Benigni's La vita è bella
Viktor Frankl and the Alchemy of Meaning
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10012955 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alan R Perry (Gettysburg College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 96 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 303-330 |
| Publication date | 2019-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Italica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-3020 • E-ISSN: 2325-6672 |
| Publisher | University of Illinois Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.5406/23256672.96.2.06 |
| OpenAlex | W4402737994 |
| Language | EN |
More than twenty years after the release of the film, scholarly debate still addresses whether or not Roberto Benigni's La vita è bella made light of the Holocaust. In this study, Viktor Frankl's ontological assertions in Man's Search for Meaning, provide a platform to grasp how even concentration life can be experienced as beautiful despite unimaginable horror. As such, the filmmaker's presentation of Nazi abuses as a game need not denigrate the memory of the millions who suffered. A few scholarly studies have linked Frankl and Benigni but not primarily at the level of how humans assign meaning. While focusing on Frankl, this inquiry also considers the ethical dimension of representing the Holocaust through humor
Alchemy · Art · BELLA · Epistemology · Humanities · Literature · Meaning (existential) · Physics · Theology · Italian Literature and Culture · Philosophy
| Highly cited | No |
|---|