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.

The libertines… City of Women (1981), BFI Fellini Centenary

"We do not go to Fellini to immerse ourselves in story and character or to encounter ideas. What we want from the maestro and what he gives us are fabulous adventures in feeling - a decidedly original mixture of nostalgia, poignancy, and joy that is unmistakably Fellini's own." John Gould Boyum, Wall Street Journal, 1981

"At the Cannes Festival the papers said that Fellini's last film was a total disaster, and that he himself had ceased to exist. It's terrible, but it's true, his film is worthless." Andrei Tarkovsky, 1981

I’m around the same age as Marcello Mastroianni when he made this film and just a few years younger than Federico Fellini who produced, directed and wrote this fantasy in which men of our age come face to face with feminism. I’m a generation or two below them and from a different cultural environment but I can’t say that I don’t know men like Snàporaz, Marcello’s character and therefore a cypher for Fellini. So, other than a snapshot of middle-aged male reactions to feminism, what can we make today of a film that so divided opinion at the time. We should also bear in mind what the director wrote about generational difference in the late sixties: “…faced with one of today’s youngsters, the young man of 1938 is like an accountant faced with a butterfly.”

I’m no butterfly counter but it’s safe to say that City is a startlingly inventive visual experience full of magically real episodes that are beautifully shot by Giuseppe Rotunno – Fellini in colour is always sweet-shop overload but capturing his mind’s eye took some doing and Rotunno worked with him on eight films. Mastroianni is also at his finest as the confounded Snàporaz who’s good nature allows him little awareness that he is part of a system of patriarchal oppression; it’s all a complete surprise to him, even when the points against become ever more personal.

Bernice Stegers gives Snàporaz the right impression, or so he thinks.

The film begins with Snàporaz waking up on a long train journey only to catch the eye of an attractive and enigmatic woman (Bernice Stegers) who excites his sexual interest so much he tries to make love to her in the toilets before mindlessly following her off the train at her station, which turns out to be a field in the middle of nowhere. Still following his base instinct, Snàporaz is left stranded as his train pulls away as does the woman after she calls out his crude advances.

Snàporaz begins a search for civilization only to find a hotel in the middle of a wood hosting a feminist convention with a particular focus on him; the woman from the train even pops up to target him personally. Snàporaz is initially fascinated and amused but this soon turns to concern. He is helped away from the febrile debating hall by a young woman, Donatella (Donatella Damiani) who seems friendly enough but soon has him on roller skates as dozens of other women come into this new room and skate at and around him.

He is helped escape again this time by a large woman (Iole Silvani) who finds him fallen at the bottom of the stairs and then offers to take him to the station on her motorbike. It’s a ruse though and she tries to have her wicked way with him in a greenhouse before being chided by her mother. It’s role-reversal for Snàporaz but things get even worse when he is rescued by girl gangs who drive too fast and eventually at him.

It's a trap and there are too many of them to quote George Lucas.

He seeks refuge at the large country house of Dr. Xavier Katzone (Ettore Manni) the ultimate woman hunter who has a hall of remembrance where he has recordings made of his 9,999 conquests… In the main hall Snàporaz finds his wife Elena (Anna Prucnal) who may become the 10,000^th and he even has a cake to celebrate. Yet, whilst noting this impressive record, the priapic Doctor is now resolving to say goodbye to women… Then the police arrive, made up of the women from the hotel including the frisky motorcyclist and inform him that one of his precious pet attack dogs has died, a very male breed, a hunter for a hunter.

Dr. Katzone’s house is bigger than the hotel where the women convened and it contains a hall paying tribute to every conquest; pictures with recorded highlights which delight Snàporaz, who flicks them on and off with glee savouring their reduction to recorded signifiers of male dominance. There’s no love just lust and conquest. The film snowballs, and there’s no let-up in the escalation of the director’s cavernous visions. Fellini’s flash can be off-putting – Roma on the small screen is a tough watch; too much to squeeze through - and yet seeing it in cinema contains the exuberance rather than magnifying it. Either way, you have to tuck into Federico’s feast even when, cinematically speaking, you may just want to enjoy a contemplative sandwich.

But on it goes as Snàporaz’s unrepentant and, to be honest, almost uncomprehending, sexual attitudes are examined by a swirling array of larger than life women including his own wife, arrived to sing operatically and to throw herself at her reluctant husband:“I want to make love!”...“But it’s raining…” comes back his excuse as he looks for the younger women.

She’s less chance of lighting his fire than setting the drenched woodlands ablaze; he wants the ones he can’t have and he wants them all. As in a dream he chases two nearly-naked nubiles – including the ever-smiling Donatella until, unable to sleep in the huge bed provided for himself and his disappointed wife, he crawls underneath and through a hole to find a fairground in Katzone’s unfeasible basement.

As he descends on the slowest of helter-skelter slides, he sees his romantic life played out in front of him and his restless search for the perfect woman becomes a trial with the reward of a giant inflatable balloon variant of this impossible creature. Once more Marcello takes to the skies in a Fellini dream… or… is it?

Welcome to the House of  Fun...

Roger Ebert concluded his review in 1981 by saying the City of Women was ” …worth seeing because it's a bedazzling collection of images, because at times it's a graceful and fluid celebration of pure filmmaking skill, and because Fellini can certainly make a bad film but cannot quite make a boring one.”

City of Women is certainly not that and whilst it doesn’t have many answers it at least raises the questions. It deals with the feelings and, as with all feelings, they are not always rational or explainable. If nothing else we get to see Marcello dance like Fred Astaire… he’s the most charming of rogues and no one ever coped with the dual pressures of likable and roguish quite so well!

The BFI Fellini season continues for the rest of the month, full details on their website.

Silent film clearly was a strong formative experience for young Federico...