Although "A Beautiful Life" has been released for more than 20 years, the film is a classic among classics, and it is one of the "movies that affect people's lives" and "must see in life" in the minds of many fans. The famous Italian filmmaker Roberto Bernini also won the Oscar podium twice with this self-written, self-directed and self-acting "Beautiful Life". Known as the "Chaplin of Italy", he alone won two awards for best director and best actor, thus becoming the first foreign-language film actor to win an Oscar.
On September 1, 2021, Roberto Bernini and his wife Nicoleta Blaski appeared at the 78th Venice Film Festival in Italy, Roberto Bernini won the Lifetime Achievement Award at this Venice Film Festival, and when receiving the award, the 69-year-old Roberto Bernini romantically confessed to his wife, he said that the "Golden Lion" of the Lifetime Achievement Award belongs to his wife, "We have realized that it has been 40 years now, and the time with you is the freeze frame of my life, and this trophy I only need the lion's small tail part to satisfy, The rest should be attributed to your efforts, especially the pair of soaring wings, just as you flew with me; I want to thank you for your talent as an actor, your unique temperament as a woman, and the light you give me as the sun, moon and stars. ”
His parents gave him the best gift – poverty
Born in October 1952 in Tuscany, Italy, Roberto Bernini grew up happily with his parents and three older sisters, and Bernini once thanked his parents for the best gift he had given him after winning the Oscar.
Roberto Bernini can be described as a natural intelligence, at the age of 5 will climb up the stage to tell jokes during the summer outdoor dance break, at the age of 10 fell in love with the stage performance, but Bernini did not initially have the idea of being an actor, he originally planned to be a priest, studying at a priest's college in Florence, but at the age of 12, there was a flood in Florence, and Bernini was forced to leave school. Later, Roberto Bernini was attracted to the circus again, always sneaking in to watch the performance, and after being discovered by the magician, the magician admired Bernini's cleverness, and Bernini worked as the magician's assistant, and his job was to pretend to be hypnotized every night.
After obtaining a professional diploma in accounting, Bernini did not give up the stage, he appeared in Prado in 1971 in "The Emperor's New Clothes", debuted as a singer and musician, and began to meet some outstanding actors and poets, who gradually guided Bernini on the path of performance. Bernini's performance caught the attention of director Giuseppe Bertolucci, who collaborated on the one-man show Joni Mario. Roberto's comedic talents were gradually discovered, and fans named him "Chaplin of Italy", and he was particularly good at playing small comedic characters. In 1979, he starred in the comedy "Ask for Asylum" directed by Remarco Ferry, followed by a comedy with Massimo Trossi in the comedy "Tears Are Gone". In 1988, his first English-language dialogue film, Outlaws, attracted international attention and won the Silver Ribbon Award for Best Actor from the Italian Film Journalists Association.
Roberto Bernini's talent for "self-written, self-directed, self-acting" reached its peak in "A Beautiful Life", and the famous New Zealand director Jane Campion, who presented Bernini with the lifetime achievement award at this year's Venice Film Festival, said: "Bernini created a miracle in the Oscar-winning film "A Beautiful Life", turning a Holocaust story into a dark, sacred comedy about self-sacrifice. ”
Roberto Bernini was duly awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's 78th Venice Film Festival, where Alberto Barbera, Artistic Director of the Venice Film Festival, said: "From his debut, his work has been imprinted with innovation and freedom from rules and traditions. Roberto Bernini shines in the woods of Italian performing arts in an unparalleled and unparalleled way. Few artists are as good at stringing up thin laughs as he is, and using his brilliant talent as an actor to inject ironic power into the laughs. ”
Roberto Bernini's achievements are not only in the film, as a fan of Dante, Bernini can recite the full text of the Divine Comedy, in 2006 and 2007, Bernini single-handedly supported the monologue play "Everything About Dante", which was his tribute to the Italian poetic tradition as a poet, and he also brought "Everything About Dante" to the United States, Canada and other English-speaking countries, which was also a great success.
Spielberg admitted that "A Beautiful Life" has not yet been released, and he wants to leave the scene
In 1999, Roberto Bernini's self-written and self-directed "Beautiful Life" won the 71st Academy Award for Best Actor and Best Foreign Language Film, and Bernini, who was sitting in the aisle, excitedly jumped directly into the back of the audience seat and jumped on the podium. In his acceptance speech, Bernini gave full play to the poetry and romance of Italian nature: "It is a happy moment, I want to kiss everyone here. For you are the creators of happiness. The poet says that those who let happiness pass away and embrace the kiss gladly will forever shine in the morning light of the eternal world. At this moment, I feel immersed in this ocean of generosity, and your applause is really too generous. Your generosity is like a rain, a hailstone, and I can't thank you enough. In addition, I would like to thank my parents. They were in a small village called Vergiao. They gave me the most precious gift, and that was poverty. Thank you for educating me in life. ”
Bernini's winning video has become a "famous scene" in the history of the Oscars. Previously, at the 51st Cannes Film Festival awards ceremony held in 1998, "A Beautiful Life" won the Grand Jury Prize, and the scene where the ecstatic Bernini kneeled to the chairman of the jury, Martin Scorsese, will also go down in the annals of Cannes history.
Roberto Bernini's performance when he received the award was a bit "crazy", and after understanding the pressure that Bernini was under to make this film, it is not difficult to understand Bernini's ecstasy after winning the award.
Roberto Bernini's inspiration for The Beautiful Life is related to his father. Bernini's father, a farmer, a carpenter and bricklayer, spent two years in Nazi concentration camps from 1943 to 1945, and he once heard a poignant story from his father: a cellmate was temporarily transferred to clean up the body in the gas chamber, and while dragging a corpse, he suddenly froze... For the dead man was his wife. Although he was in "hell", Bernini's father did not tell the story of that time with complaints or hatred, but in the form of humor, even in poverty and hardship, he still taught his four children to be able to discover the shining side of life in the dark. This had a profound impact on Roberto Bernini.
Bernini once recounted that the name of "Beautiful Life" comes from a sentence said by Trotsky in Russia. Trotsky, who had fled to Mexico, looked at his wife in the garden after learning that he was about to be assassinated and said, "In any case, life is beautiful." ”
"A Beautiful Life" tells the story of a Jewish father and son who were captured in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Father Guido concocted a gentle lie in order to protect his son Joshua's innocent childhood, the 1000-point game. The father used his wisdom and courage to let his son still live a sunny and happy life during that dark period. The Jewish youth played by Bernini told the audience: "Treat disaster as a game, conquer everything with a smile, there is nothing to be afraid of, as long as your lover is still there, happiness and joy will never leave you." 」 At the end of the film, Joshua says, "This is my story." This was the sacrifice my father made. It was a gift from him to me. This sentence made countless viewers cry after listening to it.
In fact, "A Beautiful Life" was not optimistic from the beginning of filming, telling the brutal history of the massacre of Jews in a comedic way, and Roberto Bernini's idea was opposed by the people around him, who thought that Bernini's idea was too crazy, Bernini once explained: "I have a strong desire to put myself, my comedy protagonist, in an extreme environment, and this most extreme environment is the concentration camp, which is almost a symbol of that cruel era, a symbol of the negative side." I use a comedic approach to describe a story with blood and tears because I don't want my audience to look for realism in my films. ”
After the script was completed, Bernini asked the Jewish community in Milan to read it, and unsurprisingly, the script was strongly opposed. Fortunately, Bernini weighed on himself to see himself as an artist, not a historian or a documentary filmmaker, and decided to transcend the reality of reality through the reality of art. After the film was filmed, there were still many people who did not like it, including the famous director Spielberg, who filmed "Schindler's List", and it was reported that spielberg wanted to leave the scene before the film was finished when he watched "A Beautiful Life". Spielberg bluntly said that the Holocaust should not be used as entertainment, and "A Beautiful Life" is "too entertaining."
Mel Brooks, also a Jewish American comedy guru, also made no secret of his resistance to the film, arguing that Roberto Bernini himself was neither Jewish nor had lost his loved ones in World War II, that he did not understand the cruelty of the Holocaust, and that the concentration camp was maliciously glorified by him in "A Beautiful Life".
"A Beautiful Life" was recognized at the 51st Cannes Film Festival held in 1998, when the audience was said to have stood up after watching the film and applauded for 12 minutes with tears, although the judges mixed praise and criticism of the film, but in the end " A Beautiful Life " won the Grand Jury Prize and shined at the Oscars the following year.
It is love that turns the moon and the stars
The heroine of A Beautiful Life is played by Roberto Bernini's wife, Nicoleta Blaski, and in this film the two worked together seamlessly, with the phrase "Good morning, princess!" "It's even more popular.
They met on set in 1980, Bernini fell in love with Brassky at first sight, and in 1991, the two entered the palace of marriage, letting "Good morning, princess!" "It lasted 30 years. Brasky is not only the heroine of Bernini's life, but also the heroine of almost all of Bernini's directed films, the two co-starred in "You Make Me Feel Uneasy", "Outlaw", "Little Devil", "Toothpick Joni", "Blazing Demon", "Beautiful Life", "Love You Like Poetry and Beauty", etc., which is a famous "husband and wife file" in the film industry. Brasky said, "He was always romantic, creating great characters for me, and I liked the way we worked together. Some fans found that Roberto Bernini secretly left a "dog food" in "A Beautiful Life": the film's wife Dora once called "Guido" her husband's big name "Roberto".
Roberto Bernini also collaborated with his wife on a film called "Love You As Poetic and Beautiful", and Bernini once admitted that he made this film to celebrate the fact that love is the most powerful and subversive force in the world, he said: "I have always wanted to make a movie like "Love You As Poetic and Beautiful", a love movie that is pure as snow and obsessed with love. In the play, the male protagonist is willing to go to the soup for love, and can even sacrifice his precious life. ”
For the romantic Bernini, love is the meaning of everything, "it's all about love," as he once quoted Dante's Divine Comedy in his acceptance speech, "It is love that turns the moon and the stars." ”
Bernini said that despite the passage of time, the importance of love to human beings has never changed, "we have to race against the clock to love, because usually we really love too little, love too late, let us seize the time to pay love, because at the moment when life comes to an end, love is the only criterion for judging us, any kind of love is not wasted, the wonderful feeling of falling in love with a person is incomparable to anything, our life will become meaningful because of another person, We will realize that it is not enough to have ourselves alone. Everything that is lifeless, such as the mountains, the seas, the streets, and the sky, the breeze, the stars, the cities, the rivers, the stones, the buildings, they are originally empty, lifeless things, but at a certain moment, when we look at them again, they will be full of humanity, and we will be moved. Because they are full of love at this moment, everything in the world is full of love, and love is the meaning of the existence of all things. ”
In Bernini's view, everyone is endowed with happiness at birth, but happiness is hidden as a gift, so everyone should go to find happiness, happiness is hidden in life, bookshelves, drawers, souls, need people to try to find, "although happiness sometimes forgets us, but we must not forget the existence of happiness at any time, until the end of life." 」 Although happiness sometimes forgets us, we must not forget the existence of happiness at any time until the end of life." 」 ”
The secret of cinema is to fill the screen and chairs
As an Italian national treasure comedian, Roberto Bernini also has a title - "Chaplin of Italy". He is good at using funny, exaggerated comedy to interpret the stories of ordinary little people, which is similar to Chaplin. Bernini was most influenced by the comedian Chaplin, who brilliantly treated the theme of war into a comedy story in 1940's The Great Dictator. In the film "Beautiful Life", Guido's dedication to the hat appears several times, which is also a tribute to Chaplin, because the hat is one of Chaplin's symbols. The number on the chest of the prisoner's coat in the concentration camp is the same as the number of chaplin's prison coat in "The Great Dictator", which is 7397.
Winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's Venice Film Festival, Roberto Bernini, who won the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's Venice Film Festival, said with reverence, "I was a comedian and I remember very clearly how I was impressed by Chaplin's talent." The masters in my heart are like the sunshine and the sky in all the movies: Chaplin, Tati, Toto, Buster Keaton. They are images, they are emotions, they are unattainable role models. Their films are like miracles. I have infinite admiration for them. I also really like the authors of the 'spiritual level', those who are good at expressing emotions. Nothing is more important than this expression. ”
In Bernini's view, cinema consists of two things: a screen and some chairs. The secret is to fill both (both applause and seating). What makes him feel extremely happy is that the film business he loves has always been accompanied by his beloved wife: "In forty years of non-stop work, we have done everything together, we have made so many movies... How do you measure time with movies? I only know one way to measure time: with you or without you. ”
Article/Reporter Zhang Jia