10 Accidental Masterpieces From Otherwise Bad Directors

7. Life Is Beautiful €“ Roberto Benigni

Before Life Is Beautiful, Roberto Benigni was mostly known as a comedic television and film star in Italy until he made appearances in a few films by Jim Jarmusch. Benigni would then try to reinvigorate the Pink Pather franchise by playing the illegitimate son of Peter Seller's classic character Inspector Clouseau in Blake Edward's dismal Son Of The Pink Panther. Benigni then directed and co-wrote an unconventional film titled Life Is Beautiful. The film told the story of a Jewish man in 1939 Italy who courts the woman of his dreams and goes on to marry and have a child with her. When the war starts they are shipped off to the concentration camps and he is interned with his son. Throughout their internment the man convinces the young boy that it's all a game, as a way to shield the boy from the horrors occurring around them. The film was controversial for depicting events of the Holocaust in a somewhat trivial manner, however, Benigni's ability to move seamlessly from romantic comedy to human drama is a display of his craft as a director. Since Life Is Beautiful, Benigni has directed his interpretation of Pinocchio, which was pretty much ignored in North America - and The Tiger And The Snow, a film about a love-struck, Italian poet who falls in love and then gets caught up in the horrors of the Iraq war. Sound vaguely familiar?