrates the womens quarters, looking for Dora. TheGermans capture Guido and force him, at gunpoint, past

Joshuas hiding place. Guido knows he is on his way to die,but performs a silly goose step so Joshua will not be afraidand scream. Guido is then shot dead off-camera.

Dawn comes, and the Nazis are gone. Joshua emerges in

time to see an American tank arrive. A tank! Joshua believeshe has won the game. The Americans in the tank even takehim for a ride. This is my story, we hear in voiceover asthe child is reunited with his mother. This is the sacrificemy father made.


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VIII. Horror and Humor:

Themes ofLife Is BeautifulAt the Oscars, Benigni quipped, thanking his parents for the

greatest gift of all: poverty. Benigni uses humor to put hardships

in perspective, allowing people to see that, even when life is hard, itcan be beautiful. In Life Is Beautiful, Benigni puts this concept tothe test, asking us whether humor and beauty can hold up against

the absolute horrors of the Holocaust. At the same time, he impliesthat there is a fine line between making light of a situation and

denying it. We can laugh and love in the face of danger, but we must recognize the dangerif we can.

Objectives


Why didnt people predict the horrors of the Holocaust?

What is the films model of resistance?

How is physicality used in the film?

Why does Benigni choose a fabulist approach?

What makes Guido a trickster?

Inconceivable!56

It is hard to wrap ones mindaround horrors as great as thoseof the Holocaust. Most Italiansof the late 1930s and early 1940s

were unaware of the growingdangers fascism posed to the

Jewish people. Guido begins thefilm like most Italian Jews of thelate 1930s. The racial lawsforbidding Jews from receivingan education or working as

teachers had been in effect since 1938, but genocide was still far from peoples minds. Italian newswas censored at the time, and many did not believe the news they heard from other countries. Theybelieved it to be propaganda. The average Italian did not know about concentration camps. Manyshared Guidos attitude, What could they possibly do to me?

Where are they taking us? Guido asks his Uncle Eliseo inside a Nazi truck. Even in enemy hands,Guido is not aware of the horrors ahead. Eliseo has understood the dangers from the beginning. Hetried to warn Guido when the horse was vandalized. As the only character in the film aware of the

56 No more rhymes now, I mean it. Anybody want a peanut?

Mini-Directed Research Area: Mussolini and Anti-Semitism

Italian Fascism was not inherently anti-Semitic. At first therewere even Jewish Fascists. After Il Duce (Mussolini) gainedpower in 1922 and befriended Germany in the 1930s, heintroduced anti-Semitic policies gradually.

Read this brief history of Mussolini: www.tinyurl.com/7p4e4q8

Feel free to explore other sources as well. Discuss as a team: didthe slow development of Mussolinis anti-Semitism contributeto Guidos navet in the first half of the film?


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potential danger early on, Eliseo serves as a guide. In the first act, he explains to Guido that God is aservant. He serves man and is not a servant to man, meaning that God is no puppet master and manis ultimately responsible for himself.

Benigni has said Joshua is more aware of the reality of theconcentration camp than his father believes. He points to thescene where Joshua instinctively recognizes his grandmothereven though they have never met. In another scene, Joshua hasheard men talk about the camps horrors. Employing reversepsychology, Guido pretends to forfeit the game, but, ultimately,

Joshua chooses to accept it. Not only is it a more manageableversion of reality, in a way it makes more sense than the truth.

Dr. Lessing knows the truth, but refuses to recognize its horror.The only tragedy he experiences is his inability to answer ariddleone Benigni has stated is pure nonsense. Theimplication is that the horrors of the Holocaust are alsoinconceivable.

Guido fully realizes the barbarity of the Holocaust when he seesthe mountain of cadavers. As the hero of our filmthe princeof our fableGuido rises to meet the responsibility inherent inthis understanding. He runs throughout the camp to gather his family, and, when he knows he isabout to die, he performs his most heroic deed: he clowns. Understanding the horror but continuingto act with hope and kindness is this films definition of heroism.

Riddle Answer Theme

The bigger it is; the less you see of it. Obscurity Understanding

When you say my name, Im no longer there. Silence Silence

Fat, fat, ugly, ugly, all yellow in reality. If you ask me what I am, I answer,cheep, cheep, cheep. Walking along, I go, poo poo. Who am I?

No answer.It is nonsense.

Understanding

Silence and Goodness as Power

What could a Jew do at the barrel of a Nazi gun? Rubino Romeo Salmoni wrote a memoir of his timein Auschwitz called In the End, I Beat Hitler. Salmoni wrote that, by surviving the Auschwitzconcentration camp and leading a beautiful life, he ruined Hitlers plan for him. Life Is Beautifulsimilarly salutes the dignity of silent resistance.

The flipside of this dignity is the futility of physical confrontation. When Guido hides his son in a

box and runs around the camp looking for Dora, the soldiers capture him, and there is nothing hecan do to fend off the soldier who kills him. Uncle Eliseo finds himself similarly helpless in the gaschamber. His resistance comes in the form of compassion: he helps a Nazi who trips. We then see aclose-up of the soldiers face. Though she remains firm, she is clearly affected by Eliseos kindness. AsEliseo says to Guido in the first act, Silence is the most powerful cry. The soldier knows she isparticipating in something terrible.

Eliseos compassion shows he retains his belief in the better nature of man. In a world governed by


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death, it is almost impossible to stay alive. The way to resist is passive: by being a good person andhaving faithby surviving as long as possible with your soul untainted. Even though Eliseo dies, hekeeps his good nature to the end. His brave silence speaks louder than genocide.

Life Is Beautiful and Funny-----Against all Odds

Russian leader Leon Trotsky was awaiting his inevitableexecution in Mexico in 1940 when he saw his wife in thegarden, and wrote that, in spite of it all, life is beautiful.This quote has been cited as the inspiration for the filmstitle. Life Is Beautifulaffirms the value and beauty of life inthe face of unspeakable discrimination and mass murder.

Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers asserted certain lives were worth less than othersor simply worthless. Hitler rankedthe races of the world as he saw them. Highest ranked was hisown so-called Aryan race57. In the middle of the list were the

Japanese, having been given credit for assimilating Aryantechnology. At the bottom of the list were the Jews. Nazis

accused Jews of living at the expense of others, and associatedthem with ill health and filth. People with health problems

joined the Jews at the bottom of the list, a point echoed inthe school principals math problem: cripples, lunatics andepileptics cost the state an average of 4 marks a day. If all300,000 of these patients were killed, how much money would the state save? On the surface, it ishard to see how life could be beautiful or funny in the face of such dangerous bigotry.

Guidos humor, especially his physical comedy, subverts these racist attitudes. When the principalmistakes Guido for the Fascist Inspector, she asks him to demonstrate the superiority of the Aryanracea great irony, as he is Jewish. Guido has already ruined the effect of the Fascist sash by

wrapping it between his legs. Now Guido stands on a desk and strips. Where could you find onemore beautiful than me? He claims his pale, scrawny body to be the model of perfection.

Guidos last stand at the end of the film, goose-stepping past Joshuas hiding place, is again physicalcomedy. Even though humor cannot save him from death, it conveys the same message as the sceneat the school: it is possible to laugh amid great injustice. Enjoying life when others want to destroyyou is a form of subversion and revenge. Guidos death is the focal tragedy of the film, yet is followedby the life-affirming defeat of the Nazis and beautiful reunion of his wife and son. The protagonistdies, but love lives; life is beautiful, even in the wake of loss.

In Life Is Beautiful, Guidos feeble body is beautiful. Art is beautiful. The love of ones family is

beautiful. To think anyone or any part of life is not beautiful is the real joke.

The Trickster

Elmer Fudd never nabs his wascally wabbit. Captain Jack Sparrow disappears in a conversation withtwo soldiers. They turn around, and he is on their boat. Orestes father turns around to find thatGuido has stolen his hat again. Bugs Bunny, Captain Jack and Guido are all classic tricksters. Life IsBeautifuldemonstrates the vital role tricksters and their comedy play at the worst of times.

57 How convenient.

Guido represents total liberty, the sparkle

and shine in life.Roberto Benigni


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Christopher Vogler, author ofThe Writers Journey, writes that tricksters draw attention to imbalanceand absurdity. By taking on the role of a fascist inspector Guido deflates racist science. To claim thesuperiority of one persons ear or a bellybutton over anothers is absurd, as Guido demonstrates. Nospiders or Visigoths58! He declares, commenting upon the fascist rule allowing no Jews or dogs.

Comedy is not usually thought the cultural equal ofdrama. Benigni attributed the doubts people had abouthis film to this common prejudice against comediansyet comedians know that, for a joke to be funny, it mustring true. Comedy makes light of reality, but oftenilluminates it as well as or better than drama does. AsBenigni tells it, Sometimes only clowns can reach thesummit of tragedy.59

Once Upon a Time

Blue Beard is a fairy tale villain who murders his wives. The Pied Piper makes all the children in thetown of Hamelin disappear. The troll in The Three Billy Goats Gruff eats those who try to cross hisbridge. These villains are purely evil. Whether or not it is realistic for someone to be pure evil, we

accept it in the context of a fairy tale. In the case of Life Is Beautiful, evil comes in the form of theNazis. Benigni calls Life Is Beautifula realistic fable. He uses the hyper-reality of a fable to tell adifficult storyone that would be much harder to watch without exaggeration and romance.

From his apprenticeship with Cesare Zavattini, Benigniacquired a love of fables. Federico Fellini is reported tohave called Benigni a friend of monsters, princesses andfrogs. In the beginning ofLife Is Beautiful, Benigni hints

we are in the world of a fable. Guido calls himself a princeand Dora his princess. He rides in on a white horse60 tosave her from the wicked bureaucrat, Rodolfo.

The film also has an improbable storyline. Knowing theHolocaust was a delicate topic, Benigni consultedMarcello Pezzetti of the Contemporary JewishDocumentation Center. Pezzetti pointed out that the story was not realistic. In the real world, Joshua

would never have survived the first day at the concentration camp. The relatively easy train ride to thecamp is similarly a nicer version of reality.

Pezzetti acknowledged that, Life Is Beautifulwas a fable at heart. Benigni and Cerami took Pezzettisfeedback and chose to limit the films realism. The camp is made of brick instead of the morehistorically accurate wood. The pile of cadavers Guido sees at the end of Act Two is intended to look

fake. We experience horrors that really did happen, but through the lens of a once upon a time.We have already discussed the difficulty Guido has comprehending the evil he faces, and how thatreflects the experience Italians had in the 1940s. When reality and common sense defy the existenceof such great evil, the fairy tale genrewith its absolute, irredeemable villainsbecomes a perfect fit.

58 The Visigoths were an ancient Christian people. Its like saying, No ancient Romans!59 The clowns will probably throw water balloons off the summit to splash the dramatic actors standing below.60 Eliseos horse is named Robin Hood, after a character of romantic legend.

[Artists] are like miners who pullthings out, pieces of coal or pieces of

gold deep within us that we havenever seen before that frighten us,

truly frighten us.

Roberto Benigni

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Uncle Eliseo boasts that Giuseppe Garibaldi oncestayed in his home. In the 1800s, the fractured

Italian states fought among themselves toachieve an ideal, independent, and unified Italy.

Garibaldi was a great hero of this struggle,having accomplished, among other feats, taking

Sicily from France. Since then, Italians haverevered him as a hero. Even the Fascists claimed

him as one of their own.


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ArrivederciIf conquering aliens had only movies to teach them about life on

Earth, theyd learn a good deal of human history. They couldlearn about the Holocaust from Life is Beautifuland about ancient

Rome from Gladiator61. They could learn about the war in Iraqfrom The Hurt Locker, and about Wizard-Muggle relations from

Harry Potter.

But, mostly, they would experience the power and production values ofthe human imaginationbecause even the most straightforward

documentary embodies the vision of its maker.

Weve seen howLife is Beautifulreimagines history to bring out theheroism of dignity and humor; it is

hard to watch Guidos goose steps without feeling goose bumps. Hissingular purpose, his certaincourage: is there a medium otherthan film that could capture themso vividly? The film is an eloquent

warning, a tragedy, a comedy, andan inspirational taleall at once.

In WallE the present day isreimagined as a sort of future history; the film cautions against consumerism and computerism, but

it does so byshowingus where they could lead, not telling us. Again, it is one thing to read about fatlonely people on hover chairs and the ruined Earth they left behind; it is another to see it animatedbefore us.

Some films overtly aim to influence history. Al Gores 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth iscredited, for example, with raising global awareness of climate change. WallEand Life is Beautifulmay not have been created specifically to influence global policybut their impact on the worldcould be even more varied, and just as deep.

61 They would certainly come away with a very violent vision of Italy.

Mini-Directed Research Area: The Real Wall-E

A real-life trash-collecting robot now roams the streets of

Italy. Check it out at http://inhabitat.com/real-life-wall-e-recycling-robot-takes-to-the-streets-of-italy/ andhttp://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/042110-recycling-robots. Then, discuss with yourteam: are we headed for a future in which robots clean upafter us? Would that be a good thing?

Debate It

WallE would be a more influential film if it were live action, not animated.


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2011.

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Bicks, Michael, dir. Nova: Smartest Machine on Earth. Little Bay Pictures, LLC, 11 February 2011. Web. 1 December 2011.Breazeal, Cynthia. Cynthia Breazeal: The Rise of Personal Robots. Ted: Ideas Worth Spreading. February 2011. Web. 23 November 2011.

Brooks, Rodney. Rodney Brooks Says Robots Will Invade Our Lives. Ted: Ideas Worth Spreading. September 2008. Web. 23 November2011.

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Celli, Carlo. The Divine Comic: The Cinema of Roberto Benigni. Filmmakers Series 85. Boston: The Scarecrow Press, 2001.

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History. Pixar. 1986-2011. Web. 22 December 2011.

Hoshaw, Lindsey. Afloat in the Ocean, Expanding Islands of Trash. The New York Times. 9 November 2009. Web. 29 November 2011.

How We Do It. Pixar. 1995-2011. Web. 22 December 2011.

Kubric, Stanley. Interview with Gelmis, Joseph. An Interview with Stanley Kubric (1969). Visual-memory.co.uk. Web. 3 January 2012.

McIntosh, Shannon, dir. Making Life Beautiful. Life Is Beautiful [La Vita Bella]. Miramax, 1999.

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About the AuthorEmily Paul has recently returned from living for two years in Singapore,

where she earned her MFA in dramatic writing from the New YorkUniversity Tisch School of the Arts Asia. The subjects of her scriptsinclude singing zombies and talking spiders. In real life, she can juggle

and sculpt balloon animals, making her the hit at a partyassuming theparty is populated mostly by three year-olds. Emily has also worked asan ESL teacher.

About the EditorTania Asnes has never been to outer space, but she did once venture toItaly driving there from Paris, during which time she discovered thatthe brakes of a Chrysler Sebring convertible are prone to failure afterspeeding up and down the Swiss Alps for several hours. A senior writer,curriculum editor, and alpaca priestess for DemiDec, Tania also worksas a professional actress.

Tania recently collaborated with Daniel to outline a story involvingzombies and Thai tofu duck.

About the Alpaca-in-ChiefDaniel Berdichevsky did not always want to be a professionalnerdthat happened by accident62. Instead, he hoped to write thesongs for animated Disney feature films63. He therefore laments that

Wall-E and Eva never sing a duet as they fall in love; he would evenhave been all right with a spoof songsay, A Whole Old World, orBeauty and the Bot.

Daniel once had an up-close-and-personal experience with a TrashPlanetrunning through a landfill in Azerbaijan in his suit. He

subsequently retired the suit. The Benigni-esque sequence leading to this episode of physical comedycan, unfortunately, be observed onYouTube.

You can also find Daniel on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/dan.berd.

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