《美丽人生》是1997年的意大利电影，Roberto Benigni自编自导自演，荣获奥斯卡最佳外语片，最佳男主角，欧洲电影最佳影片等。电影讲述意大利一对犹太父子被送进纳粹集中营，父亲Guido Orefice 不忍年仅五岁的儿子饱受惊恐，利用自己丰富的想象力扯谎说他们正身处处在一个游戏当中，必须接受集中营种种规矩以换得分数赢取最后大奖 —— 一辆坦克。影片中笑中有泪，将一个大时代小人物的故事，转化为一个扣人心弦的悲喜剧。电影讲述了第二次世界大战时期，德国将犹太人送往集中营，对犹太人管制、虐待、屠杀的故事。但是故事并没有以血腥的画面呈现德国纳粹的残暴，而是以喜剧的方式让观众领悟生命的真谛。
前半部分的搞笑，幽默，Guido，一个年轻小伙子在追求幸福上表现的淋漓尽致。几多次“偶遇”， good morning, princess! 仿佛历历在目。后半部分的机智，伟大，Guido以一个父亲的角色来完美诠释。
放到SAT题目中，这部电影是极好的素材。我们不妨找几道真题来演练一下：
2006年10月：
Can deception—pretending that something is true when it is not—sometimes have good results?
2006年5月：
Does the truth change depending on how people look at things?
2005年6月：
Do newspapers, magazines, television, radio, movies, the Internet, and other media determine what is important to most people?
大家能把思路理清楚吗？如何把电影里的内容简明扼要的和题目结合起来，如何点题，你很明白了吧？想想看，不清楚的话，可以留言，提问。：)下面是摘自wikipedia的一些经过整理的英文资料，请酌情借鉴。（红色字体）
Life Is Beautiful (Italian: La vita è bella) is a 1997 Italian tragicomedy comedy-drama film directed by and starring Roberto Benigni. Benigni plays Guido Orefice, a Jewish Italian book shop owner, who must employ his fertile imagination to shield his son from the horrors of internment in a Nazi concentration camp.
The film was a critical and financial success, winning Benigni the Academy Award for Best actor at the 71st Academy Awards as well as the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
电影的前半部分：追求幸福，得到幸福。
In 1939 Italy, Guido Orefice is a young Jewish man who is leaving his old life and going to the city where his uncle lives for work. Guido is comical and sharp, making the best from each situation he encounters. From the start he literally falls in love with Dora. Later he sees her again in the city where she is a teacher. Dora is set to be engaged to a rich but arrogant man. He is a local government official with whom Guido has run-ins from the beginning. Guido is enamored of Dora and performs many stunts in order to see her. Guido sets up many "coincidental" incidents to show his interest. Finally Dora sees Guido's affection and promise and gives in against her head. He steals her from her engagement party on a horse, humiliating her fiance and mother. Soon they are married and have a son, Joshua.
事情发生变化，过渡：
Through the first part, the film depicts the changing political climate in Italy: Guido frequently imitates members of the National Fascist Party, skewering their racist logic and pseudoscientific reasoning (at one point, jumping onto a table to demonstrate his "perfect Aryan bellybutton"). However, the growing Fascist wave is also evident: the horse Guido steals Dora away on has been painted green and covered in antisemitic insults. Later during World War II, after Dora and her mother have reconciled, Guido, his Uncle Eliseo and Joshua are seized on Joshua's birthday. They and many other Jews are forced onto a train and taken to a concentration camp.
电影的后半部分：在集中营里的生活
In the camp, Guido hides their true situation from his son. Guido explains to Joshua that the camp is a complicated game in which Joshua must perform the tasks Guido gives him. Joshua is at times reluctant to go along with the game, but Guido convinces him each time to continue on. Guido sets up the concentration camp as a game for Joshua. Each of the tasks will earn them points and whoever gets to one thousand points first will win a tank. He tells him that if he cries, complains that he wants his mother, or says that he is hungry, he will lose points, while quiet boys who hide from the camp guards earn extra points. Guido uses this game to explain features of the concentration camp that would otherwise be scary for a young child: the guards are mean only because they want the tank for themselves; the dwindling numbers of children (who are being killed) are only hiding in order to score more points than Joshua so they can win the game. He puts off Joshua's requests to end the game and return home by convincing him that they are in the lead for the tank, and need only wait a short while before they can return home with their tank.
故事的结局：
Despite being surrounded by the misery, sickness, and death at the camp, Joshua does not question this fiction because of his father's convincing performance and his own innocence. Guido maintains this story right until the end when, in the chaos of shutting down the camp as the Americans approach, he tells his son to stay in a sweatbox until everybody has left, this being the final competition before the tank is his. As the camp is in chaos Guido goes off to find Dora, but while he is out he is caught by a German soldier. An officer makes the decision to execute Guido. Guido is led off by the soldier to be executed. While the soldier is leading him to his death, Guido passes by Joshua one last time, still in character and playing the game. The next morning, Joshua emerges from the sweatbox as the camp is occupied by an American armored division. Joshua thinks he has won the game because Guido had told him that whoever got to one thousand points would get a tank. The captives in the concentration camp emerge from hiding. The prisoners travel to safety, accompanied by the Americans. While they are traveling, the soldiers allow Joshua to ride on the front of the tank with them. Joshua soon spots Dora in the procession leaving the camp. Joshua and Dora are reunited and are extremely happy to see each other.
