Comedy · Drama
Italian (La vita è bella)
1997 · Directed by Roberto Benigni · 116 min
Tuscany, the late 1930s. Guido, a restless, quick-talking newcomer with a gift for improvisation, sets out to win the heart of a schoolteacher and to make a modest living on charm alone. The film opens as light, theatrical comedy, set against a darkening Italy.
Why it matters in cinema history
A defining example of the late-1990s European crossover hit, and a key film in the long argument over whether comic form can approach the gravest twentieth-century history.
Watch with intention
Watch it as a clown film: ask what Guido's comic tools are and what he uses them for.
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