Too many tomorrows… Nights of Cabiria (1957), BFI Fellini Centenary

We’re going home but I don’t think we’ll get there…

So shouts a young reveller at the close of a film that still stuns the viewer with it’s brutal honesty, not everything can be sugar-coated in life and one of the positives of Federico Fellini making his wife Giulietta Masina the focus of his story is the knowledge that they remained married for fifty years until his death. But Nights of Cabiria is a very human story and Masina’s character, Cabiria, is personified by often unrealistic hope which, in the face of so much evidence to undermine its continued existence, is the very thing that keeps most of us going.

As Cabiria walks among the young part goers at the end she is astonishing, running a range of contradictory emotions like a combination of Clara and Charlie then looking directly into the eyes of the audience in a way that lifts your heart even as it breaks. It is an extraordinary performance and simply one of the greatest from the fifties and this period of Italian cinema; no wonder Chaplin said that "the actress who moved him most." She also inspired her husband who crafted this story based on her “humanity” and as a showcase its hard to beat.

As with its predecessor, La Strada (1954), the film won the Best Foreign Language Oscar and the director and his star were on top of their game. Le notti di Cabiria tells the story of a seemingly contradictory character; an innocent sex worker who, despite so much evidence to the contrary, still lives in hope.

In one of Fellini’s trademark stunning openings, we see Cabiria almost drowned as she is pushed into the Tiber by her boyfriend Giorgio, after he takes her bag. At first you think it’s a joke but it soon becomes clear that she can’t swim and with excruciating speed the men and boys on the riverbanks finally come to her aid. There’s an unsettling comic element as one guy worries about his suit and another saves her by holding her by her feet to let the water run from her lungs.

Recovered, Cabiria’s first thought is to find her ex-lover, still slightly in denial over what he has done. It’s a huge betrayal and one that would devastate surely but she’s not so meek; she has worked hard to achieve financial independence owning her humble home and saving as much as she can from her hard-working life. She keeps on keeping on but her grit is accompanied by a determined and, ill-founded, hope in the best of mankind. This film is regarded as the last of Fellini’s neo-realist films but it also sets the way forward to his more satirical work, and there’s something magically real about Cabiria’s resilience.

Amedeo Nazzari and Giulietta Masina

As with so much of his work, the film is episodic and after the first sequence she returns home crushed yet refusing to be consoled by her friend Wanda (Franca Marzi) as she decides to burn all trace of Georgio. Next, we see her at work on the tough streets of the Appian Way, her positivity allowing her to rise – mostly – above the taunts of fellow streetwalkers and their pimps, even if, sooner or later, she’s prepared to use her fists.

 Again, the humour is on show as she walks past two much taller women as they compete for customers and has the last laugh as she ends up with a film star, Alberto Lazzari (Amedeo Nazzari) after he has an altercation with his girlfriend. He takes her to a nigh club where she is looked down on by everyone from the guests to the staff but she is determined to extract every once of enjoyment from her chance encounter. Her takes her back to his opulent flat for dinner and her face, as it is throughout, is a picture as she takes in the richness of it all. The night ends in boredom and humiliation as the actor’s girlfriend returns and she has to hide all night in the bathroom. But, so it goes and at least she gets paid, Alberto has been fair which is more than can be said for almost every man she meets.

Back to Earth

The episode is rich with direct and indirect comment on the gulf between her world and that of the movie star as she ascends a sumptuous stairway to his apartment, bumps her head on the glass door trying to make her way out and then tramps along a driveway filled with statues either side; culture assigned to the roadside.

The next night she meets a man who is handing out food to the poor living in hovels on the outskirts of town. He gives her a lift home and she reveals that her real name is Maria Ceccarelli and that she’s had to fend for herself since her parents died when she was young; it’s the first time she’s trusted a man to reveal her name. Oddly, this section was cut from the original release by the censors which is even stranger when you consider the reaction to the treatment of prostitution and some of the language included by subject expert Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Having seen a church procession, Cabiria travels with her friends to the church the next day in the hope of being in the presence of the Madonna; many hope for redemption and a cure for their ills and there’s a desperation about the convoy of hopeful believers who cram into the sacred place and make their plea for a better life. As with the sequence in the later La Dolce Vita, there’s an ambivalence in the director’s treatment of Christianity and faith; no cripples are cured and the daylight reveals the mess of litter left by followers and, as the holy procession continues, Cabiria struggles with Wanda.

The parade passes by

Onto another form of magic as the next night, Cabiria finds her way into a show where a magician (Aldo Silvani) calls members of the audience up on stage and hypnotises them into doing and saying things they instantly forget. He calls Cabiria and asks her to describe her romantic ideal and his face starts to drop as she reveals too much. After the show though she is greeted by a man from the audience, Oscar (François Périer) who says he has been very affected by what she said. Oscar’s an accountant with quiet manner and, despite her initial wariness, Cabiria begins to trust him romantically…

Where this all leads is for every cinephile to discover with an ending New York Times critic Janet Maslin described as being worth more than "all the fire-breathing blockbusters Hollywood has to offer." It’s the perfect combination of Fellini, his musical partner Nino Rosa and the extraordinary emotional display of Giulietta Masina. Another highlight of theBFI’s Fellini Centenary celebrations and the restoration is currently doing the rounds nationwide. Not to be missed.

The restored version is out on Blu-ray on 6th April; it's going to look grand.

Is Oscar a keeper?

Two-for-one trivia sentence: the film was the inspiration for the musical Sweet Charity and the name Cabiria was taken from Giovanni Pastrone’s silent epic, Cabiria which provides a tenuous link with the majority of content on this (mostly silent) blog.