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MovieMail's Review
David Parkinson finds this collaboration between Fellini and his wife, who plays an unquenchably optimistic prostitute, to be one of his most fascinating films.
Coming between La Strada and Juliet of the Spirits, Giulietta Masina’s second collaboration with husband Federico Fellini is easily their most accomplished and compelling, giving a bittersweet glimpse into the life and dreams of Cabiria, a resilient and unquenchably optimistic prostitute. However, even her outlook is threatened when she is first dumped by a glamorous film star, then by her supposedly respectable fiancé who also takes her life savings.
Alternating between neorealism and nouvelle vague self-reflexivity, it marked the junction between the intimate studies of those subsisting on society’s margins and the big city satires that saw Fellini hailed as an auteur. Orson Welles once opined that the Rimini-born director was a small-town boy who never quite adjusted to the tempo and temperament of urban life. But the Oscar-winning Nights of Cabiria suggests that his outsider status gave Fellini a clearer perspective of Roman mores than most of his contemporaries.
Stylistically, this is one of Fellini’s most fascinating films. The opening sequence in which Cabiria is pitched into the Tiber by a boyfriend intent on stealing her handbag, and the shots of her humble home isolated in a wasteland between Rome and Ostia are textbook examples of the authenticity demanded by neo-realism. Indeed, such was Fellini’s insistence on veracity that he hired Pier Paolo Pasolini to cast the dialogue between Cabiria and her fellow hookers at the Terme di Caracalla in street slang. However, several sequences recall the rose-tinted realism that so often tempted Vittorio de Sica, while others, such as Cabiria’s encounter with a hypnotist, draw more postmodern attention.
Yet for all this masterly melodrama reveals about Fellini as an artist, husband and human being, it is dominated by Masina, whose unsung genius for switching between flinty sassiness and wide-eyed vulnerability gives the picture its heart. Many have compared her performance to the sentimental mumming of Charlie Chaplin, but there’s more of Harry Langdon’s naive resourcefulness about Cabiria’s determination to find love and improve her quality of life. Poignant and poised, it’s the finest acting display in the entire Fellini canon.
An Oscar-winning bittersweet glimpse into the life and dreams of Cabiria, a resilient and unquenchably optimistic prostitute, played by Fellini's wife, Giuletta Masina. Despite the various disappointments which come her way, she always looks on the bright side of life. Even her optimism is threatened, however, when she is dumped first by a glamorous film star, then by her supposedly respectable fiancé who also absconds with her life savings.
Later reworked by Bob Fosse into Sweet Charity, this original is a wonderful love letter from Fellini to his wife.
