Life Is Beautiful .
Nashville Scene . Perhaps there are, but humor is one of the ways we deal with them. The grimmest of national tragedies inevitably triggers a backwash of sick jokes, the vileness of which increases in proportion to the seriousness of the incident. In the early years of World War II, Charlie Chaplin and Ernst Lubitsch didn't make grim dramas as a clarion call to the world about the Nazis. To Be or Not to Be , knowing full well the power of ridicule and the appeal of humane wit.