Life Is Beautiful And Night Comparison Essay

The film, Life is Beautiful, and the memoir, Night, were both composed to tell about events in the same time period. Although many aspects of these are the same, the memoir and film differ in a numerous amount of ways.

One of the obvious ways these pieces are similar is in their plots. The memoir, Night, recounts the experiences of a father and son during the time they spent at a concentration camp. It starts by giving a brief idea of what life looked like for the main characters before they were sent to a camp, and continues by describing the awful experiences the characters had. The film, Life is Beautiful, also tells a story of a father and son during their experiences at a concentration camp. The film also begins by giving background

footage of the characters lives before they were forced into a camp, such as showing the progressing love story of a couple. Both the memoir and the film do this to humanize not just the characters, but the entire Jewish population that was horribly mistreated during World War II.
Despite the fact that the plots appear identical, they are immensely different. For example, the memoir is written without much emotion. The author wants the reader to understand what he and his father went through. Rather than getting sappy and emotional, the author only provides details about specific events. He tells us about the separation of his family as if he were describing the weather, saying only, “I had not time to think, but already I felt the pressure of my father’s hand: we were alone.” (Wiesel 27). The memoir does not dwell with sympathetic details for long, whereas the film is all about the emotion. In Life is Beautiful, the story of a concentration camp is not all that viewers see. In addition to the hard times, the movie also leaves the viewer with scenes that will entertain the,, such as the love story that occurs between the boy’s mother and father. By adding other themes, such as love, the film focuses on entertaining viewers, along with teaching them.
In both Night, and Life Is Beautiful, the plot is based around the relationship between a father and a son.

At the end of each, the sons are left alone when their fathers die. Although both of the stories depict the closeness and desperation these characters have for one another, the emotions when the fathers die is very different. “I awoke on January 29 at dawn. In my father’s place lay another invalid.” (Wiesel 106). This is how the death of Eliezer’s father, in Night, was described. The author scarcely talks about his father after this, and from the way he moves on from his death, readers can tell that in the memoir, the son was the one supporting this relationship. Life is Beautiful however is different. The entire film is spent developing a soft spot for the father and son. Viewers grow to love their relationship as they watch the father do all he can to protect his son, like risking his own safety to convince his son that the concentration camp they were in was a game. When the father dies in Life is Beautiful, there is a tremendous amount of emotion, and the son has lost his greatest companion.

Between the time period they took place in and the plots they tell, the film “Life Is Beautiful,” and the memoir “Night,” have a lot in common. The authors tell of similar events, yet they also manage to make their stories have numerous differences. Some of these differences vary around the way each of these stories are told. Others differences focus on the relationships between

the characters. “Night” and “Life Is Beautiful” show us that two stories about the same historic event can have a large number of differences along with their similarities.