In 1972, Jerry Lewis made the rash decision to write, direct, and star in the film. A movie about the German clowns of Auschwitz. The results were so bad that he never allowed it to be released, but it quickly gained notoriety alongside George Lucas-like disasters. star wars holiday special— as one of the biggest mistakes in movie history. Somehow this cautionary tale didn’t deter intrepid Italian comedian Roberto Benigni from making a film with a similar setting in 1997. life is wonderfulIn this film, he plays a father in a concentration camp who entertains his children with comical stunts and antics to distract them from the horrors around them.
In contrast, the film was a commercial and critical success, winning the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 1998 and three Academy Awards the following year. This is a testament to Benigni’s sensitivity to the subject, and part of the screenplay was based on Benigni’s memoirs. Rubino Romeo Salmoni. Another true story of a genius cartoonist who used his talent not only to entertain children during World War II, but also to save them from the Nazis, was somehow never made into a feature film. This is strange, especially considering his height. The man in question: Marcel Marceauthe most famous pantomime in history.
As you can see in the Great Big Story video above, Marceau was 16 years old in 1940 when German soldiers marched into France. His “childhood was over all at once,” says the book’s author, Sean Wen. Recent books about Marceau. His father died in Auschwitz, and both Marceau and his brother “joined the war against the Nazis.” In one story, Marceau dresses up children from an orphanage as campers and takes them to Switzerland, where he entertains them “until they can pretend they’re going on vacation instead of running for their lives.”
In another story, Marceau somehow persuaded a group of German soldiers to surrender. “It’s almost like this natural talent for acting ended up being part of their involvement in the war,” Wen says. During the war, Marceau was “representing his life and the lives of others.” Mime has been the butt of many jokes over the years, but Wen finds in Marceau’s quiet performance a way to unite humanity through art that transcends language and nationality. Learn more about how Marceau began his pantomime career during the Nazi occupation in our previous post here.
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on the site in 2018.
Related content:
How Marcel Marceau started mimicking words to save children from the Holocaust
Watch Marcel Marceau Mime mask manufacturerThe Story Alejandro Jodorowsky Made for Him (1959)
Marcel Marceau imitates the course of human life from birth to death in four minutes.
josh jones I’m a writer and musician based in Durham, North Carolina. please follow him @jdmagness
