Romerico & Guiletta

NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (1957)

ROMERICO & GUILIETTA

Most of us are too young to have seen Federico Fellini’s first dozen films in a movie theatre. In 1957, when I was 13 years old and watching the Academy Awards on our floor model black-and-white television, with an oval 12” screen, and someone announced that the Oscar for the Best Foreign Film of the year went to an Italian movie entitled NIGHTS OF CABIRIA, directed by someone named Federico Fellini, I simply was not impressed. Mention John Ford, John Huston, or Howard Hawks as directors, and yes, them I knew. I simply had no frame of reference. I could have told you who Sophia Loren was, and I was beginning to see another buxom Mediterranean beauty on movie posters called Gina Lollobrigida –but I certainly had no inkling as to who Guilietta Masina was. Probably as a fledgling movie buff, as a new teenager, pseudo-greaser, and wannabe hot-rodder, I would not have connected with the Cannes Film Festival either. So I would not have fully appreciated learning that Guiletta Masina had won the Best Actress Award for CABIRIA.

So when did Fellini become some kind of moving fertile force in the life of this boomer? Why in the 60’s when I was in college, came the stentorian response –an interest in this phenomenon called foreign films, a first glance at subtitles, all as an absurd counterpoint to the chaos of the Vietnam War. We came to Fellini during his dream and fantasy phase, viewing first LA DOLCE VITA (1960), and 8½ (1963) as some kind of celluloid castoff from the fevered mind of an alien Paisa no’s nightmares. I did begin to notice that Fellini had a very unique style –something we at the School of Drama began to label as “Felliniesque”; I suppose pertaining to any group of bizarre colorful people and events. So we came to know Federico Fellini like we had come to know Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman –in retrospect, in revivals of their old films. In 1966, in a theater I saw Fellini’s first color feature, JULIET OF THE SPIRITS. At that point I had seen several Fellini films, and this began to entrench in some groove, or fold midst the convulsions of my nubile cortex, a special section for the director; a place all his own, belonging to none other.

Even today, when I think of Federico Fellini, I see visions of tall thin characters in tiny pointed hats, midgets scampering about, piling out of clown cars, with character’s faces frozen into the recognized masks of the Commedia dell’arte, lurching about in mock combats with balsam swords, complete with “lazzi” interludes of pantomime, acrobatic feats, juggling and wrestling, with small stone houses planted on the naked edges of sprawling urban geometry, with reed-thin farmers bending incessantly, working their thick calloused fingers into the black soil of Italia, crooked smiles full of missing teeth, mismatched eyes dancing with strabismus, bald heads shining and peeling in the glare off azure seas, faces crinkled like leather masks, fully aged before their time, with fingernails stinking of fish and sewers, factory workers on lunch breaks smoking cigars and chewing on huge sandwiches laced with garlic and pork, with their sleeves rolled up and their many hats pushed back, with their thick black hair sticking out every which way; and long pious lines of priests, nuns, and monks who are clanking their sacred golden chains, swimming in smoke and incense, weighed down with their dogma and vestments, covered in velvet and gold leaf; streetwalkers, shopkeepers, and movie stars with ample busts, whose great beautiful breasts strain at their modest bodices, and sometimes fill the entire screen with their magnificence; with great Circus and Carnival tents teeming with exotic performers predating and paving the way for the seeming uniqueness of the Cirque du Soleil –and I hear the music of the streets, accordions, mandolins, guitars, saxophones and clarinets; all the colors and special tones of Nino Rota, and faintly in the background chugging softly like a heartbeat, I can hear a circus calliope, and a single drummer. And now as an educated Fellini watcher, I realize that all that visualization was just Federico in his second act, as dream master and iconic philosopher. Of course, there was a lot more to the director, and to the man.

In 1920 Federico was born in the small town of Rimini , on the Adriatic coast about 100 miles north of Venice . One could smell the sea and the mountains from there when the winds were right. His father, Urbano, was a traveling salesman. While in Rome he met a wealthy young woman, Ida, and after just a few dates, he asked for hand in marriage. Her family refused him, so they eloped and set up a home in Rimini .

Fellini went to grade school at the Sisters of St. Vincent. He wrote later that there was one young nun who used to hug him frequently. He regarded these experiences as providing him with his first sexual feelings. He could always recall the smell of rancid soap, potato skins, the starch of her habit, and stale broth on her breath. An indifferent student, he spent most of his time dreaming and sketching caricatures or cartoons of his teachers and tormentors.

At one point he escaped and ran away for a few days. A circus was in the area, and he hid himself in their colorful midst. He lied to them, spinning tales of alleged “abuse” that was being heaped on him at his Catholic boarding school. A priest came, after a day or two, and retrieved him, but that brief carnival of experiences was etched in his heart for life. Leonard Matlin wrote,” Many of Fellini’s best, most carefully realized works have the superabundant aura of the circus about them. In 1971, he paid his homage to the big top in THE CLOWNS “.

Through some odd bureaucratic paperwork snafus and snarls, Fellini completely escaped military service –and this was during the Benito Mussolini regime, during the rise and fall of Fascism. His mother, Ida, who grew up in Rome , accompanied him there in 1939. He enrolled at the University of Rome . At first he seriously studied Journalism. Soon some of his early “writings” caught the eye of several editors. Often he included his unique drawings and cartoons with his submitted articles. He came to be regarded as an “Avantguardista”.

Some of his first writings were for the Alleanza Cinematografica Italiana, which was a production company owned by Vittorio Mussolini –Benito’s son. It was there that he first met Roberto Rossellini. Several of his articles were recycled into a radio show about newlyweds called, CICO AND PALLINA. Pallina was played by a young acting student named Guilietta Masina. She and Federico married in 1943, and they remained together for 50 years; until his death. In 1944, after the fall of Mussolini, Fellini opened up a shop in Rome called THE FUNNY FACE, in which he and others sold their drawings.

Fellini once said,” There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life. My work is my only relationship to everything. You exist in what you do. When I make a picture, I am reborn. I am healthy, happy, and don’t need anything except sex. I live in a dimension in which I am absolved, taken by life. My real crisis begins when a picture finishes, when I am again with my real problems –God, wife, women, taxes –until a new light comes to announce a new game –and it takes me again. I only go to church when I have to shoot a scene, or for an aesthetic or nostalgic reason. For faith, you can go to a woman. Maybe that is more religious.”

In 1945 Fellini had a son, who only survived for two weeks. This was the only child produced by his marriage to Guilietta Masina. He loved Vaudeville, and he was able to make friends with one of Italy ’s biggest stars, Aldo Fabrizi. Robert Rossellini wanted Fabrizi to play Don Pedro in CITTA APERTA ROMA [OPEN CITY] (1945), and he made contact through Fellini. Fellini earned an Oscar nomination as one of the writers for OPEN CITY. Later he would say,” In the myth of Cinema, Oscar is the supreme prize.” And he would go on to win five Academy Awards, four for his films, and an honorary one for the body of his work. He worked on another script for Rossellini’s PAI SAN (1946). While associated with that film, he wandered into an editing room. He realized at that point that Italian films were shot like silent movies –the story and the visualizations came first –and all the dialogue was looped in later. He was immediately fascinated with film, and he began to work for Rossellini as an Assistant Director.

Roger Ebert wrote,” Fellini was a poet of words and music. He never recorded the dialogue at the time he shot his films. Like most Italian directors, he dubbed the words in later. On his sets, he played music during almost every scene, and you can sense in most Fellini movies a certain sway in the way the characters walk –even the background characters same to be hearing the same rhythm. Cabiria hears it too, but often walks in counterpoint, as if to her own melody.”

Fellini co-directed VARIETY LIGHTS (1950) with Alberto Lattude. It began to set a mold, to be suggestive of the kind of themes he would use in his future films –life-as-performance, as Vaudeville, as Circus, as Theatre. Next up he struck out completely on his own and directed THE WHITE SHEIK (1951), a film written in part by a young Michelangelo Antonioni, about “fumetti” actors. Fumetti was a form of comic book that used live actors in photographs, using the still pictures instead of hand drawn panels to tell the story. In the 40’s this technique was used in several American magazines as well, using movie stars and starlets in still photographs to illustrate a mystery story, or science fiction. This film was a landmark for the fledgling director, because it represented his first collaboration with musician Nino Rota. Rota would go on to score every Fellini film until his own death in 1979.

Fellini’s third feature, I VITELLONI [THE YOUNG & THE PASSIONATE] (1953), was based in part on his own early teenage years, where he had been a bit of a slacker. The movie is about a group of aging adolescent young men. It might have been a bit of an inspiration for Barry Levinson’s DINER (1982). By this point Fellini was beginning to develop his bombastic short-tempered personality. Whenever he appeared on camera, whether in a documentary or his own films, he never made any attempt to mantle or sugar-coat these personality traits.

His interest in cartooning and the graphic arts never ebbed. He maintained an acute interest in comic books and graphic novels. Actually one of his first jobs was writing an Italian script for a specific FLASH GORDON comic strip. Later he became a big fan of Stan Lee, and the whole stable of Marvel characters. He probably would have enjoyed Frank Miller’s SIN CITY series.

Fellini was quoted to say,” What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one. It is this in-between that I am calling a province –this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one –which is really the realm of the artist.”

Orson Welles remarked,” Fellini is essentially a small-town boy who’s never really come to Rome . He is still dreaming about it, and we all should be grateful for these dreams.”

Fellini said,” Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams. Years can pass by in a second, and you can hop from one place to another. It’s a language made up of image. And in the real Cinema, every object and every light means something –as in a dream.”

The Italian Neo-Realist movement gained prominence after the fall of Mussolini. They were movies that mirrored the unromantic and often harsh realities of the average citizen –populated by working class characters. Ten years later this kind of “people’s drama” would spread to places like England , with their “kitchen sink” plays and films. So in a sense Fellini was in on the ground floor of this artistic and celluloid movement. Working with Rossellini on OPEN CITY (1945), and PAI SAN (1946), hobnobbing with poet Pier Paolo Pasolini, with writer Michelangelo Antononi, and director Vittorio De Sica –who gave us BICYCLE THIEF (1949) and SHOE SHINE (1947), Fellini gained an education. The directors favored on-location shooting, versus the static quality of most studio sets. They often used non-professional actors, like Steven Sonderbergh did with his new film BUBBLE (2005), and like Herbert J. Biberman did with his banned film, THE SALT OF THE EARTH (1954).

Fellini said,” Even as a child, I couldn’t help but notice who didn’t fit in for one reason or another in life –myself included. In my films I have always been interested in characters that are out-of-step. Curiously, it’s usually those who are either too smart or are too stupid who are left out. The difference is, the smart ones often isolate themselves, while the less intelligent ones are usually isolated by others.”

He also said,” The visionary is the only true realist.” Fellini was voted the 10th greatest director of all time by ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY. Four of his films, LA STRADA (1954), NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (1957), 8½ (1963), and AMARCORD (1973) –all won Oscars for the Best Foreign Language Film.

In 1954 Fellini presented the world with LA STRADA, and it had its Neo-Realism intact, full of gritty street scenes –but the characters were not shopkeepers, factory workers, or farmers. No, they were street performers, Carnival and Circus folk. The film starred Guilietta Masina, and her biggest role yet, and it co-starred Anthony Quinn. [There is an urban film legend that Quinn was officially in Rome to film the dud opus, THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1956), for director Jean Delannoy, lusting after the dancing Gina Lollobrigida; that he was so impressed with Fellini, he shot LA STRADA during his breaks and downtime. This has always made a wonderful story to relate, but actually with a little research I discovered that Quinn was in fact working on another dud historical opus, called ATILLA (1954), for director Pietro Francisci, lusting after the buxom Sophia Loren. This is a “lost” film that very few have seen in America , and no VHS or DVD copies have ever been released of it.] LA STRADA was a continuation for Fellini of his life-as-theatre theme. It garnered him his first Oscar.

In 1957, he completed the jewel in his Neo-Realism crown, the seldom viewed NIGHTS OF CABIRIA, again starring his petite wife, Guilietta Masina. This film scooped up his second Oscar for Best Foreign Language film, and Masina won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival. But in America , most people let the film slip by without much notice. The movie was his transitional film, and he began to move away from the Neo-Realistic format, making films that were much more personal and fantasy-ridden. Fellini loved portions of CABIRIA, so much so that he stole from himself three years later when he directed LA DOLCE VITA (1960). This was the first film of what could be called Fellini Phase II, the absurd realm of dreams, sex, guilt, with both the bizarre and the deeply hypocritical; secular and religious. And this began his life-long relationship with actor Marcello Mastroianni.

In 1963 Fellini dropped 8½ on an unsuspecting world. It is still considered his “masterpiece”, and it won his third Oscar. Mastroianni played Guido, a film director. The role was considered a self-parody for Fellini. Other directors certainly were influenced by this film and this technique; movies like Bob Fosse’s ALL THAT JAZZ (1979), Paul Mazursky’s ALEX IN WONDERLAND (1970), Richard Rush’s THE STUNTMAN (1980), and most of Woody Allen’s films.

There is a Maury Yetson musical called NINE, whose main character is a film director named Guido Contini. The subtitle for the show was,” An Italian Director and the 21 Women in his Life.” NINE won the Tony Award in 1982. Yetson also had huge successes with his musicals GOYA, GRAND HOTEL, and in 1998, TITANIC.

Fellini’s first color feature was JULIET OF THE SPIRITS (1965), and it was another showcase for his spouse, Guilietta Masina. This film opened a portal to a “phantasmagorical inner world”. Director Luis Buneul dismissed it as mere “technical trickery”. I think that wonderfully bizarre films like last year’s MIRROR MASK (2005) could never have been made without first viewing Fellini’s insights and creations.

Fellow Italian director, Aldo Vidali, said,” Fellini was a man whose probably greatest merit was his honesty and sincerity –so much so that he worked on the basis of fantasy too. He called himself a “born liar” because he created worlds that are just hopes, that are just dreams, and that do not exist yet. He always used clowns as his symbol because a clown is an attempt at waking up human consciousness at the human madness. Through his grotesqueness and exaggeration, he tried to wake people up to the madness that we have –like when he showed a parade of costumes with the Catholic Church. He blew people’s minds because he showed the silliness and the vanity of the excessive vestments of the church –when there was such real poverty all over Italy .
Fellini was unique because he refused to do films unless he had total control of everything. He was a full film “author”; more than merely a director –he did everything, from dressing of the sets, to the hanging of the lights, and making sure that the camera was in the right position, as well as training the actors, designing the costumes, and so on.”

FELLINI SATYRICON was released in 1969, and included in the cast was a then “corpulent” Richard Simmons. He made THE CLOWNS in 1971, FELLINI ROMA in 1972, and AMARCORD in 1973. This was a deeply personal film, semi-autobiographical, and it won him his fourth Oscar. FELLINI’S CASANOVA was released in 1976, and ORCHESTRA REHEARSAL in 1978. He made AND THE SHIP SAILS ON in 1983, and the delightful FRED AND GINGER in 1986, with Guilietta Masina and Marcello Mastroianni. It is said that aging star, Ginger Rogers, threatened to sue Fellini for the unauthorized use of those first names –but nothing ever came of it. Woody Allen intervened on Fellini’s behalf to convince Irving Berlin to allow some of his songs to be used in the movie. His last film was THE VOICE OF THE MOON (1990), with Roberto Benigni. His 1987 mock-documentary, INTERVISTA, was released in 1992. In 1993, shortly before his death, he was given another Oscar, his fifth, a “Special” Academy Award honoring the body of his work.

Fellini said,” I was always dreaming that I could fly. When I did, I felt very light. I loved those dreams –they were always exhilarating. Sometimes I had great wings which could be seen by everyone –wings so big that they were unwieldy. Other times I didn’t need wings. I just took off, propelled by the sheer power within me. Sometimes I had a destination. Sometimes I was just exploring. And it’s strange, because there is nothing that I hate more than actually flying in an airplane. The only way I ever wanted to fly was without a plane. I would be asked by colleagues why did I want to make a film about a man who could fly? They knew I hated airplanes. I’d answer,” It’s a metaphor”, and that kept them quiet.
At a certain point in my middle age, some might call it early old age, I began to dream that I could no longer fly. I was then someone who had been able to fly. So the implication was clear. Once I had known how to do it and had been in total control of my own power –but now I am deprived. It was terrible to have lost such a gift. I who had had the gift, knew better than others of the wonders of that experience.”[ From I, FELLINI.]

In June, 1993, Fellini had heart bypass surgery. On August 8th, he collapsed with a stroke. On Sunday, October 30th he died, on his 50th wedding anniversary almost to the day. The President of Italy, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, led the mourners at his funeral. This is the man who 35 years earlier, writing in the Vatican ’s “L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO”, denounced LA DOLCE VITA for its “many scenes of perversion, prostitution, and orgiastic eroticism.” At the funeral, Guilietta Masina wore white. “Fellini hated mourning,” she said. A solo trumpet played Gelsomina’s song from LA STRADA.

Cardinal Silvestrini told the congregation,” Yes, Federico Fellini had once denounced the Church, but he certainly did so with irony and love. Fellini’s work was poetry which enters the hearts of the people. We should put our questions to the poets, and listen to them for the knowledge they have of the suffering world.” Coming down from the podium, the Cardinal kissed Guilietta’s hand.
One journalist wrote,” It was an event to the obsequiousness, dishonesty, and sentiment of which only Fellini himself might have done justice.”

Once Fellini was asked to articulate his personal creed, and he replied,
“I have a blasphemous psychology, mingling superstition and defiance of God, a thicket of mysticism, astrology, antique Catholic dogma and Jungian psychoanalytical theory, rooted to a peasant’s fear of the unknown.”

NIGHTS OF CABIRIA in some ways is his purist film, and it certainly gave Guilietta Masina a marvelous showcase. It was like a demarcation point after which Fellini moved solidly away from his Neo-Realistic roots, and began to drift toward his own inner world, laced with lurid fantasy and pointed allegory.

Guiletta Masina was often called,” Film’s Eternal Waif”. She appeared in 32 films from 1946-1991, and only seven of them were Fellini films. She started out with a small part in Rossellini’s PAI SAN (1946) that was co-written by Fellini –and she was in Fellini’s first two films. Interestingly, Cabiria was a role that she created in THE WHITE SHIEK (1951). Critics have mostly adored her, comparing her to both Chaplin and Garbo.

Prior to CABIRIA’s release, Fellini feuded with Dino de Laurentis, the producer and a staunch Catholic. The film came close to being denied approval for exhibition. The Vatican objected to portraying prostitutes plying their trade with the tourist district of the archeological quarter along the Appian Way . They also objected to “the man with the sack” scene. They felt it represented,” homage paid to an anomalous kind of philanthropy free from ecclesiastical meditation.” Fellini refused to cut the scene. De Laurentis said in a later interview that he exercised his right as the producer by sneaking into the lab and stealing the master print, had the 9 minute scene cut, and then returned the print. Fellini never forgave him. In the re-mastered Criterion Collection version of the film, that infamous scene has been restored.

Roger Ebert wrote,” Strange that NIGHTS OF CABIRIA is one of Fellini’s least known works –so unfamiliar that he was able to recycle a lot of the same material in LA DOLCE VITA only three years later. In LA DOLCE VITA, a nightclub scene opens it, complete with exotic ethnic dancers. Both have a bogus appearance by the Virgin. Both have a sequence set in an outdoor nightclub. Both have buxom slattern, a stone house by the sea, a procession, and a scaffold seen outlined against the dawn. These must be the touchstones of his imagination.”

CABIRIA has an elliptical structure, and it primarily consists of a series of incidents, little mini-adventures that our heroine experiences. The film opens with what might have been a Hallmark moment. Fellini frames a couple in a long shot. The woman hangs on the man, hugging and kissing him. Suddenly the moment is shattered as the man roughly pushes the woman into the river, and races off with her purse.

We soon discover that the woman cannot swim. Several young boys who had been playing on the banks leaped into the rushing water, and dragged her out to dry land. Two large men held her unceremoniously upside down, trying to get her to breathe as her dress fell down over her waist exposing her panties. She sputtered, expelling the portion of the river she had gathered in her lungs, and then struggled to her feet. But rather than thanking her saviors, she cursed them. They still reached out to help her, but she would have none of it. Her curses were directed at all men. As she limped off with only one shoe on, one of the boys said,” Oh, she’s living the Life.”

Gary Morris wrote,” The “life” she is stumbling off to is a raw existence, played out in an unstable post-industrial world of ravaged fields, broken cisterns, and the crumbling arches of the whore-ridden Passeggiata Archeologila –a pitiful reminder of the long-gone glory of Rome ’s past.”

In the film as Cabiria arrived home looking like a half-drown poodle, Masina was still demonstrating her indignation and anger, railing against the latest “betrayal”; this time from short-term boyfriend, Giorgio. We get to meet Wanda, another prostitute and Cabiria’s friend, who tries to console her. We are introduced to Cabiria’s house, a kind of 400 square foot box made of cinder blocks and stucco, built hastily on the edge of a factory district. This is the whore’s community, and several of them are clustered on this remote section of abandoned field. Cabiria had to crawl through a window since Giorgio stole her keys along with her purse. I was pleased to see how comfortable Cabiria had made her little nest within the cinder blocks. She scampered about gathering up Giorgio’s nice clothes and his pictures. She carried them outside, and set the whole lot on fire, accompanied by the cheers from her neighbors.

Stephanie Zacharek of SALON.COM wrote,” The little house rises out of the landscape on the edge of a desolate yet oddly cheerful little Roman neighborhood, like one of those solitary boxy buildings in a Krazy Kat cartoon. It’s a cube built out of some kind of stucco, with a curtain of beads hanging like a shimmer of fake rain in front of its simple door –part jazzed up fairy tale cottage, part Spartan-made dwelling.
NIGHTS OF CABIRIA is almost vaudevillian in its structure, and sometimes in its tone. It’s not that it is broad or obvious –it’s just that Fellini lets the story of Cabiria unfold as a series of discrete, but connected, episodes. It is such a graceful picture that his technique comes off as anything but ponderous –it’s more like a graceful soft-shoe, a muted shuffle on a sandy floor.”

Within the film’s plot thread, next came the night, and the emergence of the spruced-up Cabiria, ready to ply her trade. She and many other prostitutes congregated near the great arches along the Appian Way . She stood short in her tiny skirt, ever-present bobby socks, tight striped top, cute little rain hat, some kind of raggedy fur jacket that was waist length, topped with a twirling collapsible umbrella. One older whore stood across the street raving about her (past) virtues and charms. Cabiria and Wanda stood with a group of younger prostitutes and their pimps. One of the younger handsome pimps stood with them, very proud of his new Fiat 500 automobile.

Midst the street banter, both cheerful and sad, one began to get a sense of community, almost of family among the street walkers. The older whore began to hurl insults directly at Cabiria. At one point, the perky little strumpet has had enough, and she leaped onto the taller woman, pummeling her with punches. Cabiria had to be hauled off her as the older street walker kept raving, illustrating the mental state that awaited many of them.

Someone screamed that the police were coming, and the street emptied quickly. Cabiria hid in the bushes and the cops did their compulsory sweep. Later, while riding around with some of the others in the Fiat 500, Cabiria was asked again if she wanted “representation”. She made it very clear that despite her poor choice in men friends –she cherished her independence. She made several references to the fact that she did own her own house, and accomplished this without anyone else’s “help”.

As we carefully watched Cabiria’s face, we could see both the waif and the weariness in it. Masina was already 37 years old when she played the part, so she was able to portray all the colors of Cabiria, from those childish stuffed toys in her tiny little home, to her plainness coupled to her spunkiness, and those beautifully expressive eyes, flashing under the straight cartoonish eyebrows. It has been said that her eyes belonged in the silent cinema. Her inner monologues were her most eloquent work.

Robert Payne of REEL.COM wrote,” Guilietta Masina carries the show with a profoundly moving, funny, and thorny performance. The entire range of human emotions registers in Masina’s face, and in her child-like eyes –the heart of the film lies in those always wondrous eyes –always searching eyes. It is truly one of the greatest and most memorable female lead performances in World Cinema.”

In the beginning of the film it was hard not to notice Masina’s eyebrows. It was if they were plucked and drawn in with mascara as dark straight lines. This comedic mask gave her odd juxtaposition to all the other street walkers, who all attempted a more glamorous make-up. It made Cabiria seem stern, perpetually angry and discontent. It also gave her a cartoonish physiognomy. It was hard to tell if this touch of the eyebrows was Guilietta’s creation, or if it was Fellini slipping in some homage to Commedia, vaudeville, and silent films. Much later into the film, Masina’s eyebrows became curved and more natural, as Cabiria fell in love again. Women in the audience pointed this out verbally during the movie.

Roger Ebert wrote,” Cabiria’s eyebrows are straight black horizontal lines, sketched above her eyes like a cartoon character’s. Her shrug, her walk, her way of making a face –all suggest a performance; perhaps Chaplin’s Little Tramp with a touch of Lucille Ball. It’s as if Cabiria thinks she can waltz untouched through the horrors of her world, if she can shield herself with a comic persona –or perhaps this actually is Cabiria, and not a performance; a waif-like innocence, a saint among sinners –a little woman carrying herself proudly through the gutters of Rome .
NIGHTS OF CABIRIA plays like a plucky collaboration on an adult them between Fellini and Chaplin. Masina deliberately based her Cabiria on the Little Tramp, I think –most obviously with some business with an umbrella, and a struggle with the curtains in a nightclub. [I saw Jacques Tati at work in that scene as well.] But while Chaplin’s character inhabited a world of stock villains and happy endings; Cabiria survives at the low end of Rome ’s prostitution trade. She is a tough cookie who climbs up into truck cabs, gets into fights, and hides in the bushes during police raids.”

In the film, it was raining, and a truck driver yelled down at Cabiria, “Hey, Shorty, do you want a ride?” Without hesitation she climbed up into the tall cab and rode off into the wet night. Later she was dropped off in a more fashionable part of Rome –the Via Veneto. She stood quietly immediately noticing a pair of tall arrogant call girls strutting by. Cabiria in her bobby socks, funny hat, and ratty fur began to feel somewhat out of place.

It is at this point that she encountered the aging movie star, Alberto Lazzari, played by the real matinee idol, Amedeo Nazzari. He is drunk, yelling at his young paramour, Jessie, played by the gorgeous Dorian Gray. Disgusted at Jessie, as she stormed off in a petulant huff, Lazzari noticed Cabiria standing alone on the street. He summoned her over to the new 1956 De Soto convertible that he was driving. He told her to get in. Simply amazed at the offer, Cabiria hopped right in, accepting the ride. She stood up, hanging on to the windshield, screaming epithets at the pair of snooty call girls as they roared by.

Lazzari took her to a fashionable nightclub. Cabiria found several comic bits to perform as she found herself completely out of her element. Lazzari mostly stared soulfully at nothing, thinking only of the fleeing Jessie. Cabiria did manage to get him on his feet once, and she danced a spirited mambo. But soon he bolted out of the place with her in tow.

He drove drunkenly and fast, scaring her a bit. They arrived at his movie star’s mansion, and he instructed his domestic to whip up some dinner and serve to them in his bedroom. Cabiria, star-struck, asked Lazzari for an autographed photograph to be able to prove to her friends that she actually did spend some time with a famous person. He obliged her, and one could see that she would treasure the small photo.

But, of course, for Cabiria, nothing came easily. A sumptuous meal arrived, but before she could consume one bite of it, they were interrupted abruptly by the young screeching Jessie pounding drunkenly on the door. Lazzari stuffed Cabira in his spacious bathroom, promising to return soon. But he never returned. She spent the entire night in the bathroom. She found a puppy in there, and that was her only solace. She opened a window and stared wistfully at the night sky. Just before dawn, Lazzari sneaked her out past the sleeping sleekness of the young woman. It took her some time to find her way out of the huge maze of the mansion.

Soon she is on foot, walking in the dark along a country lane. There was no phone booth around, and Lazzari had not been considerate enough to call her a cab. In the 1957 release of the film, this scene would have been the end of her night’s adventure. But in the restored re-mastered version, we are treated to the formally banned and cut-out 9 minute “man with the sack” scene.

A small station wagon pulled past Cabiria in the pre-dawn. It pulled off the road and stopped as a man got out. He was carrying a large sack, and was carrying a bright flashlight. He shined the light on Cabiria, bathing her face and frightened eyes like a wild animal in the headlights. There was a moment as we first met this odd little man with a sack, that we feared he might have a sinister mission, and his large sack may have contained body parts or something foul –that he had come to that lonely spot to dump it, and that Cabiria might be in danger.

“Do you live in one of these caves?” he asked her.

“No,” she replied, startled by his question,” I live in Rome . I have my own house.”

He nodded and walked past her as it began to get light. She asked if she could have a ride into town, and he agreed, but she would have to wait until after his “errands”. She followed after him as they approached a series of caves. Homeless people resided in them, rising up to greet him like feral creatures, a bit like the lepers in BEN HUR (1959). [Actually it might have been the same caves. William Wyler shot much of that film in and around Rome .] The man handed out food stuffs and toiletries, pulling goodies from his great sack like a short skinny Santa in an overcoat and Borsalino.

At one point a woman came up to meet them. Cabiria recognized her as an old prostitute she had once known. The woman raved on about her former beauty, and former success as a street walker. She raved on reminiscent of the older whore who had stood on the Appian Way insulting Cabiria, and goading her into a fist fight. We could read fear and great sadness on Cabiria’s face. She understood that with a severe run of bad luck, she too could be reduced to living like that, with no finances and no way to earn a livelihood, living in her head, in the past; simply used up by a harsh society and left to survive like a stray cat.

During the ride back to town, Cabiria asked the man how he came to being committed to those acts of kindness. Humbly, he replied that he had started off slowly, and the “responsibilities” just accumulated. We could see on his face that it gave him great joy to be the “man with the sack”. Cabiria talked about her childhood, and told him her real name, Maria Ceccarelli. She had finally met a man who was not trying to con her, or make her, use her or assault her. She didn’t quite know what to make of him, but it was a gem of a moment in the film; a fine balancing act when compared to her other adventures.

Leo Cattozzo played the “man with the sack”. He was a second unit director, film editor, and sometimes actor for Fellini. There were times he functioned as an assistant director. He was the film editor for NIGHTS OF CABIRIA , LA STRADA, and LA DOLCE VITA. I wonder how he felt after his own scene was cut from the released film, secondary to the snipping escapades of Dino de Laurentis. Actually, Cattozzo appeared as an actor in 23 films from 1943-1963.

Jonathan Rosenbaum of the CHICAGO READER wrote,” The restored sequence of the “man with the sack” is crucial because it is the first indication in the film of an essence comparable to Cabiria’s. It also makes sense that this is the only point where Cabiria reveals her real name –the man’s essence brings her own to the surface, allowing us to get a glimpse of it.” Actually, Cabiria did reveal her real name a second time in the film, after she was hypnotized, and acting out her little scenario.

In 1957, French critic Andre Bazinwho wrote,” When one stops and reflects, one realizes that there is nothing in the film, before the meeting with the benefactor of the tramps –which is not proved subsequently to be necessary to trick Cabiria into making an act of ill-placed faith; for if such men do exist, then every miracle is possible, and we, too, will be without mistrust when Oscar appears.”

Cabiria’s next episodic adventure was a trek to the Shrine of the Madonna. She accompanied several of her prostitute friends, the young pimp, and his uncle, a former pimp and drug dealer who had become a cripple. They all came for their own miracles, praying for change and some form of redemption. Cabiria was ready for her luck to change, for some divine intervention into the bathos of her life. Secretly, of course, she hoped that love would seek her out, all encompassing and all forgiving.

Earlier, when Cabiria returned from her strange night with the aging movie star, she had bumped into a wayward monk near her house. He was pleasantly eccentric, on the edge of madness, and he questioned her about her devotion to the church and prayer. She admitted that she had been lax of late, and the gently admonished her before rushing off on some odd religious rounds. This was the second step in Cabiria’s quest for change and better fortune. The trip to the shrine was to be step three.

The actor who played the monk was Polidor. He was a well known comedic actor in Italy , having done vaudeville and silent films. His appearance in 43 films started in 1910. His first 19 films were silent. He often played a character he created, named “Polidor”. He also appeared in LA DOLCE VITA and 8½.

The morning’s trip to the Shrine of the Madonna was a mini-film unto itself. Fellini had a field day illustrating the pomp, dogma, traditions, grandeur, spectacle, near-madness, and hypocrisy. We are dropped down amongst the bellicose bellering of the peddlers hawking their artifacts, trinkets, candles, and good luck charms, the sing-song of the many monks and priests, ushering the crowds from place to place, along with the manic screeching of the anxious pilgrims, carrying their hearts full of pain and the sick and the lame. This all created a cacophony of tumultuous hypocritical piety that nearly paralyzed Cabiria with fear and awe. She did not know all the customs and procedures, so she just had to follow along, being pushed by others to her knees and in and out of sections of the Shrine. She tried to emulate the pilgrims as her eyes were huge with confusion, longing, fear, and turmoil. The old uncle dropped his crutches and tried to walk, only to plummet hard onto the bricks.

Afterwards, because it was a warm afternoon, the whores and pimps had a picnic, sitting on a blanket near their vehicle. They sweated in the sun, and tried to enjoy their wine and cheese; all but Cabiria. She paced back and forth demanding to know what all the fuss was about. She was angry and very disappointed. Where were the miracles? Was anyone healed? No. Was her own troubled spirit lifted? No. Did any of her circumstances change? No. They all remained as before, a sad gaggle of street walkers and whore masters, just sitting there munching their lunch, seemingly oblivious to the abject failure of their mission. But Cabiria was very aware of that failure, and she exploded in fury, cursing the Church and her lot in life. She wandered off muttering epithets and nonsensical patter.

She found herself in a strange part of town, in front of a Music Hall. There was some kind of Vaudeville show being presented. Needing a distraction, she wandered into the theater. The audience turned out to be mostly men, and many of them were smoking, whistling and catcalling. This scene was reminiscent of many such scenes within the local village theater in Giuseppe Tornatore’s elegant film, CINEMA PARADISO (1989). There was a tall odd-looking magician on stage shoving swords into a box occupied by one of his beautiful assistants. The men hooted and hollered, enjoying the skimpy costumes the assistants wore. The magician then announced that he was going to perform a “Hypnotist Act”, and he called for volunteers. Several husky men came forward, and within a very few minutes he had them doing absurd and humorous things, completely under his control.

The audience loved the act. Afterward, the magician asked for a female volunteer. All eyes turned toward Cabiria. She immediately turned down the offer. But the hypnotist persisted, even coming down into the audience, and assuring her that no harm would come to her, and offering his arm to escort her back to the stage. Finally she accepted. The magician/hypnotist was played by Aldo Silvani, a veteran actor that had appeared in 111 films since 1934. His dour looks and commanding presence, combined with his worldly weariness, made his portrayal quite memorable.

On stage soon the hypnotist had her under his spell, and he introduced her to an imaginary lover –Oscar. He set the scene, an innocent date with two lovers, and she acted it out. She referred to herself as Maria, and talked about what a great beauty she was at 15 years old, with long black hair cascading down her back. The sheer sweetness of the scene brought a temporal hush to the rowdy crowd. The hypnotist snapped his fingers, and she had no recall of the scenario she had acted out. The men whistled and whooped, and she fled to the ladies room. She waited until the audience had exited before she left.

She was met outside by a well dressed middle-aged man, named of all things –Oscar. He praised the honesty of her performance, and the beauty of her childlike scenario. She quickly rejected his him and his compliments, but he was a very smooth talker. He said,” Even in a crowd that laughs idiotically, there’s always someone who understands.” He presented himself as an accountant, who lived alone and who was a “hopeless romantic”. He walked with her, wooing her like a predator pimp does to a 15 year old runaway.

Oscar presented her with sentimentality and “goodness” that appealed to her. He asked to see her again, and they began to date. They always met somewhere far from her actual neighborhood. Each time he praised her too much, she attempted to tell him what her vocation and lifestyle was –but he would wave her silent. He was not a bit interested in the “past”. He felt that they could build a new future together, that they could be reborn in each other’s presence.

He always made sure that he paid for everything, treating her special, bringing her flowers, and little gifts. On the eighth date, he professed his love for her, his undying affection –and he proposed marriage. To that point they had never had any physical connection beyond hand-holding. Oscar understood exactly how to work with her emotions. He never asked to see her house, or to meet her friends.

Blissfully, Cabiria accepted the offer, and placed herself entirely in his hands. She could now have a “new life”. At almost 40 years old, she knew that she could only continue to be a street walker for a few more fragile years –and here was Oscar offering her salvation and marriage, love and respectability. She rushed home with the news, sharing mostly with her best friend, Wanda; played by the beautiful plus-sized Franca Marzi. Wanda was both shocked and envious, of course, by Cabiria’s “good fortune”. If she had suspected foul play, she said nothing, not wanting to burst Cabiria’s effervescent bubble of joy. By God, she trumpeted, life was finally going to cut her a break.

Janet Maslin of the NEW YORK TIMES wrote,” NIGHTS OF CABIRIA is not about change, it’s about endurance. Fellini could energize simplicity, and simplify complexity. Fellini had a great affection for Cabiria, and while he may have questioned her lack of judgement –her spirit and goodness drive the film on a long and satisfying journey through the streets and barren outskirts of Rome .”

Fellini said,” Guilietta has a gift for evoking a kind of waking dream quite spontaneously, as if it were taking place quite outside her own consciousness. With her clown-like gift for mimicry, she embodies in our relationship, my nostalgia for innocence.”

In the film, Cabiria in her glee, and caught up with her fantasies, bustled about packing her few belongings, and selling her beloved little house. She sold it quickly to a large family for a fraction of its worth. They were dirt poor, had a lot of kids, and it made her sad to see how overcrowded her tiny house was going to be. She had lunch once more with Wanda, and shared with her that she had sold the house for 400,000 lire, and to that bundle she added her life savings of 400,000 more lire. So her dowry that would be brought to Oscar would be a tidy 800,000 lire. It made quite a wad tied up in rubber bands in her purse. It was every cent that she had in the world. It was hard to estimate how much that would have been in American dollars. In 1990, one American dollar was exchanged at 1,240 lire. I guess the lire were converted to the Euro in 1999. But roughly, 800,000 lire was about $493.90 American. Cabiria was to accompany Oscar to a small village on the Adriatic, kind of like Rimini –where Oscar claimed the sunsets were spectacular. So she picked up her bags, boarded the bus, waved to Wanda, and sped off to her new life.

Oscar was portrayed by Francois Perier, a well-known French actor, who had appeared in 111 films from 1938-1996. He died in 2002 of a heart attack. His Italian was quite serviceable. European actors are often multilingual. I remember the shock of seeing Peter Ustinov speaking impeccable French in a French film.

Oscar and Cabiria had a fine dinner on the veranda of a fancy restaurant near the coast. She offered to pay, hauling out her wad, since she felt that now her money belonged to the both of them. He, of course, would not hear of it. Cabiria re-deposited her great lump of lire back into her purse, and stared at him with the trusting eyes of love. She was thinking behind those eyes that this wonderful man had been sent by the angels to save her, to finally allow her a modicum of happiness after the virtual veil of tears her life had been.

Oscar announced that they were going to go for a stroll after dinner. Cabiria asked about what to do with her many bags. Oscar told her just to leave them at the restaurant for the time being. This should have waved some kind of flag of warning to her, but she never gave it a thought. She had her Oscar, and soon she would be married, respectable and loved.

They went for a leisurely walk in the softness of the late afternoon, down through a thicket of trees, out onto a viewpoint at a cliff looking out over the sea. Oscar stood solitary near the edge of the cliff, staring out at the spectacular sunset. Cabiria prattled on about their new life and plans. Oscar’s focus was elsewhere. As an audience member, we began to squirm in our seats fearing the tragedy that was about to unfold. Oscar had been the smoothest of bastards. When he snatched her purse, leaving Cabiria on the ground, she was hit by a thunderbolt of sadness.

“No, no!” she screamed,” Just push me off the cliff. Please kill me. I don’t want to live. I don’t deserve to live! Kill me! God, this can’t be happening!”

Oscar rushed away deliberately disregarding her pleas, just melted away into the long shadows of the forested bluff. After a long time, when darkness had covered the land, Cabiria rose to her feet. Her tear-stained face was now just a mask. She began to retrace her steps back up through the woods. She walked like a zombie, like something no longer alive. When she regained the road, she stumbled along towards the village. Suddenly the road was alive with life as a swirl of teenagers, laughing and singing, pushing their bicycles and chattering, swarmed around her –all smiling; consuming the joys of youth and the blessedness of a soft summer night near the Adriatic .

Slowly Cabiria was swept up by their adolescent enthusiasm. Her tiny numb body began to sway and throb slightly with that old vitality. Her step lengthened. She began to move to the music, as she had done so many times before. She began to weep again, silently. Somehow she managed to display a sad sweet smile on her lips. She would survive. She had learned another harsh lesson in a succession of hard lessons. Fellini’s plot came full circle.

Bob Graham of the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE wrote,” The last scene is a showcase for Masina’s ability to convey both the pain of loss and the indomitable hope that resides in all of us. She has an inadvertent self-discovery of the courage that lies within.”

Janet Maslin of the NEW YORK TIMES wrote,” There is more grace and courage in the famous image of Guilietta Masina’s smiling through her tears, than there is in all the fire-breathing blockbusters Hollywood has to offer. Anyone dismayed in the hyperkinetic emptiness of so much current film spectacle will find the antidote right here.”

Roger Ebert wrote,” Of all his characters, Fellini once said, Cabiria was the only one he worried about. In 1992, when Fellini was given an honorary Oscar, he looked down from the podium to Masina sitting in the front row, and he told her not to cry. The camera cut to her face, showing her smiling bravely through her tears –and there was Cabiria.”

Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote further,” In this case the character who started out as a picaresque heroine winds up as a kind of essence –an essence that can survive and even prevail over disillusionment. In this way Cabiria is a metaphor for the childlike gullibility or faith that makes Fellini’s dreamlike cinema possible.”

French critic Andre Bazinwho wrote,” Regarding the final scene, there is a moment when Masina turns toward the camera, and her glance crosses ours. The finishing touch to this stroke of directorial genius is this –that Cabiria’s glance falls several times on the camera without ever coming to rest there. Here, she is now inviting us too, with her every glance to follow her on the road to which she is about to return. The invitation is chaste, discreet, and indefinite enough that we can pretend to think that she means to be looking at someone else. At the same time though, it is definite and direct enough, too, to remove us quite finally from our role of spectator.”

CABIRIA’s film score was written by the magnificent Nino Rota. As a teenager he was considered to be an “enfant prodige”. He had considerable fame as both a composer and an orchestra conductor. From 1930-32, he lived in the United States , where he studied. In his lifetime, besides his numerous film scores, he wrote dozens of operas and ballets. He wrote 181 film scores from 1933. He died in 1979. He had a 25 year collaboration with Federico Fellini, working first with him on THE WHITE SHIEK (1952). But he found time to also work with Lucino Visconti, scoring ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS (1961), and THE LEOPARD (1963). He worked with Franco Zefferelli, scoring THE TAMING OF THE SHREW (1967), and ROMEO AND JULIET (1968). He composed the score for the seldom-seen WATERLOO (1970). His haunting score for Francis Ford Coppola’s THE GODFATHER (1972) won him an Oscar. As a testament to his genius, much of his music has continued to be used in 24 films after his death.
Bob Graham wrote further,” One thread throughout the black and white film, at times almost subliminal, is the wonderful music of Nino Rota, which is taken up in turn by various people in the background of the action. It is turned into a mambo by street musicians, then passed on to a Society Band in a nightclub, given next to an accordion in a field, to a solo piano in a Music Hall –and finally taken up by a strolling company of high school teenagers. Like the music, Cabiria is passed from hand to hand, and Masina appears in every scene in the film. And when it comes to her men, she falls for every one of them.”

The cinematography for CABIRIA was done by Aldo Tonti. He had been a lenser on 130 films since 1935 –but NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (1957) was his first and only collaboration with Fellini; which was somewhat odd. Fellini tended to use cinematographers more than once. Regardless of why Tonti did not work with Fellini again, he went on to lens THE SAVAGE INNOCENTS (1959) for Nicholas Ray, starring Anthony Quinn; BARABBAS (1962), with Anthony Quinn, CAST A GIANT SHADOW (1966), with Kirk Douglas, and THE VALACHI PAPERS (1972), with Charles Bronson.

Fellini used Otello Martelli for LA STRADA (1954), LA DOLCE VITA (1960), and his directorial segment of BOCCACCIO ’70 (1962). He used Gianni Di Venanzo on 8½ (1963), and JULIET OF THE SPIRITS (1965). Then he settled in with Giuseppe Rotunnio for SATYRICON (1965), AMARCORD (1973), and CASANOVA (1976).

Robert Payne of REEL.COM wrote further,” NIGHTS OF CABIRIA is nothing less than pure magic; a multi-award winning masterpiece that is easily one of Fellini’s finest, most enjoyable works. Out of circulation for many years and badly deteriorated, presently it has been re-mastered, restated, and re-released theatrically.”

One notices that there always is diversity, a cultural intellectual schism amongst film critics relative to any movie released. This just seems to be common to the human condition, or should one say “conditioning”.

Gemma Files of EYE WEEKLY wrote,” I agree that Guiletta Masina has a certain powerhouse charm, but the sheer frequency with which Fellini encourages her to let it rip, tends to make Cabiria look less vividly human –almost borderline insane. I admit to having an innate dislike for the “happy hooker” thesis as a whole –though Fellini certainly doesn’t mangle it as thoroughly as the people who later ripped him off to make the execrable Shirley MacLaine vehicle, SWEET CHARITY.”

SWEET CHARITY (1969) was Bob Fosse’s directorial debut. The film was nominated for three Oscars –art direction, costuming, and music; not bad, I guess, for a “rip-off”. Fosse’s then wife, Gwen Verdon, had done the lead role in the Broadway production. She did not appear in the movie. Shirley MacLaine played Charity Hope Valentine, complete with a rose tattoo on her shoulder. John McMartin played Oscar. Chita Rivera played her gal-pal Nickie. Ricardo Montalban played aging film star, Vittorio Vidal. Paula Kelly, Stubby Kaye, and Sammy Davis Jr. were all in support. Ben Vereen was one of the dancers. Mostly what I recall about the film was a splashy sexy musical number, HEY, BIG SPENDER –it was so Fossesque.

Jonathan Rosenbaum of the CHICAGO READER wrote further,” Part of the innocence at issue in NIGHTS OF CABIRIA is the result of the Chaplinesque mugging by Fellini’s wife, muse, and medium –Guilietta Masina. It was a very dated form of pantomime that was a point of critical contention even back in the 1950’s –recalling as it does a performance style of the 1920’s. For all the undeniable pathos and animation of Masina’s doll-like features, Fellini often used them in LA STRADA and CABIRIA as blunt emotional instruments intended to beat the viewer into submission, and without any of the nuance that Chaplin brought to comparable tasks. Even if one recognizes and applauds Fellini’s corresponding impulse to return to the elemental purity of the silent film, the related narrative simplifications have an overall coarsening effect, falsely implying that silent cinema was also invariably crude in its manner.
Pier Paolo Pasolini was enlisted to supply Masina and her fellow prostitutes with Roman street slang, and as a result the film vacillates between authentic grittiness and dreamy flights of fancy –rather like Cabiria herself does.”

David Macdonald of the Z REVIEW wrote,” NIGHTS OF CABIRIA is one of those watered down depictions of the oldest profession. From a movie like this down to a film like PRETTY WOMAN, the long cinematic tradition of prostitution as a glamorous extravagant and fairly harmless lifestyle has long distorted the painful truth of the streetwalker. After reflection, I came to the realization that the film is a bit insulting to prostitutes –and perhaps to women in general. It inadvertently portrays the prostitute as doing this job not for the money, or to maintain a drug addiction, or being pushed around by a pimp –but for the hope of finding true love. While I was able to understand this particular woman’s silly wishes of finding love while walking the streets, I also knew that the entire premise is pretty much a joke.”

Some interesting bits of trivia were unearthed during my research. The international airport in Fellini’s home town of Rimini is named after him. Fellini was raised in a devout Catholic home. He even often referred to himself as a “lapsed Catholic”. It has been said of his films,” They were great in piety, as well as being impious, even blasphemous at times.” There is a Ricardo Fellini in the cast list of CABIRIA. This actor was Fellini’s brother, but during Ricardo’s career it seems that he appeared mostly in non-Fellini films. The modern term “paparazzi” comes from a Fellini character called Paparazzo in LA DOLCE VITA (1960), who was a journalist that only photographed celebrities. Fellini’s father, Urbano, was a traveling salesman. He showed up as a character in LA DOLCE VITA and 8½ (1963). From the early 1960’s, Fellini wrote notebooks. In them he put his ideas, sketches, caricatures, thoughts, plans, and memories. Maybe they were used as source material for some of his biographies. CABIRA was also the title of a silent 1914 film. According to the IMDb, it was directed by Giovanni Pastrone, and it was an overwrought Phoenician historical costume epic.

NIGHTS OF CABIRIA, for me, was the next to last attempt for Fellini to reap the rewards of remembering his life, and espousing his world view –and transferring that to cinema. Most feel that he was even more successful on that score when he directed AMARCORD in 1973. After his many films dealing with flights of fancy, this semi-autobiographical film hit audiences squarely in the sentiments, and he earned his fourth Oscar for it.
CABIRIA represented a performance and career apex for Guilietta Masina, even though people remember her mostly for LA STRADA (1954), or even JULIET OF THE SPIRITS (1965). As Cabiria she had to walk that shaky tightrope high above the throng –part pathos and part slapstick. All the great clowns could make us cry, bathe us in sadness, and bring us to tears with both laughter and situation. They understood that Comedy represents our primal fears, that we laugh at others because we are grateful that their plight is not our own. Masina found that perfect balance between sweetness and tragedy, between chuckles and tears. She could fist fight, or salute others with stiff vulgar gestures –or she could twirl her umbrella and ambulate in counterpoint, mambo in the streets or a nightclub, do battle with a curtain, dive into bushes, or fall in love with every jerk who fed her a line; do all this without losing her tenderness and vulnerability. She seemed born to struggle, to be hurt by men –always to bounce back, and to rekindle hope for the next encounter. I would rate this film at 4.5 stars.

Glenn A. Buttkus 2006