Nights of Cabiria (1957)

 Federico Fellini's "Nights of Cabiria"

By 1957, Federico Fellini had established himself as a creative force in the Italian film industry. He had already won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival as well as an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in the U.S., both accolades for his incredible 1954 film "La Strada." For his next film, he wanted a story centered on a waifish prostitute. The only problem is that no one was willing to fund a film feature prostitutes as heroines. Nobody except Dino De Laurentiis, the Italian film producer and businessman who produced or co-produced over 500 films in his lifetime, including classic films that would stand the test of time, like Sidney Lumet's "Serpico,' David Lynch's "Blue Velvet," and Federico Fellini's iconic 1957 feature film "Nights of Cabiria." 

The film centers on a lowly prostitute named Cabiria who time and time again gets let down by various life circumstances. She begins the film being shoved into a river by her supposed boyfriend who only wanted to steal her purse. After she recuperates and heads back to her lowly shack on the edge of Rome. She has an almost-fling with a movie star before he gets back with his significant other, she is humiliated at a magic show, and eventually she is tricked into selling her home and all her possessions for a grifter who pretends to be in love with her. Despite all these tragic circumstances, Cabiria continues on, penniless and homeless, and yet still finds hope within her to continue. 

After the closing moments of the film, I was in awed silence, quietly crying to myself at the gut-punch of emotion I had just witnessed. "Nights of Cabiria" is by far one of Fellini's best works. It captures the utter desolation of this lowly prostitute and continued let downs of her life. In a way, this could be meant to symbolize post-war Italy. As the Italian neo-realism movement was showing, Italians were in a state of low economic uncertainty and life was looking bleak for these communities who already had to endure the bleak reality of war. The gut-punch letdown after gut-punch let down of the everyday Italian striving to make a life for themselves is perhaps congruent to the allegory of Cabiria, who time and time again looks for human connection, spiritual connection, income, love, or friendship and is met with nothing but disregard, hostility, embarrassment, deception, and a completely unchanging of desolate circumstances. And yet, through all of this, there is nothing else do to but continue on, marching through life with the hope that things could possibly get better. What else is there to do? Kill yourself? Become defeated? Lay in the dirt with nothing to live for? Cabiria chooses hope because that's all left there is to do.

To play the waifish and mesmerizing Cabiria is none other than Giulietta Masina. I do believe that her performance in "Nights of Cabiria" is perhaps her greatest achievement, despite "La Strada" just perhaps just on par. The final sequence of the film is perhaps what cements it. The devastation and then eventual emotional spirit that exudes from Masina is nothing short of phenomenal. The final images of her will stay in my mind until my final days. Cabiria's enduring spirit despite all that has happened to her is a moment of spirituality for me that will also remain with me. 

All in all, "Nights of Cabiria" is nothing short of a masterpiece. Fellini seemed to really lean in to his neo-realist foundations with this one, and its subject matter really called for it. Of course, you can't have a Fellini film without a bit of flair, without some carnival-esque style, some heightened sequences of spiritual realism, and some shots that I will forever remember. "Nights of Cabiria" will always stay with me.