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Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, and Giorgio Cantarini in Life Is Beautiful (1997)

Goofs

Life Is Beautiful

Edit

Continuity

The champagne bottle changes position when Guido is describing how to serve lobster (first it's tilted towards the right, then centered, then tilted again, etc.). Also, the bottle is first completely sealed (with all the labels and stuff) and then we can see it without all those labels, to appear completely sealed again in a backward-to-forward take, and then opened again.
When Dora kisses Guido under the table, her head is tilted to the right then is tilted to the left in the next shot.
After Dora told Guido that her father could make her do whatever he wanted and Guido makes an analogy with the jewel box, we see him with his right arm extended as he starts the sentence, but the scene suddenly changes as he continues, but his hand is near his chest.
The position of the tank in relation to the paper when Giosuè is drawing in the book store changes.

Factual errors

It has been incorrectly regarded as a mistake that Dora kept all of her hair while in a concentration camp. In fact, most camps did not shave the heads of women automatically. There are hundreds of pictures of women in camps who had full heads of hair. Heads were only shaved prior to death or if there was a lice outbreak in a barracks.
When Guido and his family arrive at the camp and Elizeo is segregated out for the gas chamber, Joshua would have been taken out for extermination as well too as he would have been able to offer nothing of value to the Nazis, i.e.: labor.
Horst Buchholz (Dr. Lessing) is mistakenly credited as "Horst Bucholz."
When the concentration camp is being evacuated, a half-track with the Balkenkreuz painted on it can be seen. Actually, this vehicle is an American-made M3 Half-track which was used by the Allied forces during the war and not by the Germans (although captured M3s were used by the Nazis in North Africa and on the western front).

Revealing mistakes

When Guido is talking to Giosuè in the concentration camp, he mouths his son's lines as the boy speaks them.
Just before Guido is caught by the spotlight at the end of the movie, a woman belonging to the group of Jews being deported smiles to the camera.
When Giosuè comes out of hiding, he walks towards (and stares at) a visible spot on the ground. He stops right on top of the spot which indicates that it was his "mark" for the shot.
At the entrance of the party hall, same female extra appears in two scenes with opposite angles.

Miscellaneous

At approx. 1hr, the train pulls in at night. However, in the next shot it's daytime, and people are only just getting off the (small) train.

Anachronisms

When little Giosuè is eating with the German children, the white coffee carafes shown clearly in the foreground are made of insulated plastic, not in use in the 1940s.
The motorcycles in the escort near the beginning of the film are Moto Guzzi Super Alces - first made in 1948.
When Giosue goes to hide in the cabinet to get out of taking a bath, when he opens the door, you can see that the bottom of the cabinet has been removed to make more room for the boy to hide.

Crew or equipment visible

When Dora stands up on her bed in the barracks and goes to the window to hear Guido's phonograph, some technical cable and the shadow of the crew can be seen on the left side of the screen.

Boom mic visible

When Guido's uncle leaves his house for the hotel, the microphone casts a shadow on the black statue on the right.

Character error

Dora calls her husband (Roberto Benigni) "Roberto" rather than "Guido" on one occasion.

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