Le notti di Cabiria

Plot synopsis:
A happy, laughing Cabiria (Giulietta Masina) is standing on a river bank with her current boyfriend and live-in lover, Giorgio (Franco Fabrizi). Suddenly he pushes her into the river and steals her purse which is full of money. She cannot swim and nearly drowns, but is rescued by a group of young boys and revived at the last possible moment by helpful ordinary people who live a little further down the river. In spite of just saving her life, she treats them with disdain and starts looking for Giorgio.
Cabiria returns to her small home, but Giorgio has disappeared. She is bitter, and when her best friend and neighbor, Wanda (Franca Marzi) tries to help her get over him, Cabiria shoos her away and remains disgruntled. She continues to ply her trade as a prostitute. One night, she is outside a fancy nightclub and witnesses a fight between famous movie star, Alberto Lazzari (Amedeo Nazzari) and his girlfriend, as she dumps him. The differences in appearance between the glamorous girlfriend, in a mink coat, and the disheveled and short Cabiria are stark. The jilted Lazzari takes the starstruck Cabiria to another club and then to his house, where Cabiria is astounded by its opulence. As the two are finally becoming closer after a rather standoffish few hours, Lazzari's girlfriend returns and Cabiria is shuffled off to the bathroom, unable to consummate with the movie star.
Later, a church procession passes the hangout area for the town prostitutes. As her associates mock the Church, Cabiria is drawn to the procession. Just as she is about to join the procession, another john comes and she gets in his truck instead. As she heads home later that night, she sees a man giving food to the poor people living in caves near her house. She has never seen this man before, but she is impressed by his charity toward others. When she goes to church with her friends, she prays for a chance to better her life.
Cabiria goes to a magic show, and the magician (Aldo Silvani) drags her up on stage and hypnotizes her. As the audience laughs, she acts out her desires to be married and live a happy life. Furious at having been taken advantage of for the audience's amusement, she leaves in a huff. Outside the theater, a man named Oscar (François Périer) is waiting outside to talk to her. He was in the audience, and he says he agrees with her that it was not right for everyone to laugh, but believes that fate has brought them together. They go for a drink, and at first she is cautious and suspicious, but after several meetings she falls passionately in love with him; they are to be married after only a few weeks. Cabiria is delighted and sells her home and takes out all her money from the bank. After they are married, she offers to give Oscar 700,000 lire in cash, but he declines. However, during a walk in a wooded area, on a cliff overlooking a lake, Oscar becomes distant and starts acting nervous. Cabiria realizes that just like her earlier lover, Oscar intends to push her over the cliff and steal her money. She throws her purse at his feet, sobbing in convulsions on the ground as he takes the money and abandons her.
She later picks herself up and stumbles out of the wood in tears. In the film's famous last sequence, Cabiria walks the long road back to town when she is met by a group of young people riding scooters, playing music, and dancing. They happily form an impromptu parade around her until she begins to smile through her tears.

Tags: cruelty, sentimental

Review:
But there never will be another "Nights of Cabiria" - the last Fellini's film with the linear structure, his third and the most successful collaboration with his actress wife, Giulietta Masina, his immortal love letter to her.
It's not just the amazing perfomance by Giullietta Masina, it's not just the wonderful, semi-crazy characters wondering around the screen and emphasizing Kabiria's sad and lonely world, it's -and that's the film's greatest quality- this sense of optimism that Fellini wants the viewer to take with him/her as he/she is leaving the theater.
Giulietta Massina gives not just the greatestperformance of her career, but surely one of the greatestperformances ever recorded on film, and the sequence of Cabiria's experiences, at first seemingly random and insignificant, adds up to one of the most profound statements Fellini ever made about human life..
I have seen La Strada before and I now rank Fellini's earlier work as among my all time favorites (along with Ozu.) Masina's tearful smile at the camera at the end is pure magic - so much dignity and hope captured in a single second.
I must say that you suffer with Cabiria, For example when she meets the movie star.A masterpiece from the start to the end and I would call it one of the best films ever made.No doubt about 5/5.
Le Notti is a very rich,thematically, and diversified movie:the freshness and the concreteness,a strange inebriate detachment (in the "Alberto" the movie star episode),men's wickedness,the horrible baseness,the sordidness,the suavity,the gentleness and the bitterness,the irreverence towards the Christianity,also themes from previous (Il Bidone,La Strada) and even future (La Dolce vita,Toby Dammit,the easy-going eccentric Roman inebriate night life,Rome's night life) films.Fellini no longer believes in,or no longer practices the Shakespearian notes he used in Il Bidone,that kind of Shakespearean intensity.Anyway,like "Il Bidone","Le Notti" changes register in its last part,and offers that unsparing insight deeper than the reality itself.Transitional movie,"Le Notti" is at once a recapitulation of themes from previous works,and a preparation for his future essays (the 4 great movies from the '60s).The epic texture is still important.I don't think that Fellini ever bets on the "social document",etc.,and his ephemeral,or,at least,temporary association with some Neorealists in the '50s is generally misunderstood and made to mean something it never was.A thin-skinned prostitute,"Cabiria",meets a bashful accountant.Seen through Cabiria's experiences,her tribulations,the things she sees, tell more about her own mind,she is not,as such,the director's representative,though Fellini depicts reproachfully the malice of some of those met by Cabiria in her way.The world as presented in "Le Notti ..." is,at least partially,seen through the prostitute's eyes,hence the touch of grotesque and even some kind of a twisted naiveté,a la Sue.In this world seen by Cabiria,there are some landmarks of concrete humanity,e.g. the philanthropist met by the prostitute,or the Friar.It is always surprising,but also heartening, to see a man of great intelligence needing to give goodness and humanity a place in his work.(Kusturica,who refused any resemblance with Fellini and denied any influence,uses the same kind of endowing the sleazy worlds he explores with at least one firm landmark of goodness,so this world it is not left to its own degeneration and cowardice.)I see in this lapidary insert that never patronizes the sign of a distinguished deftness.(In "Il Bidone" such a character misses.)Albeit mixed with irony and sarcasm (those of an exceptional mind ),Fellini's compassion is none the less authentic.His relative neutrality,his neatness in handing this humble epic stuff do not make him an indifferent witness.(As a youngster,Fellini planned to make a movie about a "little wildflower of grace", Serenella ;more interesting is to note that this "little wildflower of grace" was,for Fellini,one of "the two faces of the Church".Fellini had opinions,had ideas about real life,goodness,etc..Fellini even had a very keen and salubrious idea about the true task of Christianity for man,to "restore him to his divine greatness".)He was also known to admire humility, simplicity,and he knew to be politically incorrect in this."Le Notti" may be Fellini funniest movie:it abounds in comical things,and this comic is always tasteful and intelligent.It also has a certain quality that can be simply described as gentlemanly.Also,let us note that in "Le Notti" Fellini avoided the cruelty's altitude reached already in "Il Bidone",but maintains a more comical and grotesque register.In "Le Notti ..." Fellini still has a narrative thread;he gives shape to various intuitions,feelings, perceptions,dreams,in an impressionistic and fancy but well-conceived and finely molded way.His enjoyment of the clownish aspects of the reality is a relish.Cabiria's world is explored with Fellini's appetite for the concrete.He connives with the prostitutes and the hussies,sends Cabiria in the medium of the rich,in that of the religious pilgrimages....There are some powerful vignettes,displaying Fellini's gusto and skills for seizing various facets of the social life.His mastership in depicting realist scenes that none the less have a bizarre and ambiguous twist is obvious in Cabiria's tribulations.With the air of making a purely reflexive and intransitive work,Fellini still expresses freely,with an Un-faked ingenuity, his thoughts about life,people,etc..While affecting to leave outside his feelings and opinions about everyday life and the common experience,Fellini none the less slipped his own thoughts and reactions,because he did have them and was not sank into some kind of impassibility,placidity and indifference.Fellini's ironic detachment,caustic sometimes,was,in his '50s movies,a good way to perceive the reality and to depict it without being patronizing or Thesist.The man was very refined and subtle and he refused to be encapsulated,enclosed,encompassed in an artistic formula;he believed in the richness and irreducible character of both life and art.This playful man wasn't a joker.Fellini passed a judgment on certain aspects of life,and resented the cruelty and the wickedness,without ever being didactic or moralist;but it must be said that,as director,he was both very intelligent and ironic,and ingenuous,natural,spontaneous;one,no less than the other.He was as impassible and as ingenuous as his very keen intelligence made him to be.Nobody was farther than Fellini from conforming himself to a theoretical model about how should man be and create.I want to praise "Cabiria"'s actors' genuineness,beginning with Mrs. Masina;this was her fifth movie with her husband.She was ever more than a "Fellini actress".Her ethereal and funny approach denotes a very mature understanding.(But it is true that Fellini wanted for his movies real actors, great actors,not puppets,he favored the creative skills of the actors.) François Périer's performance is simply gold;it has that sensitivity,delicacy,nuances and fineness that are compelling."Cabiria" is on the iridescent side of Fellini's '50s career,the other side being the "realist" and narrative one.This iridescent side is irreducible to schools and trends,expressing Fellini's refusal to use the standard methods and to work within a common code,and favoring,at first through this poetry of the Faubourg,the experimental and a new Apprehensibility.It is important to notice that Fellini was a great experimenter,and one that never cogs;he is probably the most famed cinema experimenter.( "I have one great limitation",said Fellini,"not having general ideas about anything".)Fellini agreed,once,that "all my films revolve around " the "love toward one's neighbor".Those who are used to receive this only in a conventional,didactic way,won't even recognize it in Fellini's works.Averty did the best homage to Fellini,considering him one of the three directors that never made a bad movie,and unable to make one.I subscribe..
Poor Giulietta Masina, one of the greatest film actresses of all time, she always gets the short end of the stick and because the movie magic is so intense, our heart breaks right along with her.Fellini is the Great Director Italian style.
Fellini's films are not for everybody perhaps, but I admire them how well made made and directed they are, some of them like Amarcord and the peacock in the snow have breathtakingly beautiful images that stay long in the mind, for his choices in composers and actors, for his deliberately paced and sometimes ambitious stories(8 1/2 is especially true of this) and also that the characters are not always what they seem at first glance.
In a way "Nights of Cabiria" is the companion piece to "La Strada", both directed by Federico Fellini, both starring his wife and muse Giulietta Masina and both dealing with a woman and her struggle with life.
And we are swept away with her when eventually that turn in her fate is actually happening, the change for which we've all been rooting by then.It all leads up to one of the most striking final scenes in cinema history - Fellini's camera work and Masina's performance invoke pure movie magic: Never before is a greeting from a total stranger as heart-warming as here, never again will a well-timed nod into the camera be so electrifying as Cabiria's.
Giulietta Masina's performance is truly one of the most impressive I've ever seen - her face is as expressive as Buster Keaton's or Charlie Chaplin's.The movie is a deceptively simple story about the day-to-day encounters of a prostitute who does the best she can to make a living and maintain her hopes and dreams of a better life.
This is the first Fellini film I ever saw (and thank heavens I saw it on the big screen); I absolutely FELL IN LOVE with its now-legendary star Giulietta Masina (in the title role of Cabiria).
However, I have to admit one thing clearly: Fellini was one of the few men in cinema who was able to create something really powerful, captivating, enthralling, controversial, something really innovative: and that is what one may undeniably say about NIGHTS OF CABIRIA, his 1957 movie where again, after marvelous LA STRADA, he cast his wife Giulietta Masina in the lead, a performance that may be regarded as one beyond any awards.
Moreover, all is enriched by the wonderful music by Nino Rota, a genius with whom Fellini worked with many other movies.As one reviewer before me has already stated, NIGHTS OF CABIRIA is like Cabiria's or Giulietta's smile, the smile of optimism, the smile of long ago, the smile that after 50 years still moves us and uplifts us.
In this masterpiece by a great director, Fellini tells of the prostitute Cabiria who spends the entire movie searching for love without ever actually having sex.
Nights of Cabiria saw Giulietta Masina get the award for best actress in the European version of our academy awards.Like Bette Davis in 1937 and 1938 who was nominated for in Human Bondage and lost an award everyone thought was hers only to win on her next nomination for Dangerous.Masina should have won for La Strada in 54 but won on her next nominated performance in 1957 for Nights Of Cabiria the awards people obviously not wanting to be seen as having missed the boat twice in three years.That being said Giulietta put in a performance worthy of award status.Cabiria a streetwalker has her own home, a small bank account,and is fiercely independent.She has the same hopes and dreams of everyday middle-class people.She and her friend Wanda seem to want a normal life but have somewhat resigned themselves to making the best out of the life!She takes pride that her and Wanda whenever possible try and get picked up at the higher class locales,that she has only slept under a bridge once or maybe twice,and the fact that she staunchly refuses to accept a pimps protection.she would like to have real love in her life but is practical about her expectations,partly due to negative experiences of such.The cinematography makes you feel like you are in Italy as Fellini takes his camera to the streets of Rome and her provinces.There is no pre-fab Hollywood sets here.Cabiria like Gelsomina will remain in your mind and heart long after this film has been watched..
I've never seen a Federico Fellini movie that I didn't like, and "Le notti di Cabiria" is certainly another great one, telling the story of naive but self-standing prostitute Cabiria (Giulietta Masina) wondering through Rome looking for love but never finding it.
The movie will remain in your heart for along time.As in most of the Fellini movies, the film is one character centered, Giulietta Masina as Cabiria done a wonderful job, along with each and every other cast in the movie.
Mr. Fellini made a kind of emotional trap, which causes a strong sense of optimism in the viewers.Giulietta Masina as Cabiria Ceccarelli is "funny face" with which we can read the children's joy, sadness, bitterness of life, love, temperament and hope.
In essence, she is an incurable romantic, with a huge heart, which was destroyed in her own pain.Her support are Amedeo Nazzari (Alberto Lazzari) as a big movie star and a womanizer, François Périer (Oscar D'Onofrio) as a charmer and spontaneous suitor and Franca Marzi (Wanda) as a beautiful and buxom prostitute and her friend.The smile on the face of the main protagonist, with which the film ends, is a great victory of the human spirit..
Federico Fellini's Masterpiece Le notti di Cabiria is about a young woman's odyssey,who is by the way a prostitute,throughout Rome.During this odd adventures she comes face to face with her dreams but she never accomplishes them.She in a nostalgic climate looks back when she was younger and more innocent.She is a human being who admires people who give love and are selflessness.In the end she gets charmed from one people like those and in her kindness she believe's him but him tragic conclusions.The trust that she shows to people throughout the film is the reason she gets deluded,but those characteristics make her,even she doesn't realize it one of those people she admires.The ending although it seems sad in total,the last taste that the audience takes is the view of a fighter,a human that looks everyone in the eyes and doesn't fear to show feelings to anyone.The movie might seem boring to some people but when they'll reach to the ending they will be remunerated.The ending climax and the landscape of one of the most dramatic scenes in cinema is outstanding.The viewer draws away from the happy turn the movie has gotten and is thrown for another time to cruelty of the world,but for another time people have to turn their backs to heartbreak and death and fight again.The viewer suffers with the character in a silent scene where both the actress and the director prove their talents.Summing up the movie is totally worth watching.Having a clear mind while watching it will help to get all the meanings many of which have escaped this review.Highlight of the film:The Ending..
A waifish prostitute (Giulietta Masina) wanders the streets of Rome looking for true love but finds only heartbreak.I do not feel confident critiquing this film, as it is the first Federico Fellini film I have seen.
The film stands at the midpoint of these two diverse feelings, and somehow the ending is able to reconcile the two into a coherent and understandable scenario for our favorite Italian prostitute, Cabiria.This is a story that really hinges on the performance of the lead, and it could have gone either way despite Federico Fellini being behind the camera.
She has a sweet and also clownish look as a prostitute that walks around the city looking for love.Federico Fellini won one of his four Oscars for this funny film (You see a lot of Chaplin in her character.) that has Cabiria holding her head high despite her occupation.In the opening her current boyfriend tries to drown her.
The film details the life of Cabiria (played by Fellini's wife Giulietta Masina), a `night bird' who leads a cynical life of prostitution on the streets of Rome.
Fellini ends the film with a shot of Cabiria looking into the camera smiling through her tears - she still has some hope for humanity inside her.It seems that no matter how desperate her struggles, Cabiria can not leave her life on the streets.
Nights of Cabiria is another neo-realistic Italian cinema that took us down-right to the world of misfortune,despairing,unloved world of a prostitute.The story of a woman Cabiria who dreamed up of finding true love in her life.The story follows Cabiria in her quest for love where she wanders the streets of Rome during night awaiting a wonder to happen when one day she will find the love of her life,but ironically in her quest she always get betrayed,disrespected and used-up by the different men she encounters in her journey.In this tragicomic tale,Giulietta Masina portrayed the role of innocent and naive women which is one of the greatest performance i have seen from any actress in my life.You will gravitate towards her wide,round glittering eyes and her innocent smile.You will grieve for her griefs, felt sympathy for her and when she smile,the innocence and purity of her smile compel you to smile and rejoice for her, when she pray to Madonna in a shrine i felt like praying with her.Her character was so energetic,full of passion ans positive attitude towards life,no matter how much she is in pain and grief she always found a way to laugh.Nights of cabiria is certainly one of the most perfect and equally powerful movie ever made.There is not a single flaw in the direction of Federico Fellini.The movie was more than perfect in every department from plot development,cinematography,performance to editing you cannot point-out a single sign of blemishness in the movie.This movie was entertaining throughout, perfectly paced that allow the audience to get deeply involve with the story and also prevent from boredom.The scenes were shot with precise details, perfection and beauty,whether the scene of the prayer in the shrine or the tension and sadness build at the climax ,every scene was exquisitely brilliant.This movie have one of the most tragic ending i have ever seen.The movie ended like it started,when she get betrayed again by another man she fell in love, in-spite of being sad and severely honest to audience about the harsh reality of world all the time, movie still inspire us at the end same time to never to loose hope.
And that, with her spirit, makes watching the film all worthwhile.Fellini wants you to hope for the best for his character Cabiria (Maria) and Giulietta Masina plays her well.