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o many Americans, Roberto Benigni and his film Life Is
Beautiful materialized out of nowhere. Who was this
odd foreigner who suddenly jumped to the front of the
line and garnered three Oscars: Best Foreign Language Film,
Best Actor (a first for an actor in a foreign subtitled film), and
Best Dramatic Score? Recently, in television interviews and in
print, Benigni has been depicted largely as a crazy but charm-
ing buffoon who says he loves everybody and spews mangled
English in long incoherent sentences.
But our ignorance has been our loss, for this masterful
comedian is not a Johnny-Come-Lately, and he is nobody’s
fool. His name is a household word in much of Europe, where
he is respected and adored for his large body of work as
writer, director, and actor. Benigni has been a major figure in
Italian cinema for well over a decade, though making only
occasional appearances in American films. He is so well loved
in Italy that there was an astonishing show of public jubilation
– literally, dancing in the streets – when he
won his Oscars. The Pope himself request-
ed a private viewing of Life Is Beautiful –
apparently only the third film the Pontiff
had ever seen.
Unlike many contempo-
rary comedians and comic
actors whose memory of their field goes no further back than,
s a y, Monty Python or the original Saturday Night Live, Rober-
to Benigni has been drawing from the well of the pioneering
masters – particularly the silent ones: Charlie Chaplin, Buster
Keaton, Harold Lloyd. There are also shades of Laurel & Hardy,
the Marx Brothers, Jacques Tati, and Peter Sellers throughout
his work. Fans of silent and classic comedy have been drawn
to him; he appears to be the living embodiment of the traditions
of slapstick and pantomime – rechanneling the magical aura of
these past greats and reinventing it for audiences today. While
he draws inspiration from these comic geniuses, he steals noth-
ing – for he has a unique persona and a style all his own. His
appearance, stance, walk, voice, and gestures are already
unmistakable and are fast becoming as well known as Chaplin’s
once were. What wonderful gifts this man has to offer! His
warmth, charisma, his lust for life, are infectious – and a bit of
fresh air in these cynical times. What makes him an even more
endearing figure is his warm public and pro-
fessional relationship with his wife, actress
Nicoletta Braschi (who calls him “a poet”).
Benigni often includes her as his co-star and
leading lady, referring to her as the “light-
ning” or electricity that ani-
mates his work.
F I L M & M O V I E S
Classic Comedy’s Second Coming:
Roberto Benigni
A L I C E A R T Z T & B R U C E L A W T O N
Benigni with
Wim Wender
in 1993.