There was humour, already, in the holocaust: the humour of the SS. There
is humour, playfulness, pleasure in the activities of the most barbarous
torturers: atrocity is funny, a game - to them at least. Sadists and
bullies think that sadism and bullying are fun.

One problem, then, with humour in relation to atrocity is that it may be
complicit with the humour of the perpetrators. The Nazis thought it was
funny to falsify, in certain ways, the perceptions of the people they
murdered - to represent the gas chambers as de-lousing facilities, for
instance. Benigni represents telling lies about murder as a creative
activity necessary for survival: "you can't handle the truth", as Jack
Nicholson once declared.

The film sanitises - de-louses - the holocaust, allowing the audience a
brief glimpse of a heap of bodies - seen through the parting mists as
the Benigni character loses his way - as a framed, fetishised emblem of
the Real around which the rest of the film casts a protecting veil of
cinematic narrative. The message to the film's audience is that creative
misreadings, the trickery of the "trickster" character Benigni
represents, are necessary to defend us from being paralysed by horror:
we need to be persuaded to believe that "life is beautiful" in order to
go on living, and it is moral and heroic to practice (comic) deception
in order to achieve this.

I think that if one is made uncomfortable by the notion that what is
"true" is simply that which is "good in the way of belief", then this
film will do nothing to relieve that discomfort. The "trickster" figure
occupies the same position vis a vis reality as Orwell's O'Brien: he
celebrates his own power to falsify the real in the name of a higher
good (survival and optimism in Benigni's case, totalitarian domination
in O'Brien's). Watching "Life is Beautiful" is like being persuaded to
side with O'Brien because, after all, one really *does* love Big Brother
(or Big Mother, as the film concludes. Nothing is more false in "Life is
Beautiful" than its screwing around with gender, according to my
colleague Jay Johnson. Children in the camps were segregated with their
mothers; both were then gassed).

So far as the "postmodern" is concerned, I can only recommend Lyotard's
_The Differend_, which can be read as arguing for a postmodern
conception of justice in the face of a loss of epistemic certainty.
Holocaust deniers have to silence the accounts of witnesses, of true
"survivors". I think Benigni takes some damnable liberties with those
same accounts. One can protest against the injustice of this without
having to believe in the absolute validity of survivors' "stories". In
fact, one has to do just this, since the validity of survivors' accounts
is never straightforwardly guaranteed: holocaust deniers exploit this
fact, and accuse their opponents of maintaining untenable certitudes -
e.g. David Irving's claim that he is merely "questioning" the holocaust,
with its insinuation that others are "unquestioning".

Because I'm broadly in favour of postmodernism, and broadly against
"Life is Beautiful", I'd like to raise - and wag - a warning finger
against too readily identifying the latter as a manifestation of the
former. Any philosophy of which Benigni's film is any sort of a
manifestation is bunk, as far as I'm concerned...

- Dom

Erminia Passannanti wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> did you watch last year Benigni's film: La vita e bella?
> I am interested to know your opinion as to what extent it is possoble and
> acceptable - in the post-modern era  to treat to mak
> the Holocaust the subject of humorism, and how you received the author's
> message.
> Any indication would be most welcome,
>
> Erminia
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: David Kennedy <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 11:44 AM
> Subject: Re: thoghtless behaviour
>
> > Here, here! Makes you wonder if beatrice is really krupoetry.
> > Cheers
> > David
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: 18 April 2000 09:31
> > Subject: thoghtless behaviour
> >
> >
> > >& there are poets who don't want to receive large attachments to email -
> > >please don't do that again
> > >
> > >L
> > >
> > >
> > >----- Original Message -----
> > >From: "beatrice alighieri" <[log in to unmask]>
> > >To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > >Sent: 18 April 2000 04:37
> > >Subject: Re: subsidy culture/Divine Comedy
> > >
> > >
> > >| Can I speak?
> > >| There are poets beyond the see - they are
> > >| in touch with you and can read all your mail.
> > >| This is legimitate.
> > >| We have wide-opened ears.
> > >| Please, be communicative!
> > >|
> > >| Bibi
> > >|
> > >| --- Viv Kitson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > >| > Martin - You're right, of course, about "fatuous
> > >| > ecstasies anent Beatrice
> > >| > Alighieri"...although I would have postulated my
> > >| > position as "simulated
> > >| > ecstasies". As other members of this list have
> > >| > frequently commented, irony
> > >| > does not - quite obviously - translate to email
> > >| > communication. Or, to quote
> > >| > Iggy Pop, "I'm bored, I'm the Chairman of the
> > >| > Bored". Just trying to
> > >| > stimulate a little "erudite" (??) fun on the list.
> > >| >
> > >| > And you are correct, quoting from memory: Beatrice
> > >| > Portinari it is. I've
> > >| > found on the bookshelves the volume of "The Divine
> > >| > Comedy" I bought when I
> > >| > was 15 or 16. "Oxford Editions of Standard Authors",
> > >| > translated by H.F.Cary,
> > >| > with 109 illustrations by John Flaxman (no
> > >| > publication date). I obviously
> > >| > bought it on sale: the price on the flyleaf is a
> > >| > crossed out 15/6 to 5/-.
> > >| > Circa 1961. five shillings was a lot for an
> > >| > adolecsent to spend on a volume
> > >| > of poetry. Particularly when I read Cary's Preface
> > >| > and note that it is dated
> > >| > February 1844! (that is, 100 years before I was
> > >| > born).
> > >| >
> > >| > I haven't seen the Blake illustrations to the Divine
> > >| > Comedy, but the Flaxman
> > >| > illustrations are decidedly in the Blake style. I
> > >| > can make this comment
> > >| > because I've also taken from the bookshelves my
> > >| > Viking Press 1960 edition of
> > >| > "The Portable Blake" - probably purchased
> > >| > contemporaneously with the Divine
> > >| > Comedy.
> > >| >
> > >| > Yes, Martin, I do not - to use a favourite word of
> > >| > contemporary
> > >| > politicians - resile from my adolescent fantasies
> > >| > and interests. They formed
> > >| > me (for better or worse). But I would have thought
> > >| > that my comment in my
> > >| > last response to "Beatrice Alighieri" - about
> > >| > playing with identities etc. -
> > >| > was a "dead give away" as to the position...
> > >| >
> > >| > FUN, Martin. Fun, GOOD FUN (but perhaps not
> > >| > erudite).
> > >| >
> > >| > Cheers,
> > >| > Viv Kitson
> > >| >
> > >| > Martin J. Walker wrote:
> > >| > > Excuse me if I interrupt the fatuous ecstasies
> > >| > anent "Beatrice Alighieri"
> > >| > > (sic), but it seems to me that you, Viv, and
> > >| > others perchance, have fallen
> > >| > > for a gross deception, an instance of what certain
> > >| > neo-gnostic
> > >| > commentators,
> > >| > > later unfortunately suppressed, have designated
> > >| > the "false Beatrice"
> > >| > > syndrome (so well known to Blake, vide his
> > >| > illustrations for the
> > >| > > _Commedia_ ). Who knows what subtle fairy has
> > >| > foisted this deceit on you,
> > >| > > ladies and gentlemen, but it is not, repeat NOT,
> > >| > the Beatrice Portinari (I
> > >| > > am open to correction to the spelling of her
> > >| > family name, not having the
> > >| > > relevant literature to hand in my sylvan retreat)
> > >| > of literary renown and
> > >| > > august anima of both Dante Alighieri and the
> > >| > adolescent Viv Kitson, known
> > >| > to
> > >| > > us as otherwise sharp-witted and adult contributor
> > >| > to this poetry list.
> > >| > > Another estimable contributor, Mairead by name,
> > >| > has suggested that
> > >| > > "Beatrice" is "Henry" - but who is Henry? Henry
> > >| > Pussycat is no longer with
> > >| > > us r.i.p. The dark wood grows curiouser and
> > >| > curiouser. Could the list have
> > >| > > been infected by a very intelligent virus, perish
> > >| > the thought, albeit one
> > >| > > that commits solecisms of the above-indicated kind
> > >| > and attempts to pull
> > >| > the
> > >| > > wool over our eyes with such patently fabricated
> > >| > misspellings as "hights"
> > >| > > and "wispering"?
> > >| > > Yours etc. Martin
> > >| > >
> > >| > >
> > >| >
> > >| >
> > >|
> > >| __________________________________________________
> > >| Do You Yahoo!?
> > >| Send online invitations with Yahoo! Invites.
> > >| http://invites.yahoo.com
> > >
> > >
> >
> >---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > -
> > >----
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%