Life is beautiful

“The clown searches to create a game and to define the rules, which then must be obeyed.”

“Be interested, not interesting.”

– Number 12 and 14 of 'The Eccentric principles',
©2005 Avner Eisenberg-

I started doing online clown Coaching with the amazing Spanish clown, teacher, and director of clownschool Escola de clown Clara Cenoz (which I can highly recommend to anyone who wants to get further with clowning). The last time we worked together she learned me how to forget about yourself when you're clowning by imagining the audience as a baby. She said: “When faced with a baby everyone starts acting silly, everyone becomes clown, because we naturally want to keep the baby happy, to keep him from crying. Because it's just awful when a baby is crying.” So your total focus is on the baby and you don't think about yourself. So instead of thinking: 'am I being funny, interesting, etc, you'll be interested in the baby and you'll think: 'is the baby still happy, what can I do to keep him happy or to make him happy again?' When the baby likes something you repeat it, when he starts crying you try something complety different.

When Roberto Benigni's character Guido entered that room we see in this video, he was shocked and didn't know how to cope with that situation. But (as you see in the video) he takes the first chance he gets to create a game, define the rules and then he's obying this rules throughout the rest of the movie. He is a bit crazy, silly and he puts himself in dangerous situations time and again. But the only thing on his mind is to keep his child Giosué happy and to give him the love and tenderness he needs. As silly as he may look, he actually takes his job very seriously, he's taking the rules of his game seriously as well, but he simply can't afford to take himself seriously. That's what the actual clown job is like.