Chapter two elaborates on the Life Is Beautiful which embodies position of Life Is Beautiful, background of Life Is Beautiful, plot of Life Is Beautiful. It is an Italian film, but it is very popular around the world. In English, this film is called Life Is Beautiful. This film is directed and acted by Roberto Benigni. He stars in the film called Guido Orifice .When the film came out, it was very popular among people and wined best foreign language film, best actor, and best original film music at the 71st Oscar awards ceremony.
Then, shows some case studies and analyzes on black humor in Life Is Beautiful and discusses the influence of using black humor in Life Is Beautiful. Guido will treat their experience in the camp as though it were all part of a game. We want to emphasize that Guido does not enter the experience with a well-defined plan or strategy. This plot is kind but absurd, after all, the war is terrible and many people are dead .It can’t be treated as a game. On the contrary, it is serious. However, when we review the features of black humor, we will find that black humor novels produce humorous effect by way of absurd plot and express the metaphysical subject by way of allegorizing the plot. Though the plot is absurd, we are still more willing to believe it is a game, not a serious war.
The thesis ends with a conclusion drawn from the preceding studies that black humor plays a positive role in the film. On the one hand,to the boy in the film, he survived in the camp, the psychological problem is still not a terrible war. On the other hand, the film is very different, because it allows us to think of the hard life in a different way, let us try to change the bad situation as well, encouraging us to enjoy life. However, as a coin has two sides, we should also consider the use of black humor, that is to say we should not use black humor blindly. The author makes a brief analysis of black humor in Life Is Beautiful, making the readers think about life more deeply, to appreciate and enjoy our life.
Many people like the film of Life Is Beautiful because it expresses good value, just as Roberto Benigni himself said: “I want to tell all the people, life is expensive and full of laughter. Even before he died, he can also get the happiness.”(Cui Xin & Sun Ying, 2013:15)
Guido’s story is actually introduced to us by an adult Giosuè, narrating over the image of his father carrying him through the mist towards the mountain of corpses in the camp, and saying that in this story, “It is like a fable, there is sorrow, and, like a fable, it is full of wonder and happiness.” (Vincenzo Binetti, 2006:145) In this sense we are invited to participate in the translation of history into fable, which is to say, we express fact in another way, and try to make bitter life become sweat one. Another famous author of black humor called Joseph Heller once explained this kind of change more properly , that is “I want people to laugh at first, and then go back to feel dreadful at what they have laughed.”(Cheng Aimin, 2002:89)
Guido has assigned himself the task of enabling his son’s physical and psychological well being in the face of the overwhelming historical fact of incarceration in a concentration camp. He succeeded at the end and now when we retrospect, we understand he uses the technique of black humor and create different situation for his son. Black humor is humor out of despair and laugh out of tears. Under tragic circumstances of human life,black humor makes the reader laugh.
In 1920s, the word “black humor” is first implied by Andre Breton, a French pre-modernism poet and critic. “Black comedy”, “humor under the scaffold” or “comedy of the absurd.” are also the names of black humor.(Chen An,2000:103) Black humor writers usually break the convention, making the plot illogical, mixing the reality with fancy and reminiscence, seriousness with playfulness. In their opinion, realism is important to depict the complicated society; therefore many surreal and fragmental depictions are used to uncover man’s sub-consciousness and the hysteria of the modern society. (Yang Jingren,2004:50) And black humor can be more appropriately defined as "grotesque or morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, contradictions, and cruelty of the modern world". (O’Neill, 1993: 61) 浅谈《美丽人生》中的黑色幽默(2):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_66913.html