Champagne Flows in Benigni’s Village

It was 4:05 a.m. Monday in Roberto Benigni’s home village, and nearly 4,000 people were huddled in the cold around two giant outdoor TV screens when actress Sophia Loren, live from Los Angeles, opened the envelope and shouted:

“Roberto!”

That one word, announcing the first of three Academy Awards for Benigni’s film “Life Is Beautiful,” set off one of the biggest national celebrations in recent decades for any star in the Italian galaxy.

Accolades came from the prime minister, a Nobel laureate and others as millions of Italians stayed up watching or awoke to the news. Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema said the awards brought “honor to Italian cinema and culture.”

Benigni’s haul was bigger than expected here: He became only the second star of a foreign-language film, after Loren in 1961, to win an Oscar for best actor or actress; “Life Is Beautiful,” which he also wrote and directed, won for best foreign film and dramatic musical score.

Italians were equally proud of his Oscar night antics, which included climbing on the backs of chairs and waving to the audience after his first prize was announced.

Benigni showed the world “the image of an Italy that’s not shrewd and cunning but one full of innocence, freshness and spontaneity seasoned with intelligence and culture,” said Vicenzo Cerami, the film’s co-writer.

The nationally televised party in Vergaio, Benigni’s Tuscan village, offered a glimpse of his artistic roots.

“Roberto! Roberto! Roberto!” the crowd erupted after each award, dancing, weeping, popping champagne corks and kissing the actor’s sister Albertina, the local florist, as a band played pieces from the opera “Aida.”

“Nobody is sleeping because this drama is not over yet,” said master of ceremonies David Grieco as a drizzle began between 4 and 5 a.m. About 1,000 people, including actors, studio executives and out-of-town fans, stayed until dawn, when the ceremony ended in Los Angeles.

Altamonte Tonti, a villager, celebrated one Oscar with an ottava rima, an improvised, eight-line rhyming verse that ended: “My heart almost trembles; hurray for Benigni, the winner!”

Benigni, as a teenager in the village, mastered the ottava rima, a Tuscan tradition since the 13th century. He was encouraged by his father, a poor farm worker who served in World War II and ended up in a German labor camp when Italy switched to the Allies’ side in 1943.

It was the elder Benigni’s tales of his captivity, related to his young children with humor, that inspired “Life Is Beautiful.” The film tells the story of a Jewish father who uses humor to try to shield his little son from the horrors of life in a Nazi concentration camp.

Luigi and Isolina Benigni, exhausted by the attention over the seven Oscar nominations for their son’s film, left the party early. Awakened later with the good news, Luigi Benigni said: “I never could have imagined that my suffering and sacrifice in those days could have brought such great joy.”

“Benigni has shown that laughter, levity and irony do not have to mean a lack of seriousness,” said Dario Fo, the Italian satirist who won the 1997 Nobel Prize for literature.

Not every Italian agrees. Among the few jeers heard here Monday came from newspaper editor Giuliano Ferrara.

“There’s this erroneous idea that Italy can redeem itself with its big heart, by making the world laugh and making the world cry,” he said. “But we cannot bury the Holocaust with laughter and simply hope for a better world.”