• Le Notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria)

5/7/21 (Fri)

Fellini’s fantastically uplifting 1957 film, with an astonishing performance by his wife and muse Giulietta Masina, fresh off the previous year’s La Strada. I watched the film mainly as the source material for Sweet Charity, which turns out to have followed the bare bones of the plot fairly closely. But the musical turned the lead into a dance hall girl and played her tribulations mainly for laughs, whereas the film’s Cabiria is a girl of the streets in a gritty post-war Rome still getting back on its feet. The exploits are the same, starting with the opening, where Cabiria’s “lover” turns out to be a scum who pushes her into a river and steals her purse. In the musical, it’s quickly over, just a bit of bad luck. In the film, Cabiria is fished out rather dispassionately by observers, who assume at first that she’s dead. When she recovers, she’s decided to believe, ever the optimist, that she simply fell into the water, refusing to engage the idea that the love affair was a scam, and goes off frantically looking for the lover. She’s disappointed again, of course, but bounces back as soon as the next hope comes along.

She is driven by a deep desire to believe that love exists and is out there somewhere waiting for her. While wandering the streets, she is picked up by a breathtakingly handsome movie star. She is taken to a fancy club (where she dances a joyous mambo) and then to his palatial home, but ends up having to spend the night hidden in his bathroom when his girlfriend shows up. She joins a religious procession and tearfully begs the Virgin to “help me to change my life”, but that doesn’t work. She comes across a mysterious man with a bag, who distributes food to desperately poor people living in grottoes, and is surprised to see a former streetwalker friend among them, once known for her great beauty. Disillusioned, she enters a magic show, where, pulled on stage and mocked, she tells the jeerers angrily that she has her own bank account and home (of which she’s very proud). Put under hypnosis, she has an affecting scene with an imaginary lover named Oscar.

After the show, she is approached by a man who tells her how moved he was by her love scene. He tell her that he himself is named Oscar and asks her to dinner. She is skeptical, but goes along with it. He says he doesn’t care about her past and loves her for herself, eventually asking her to marry him. Elated, she sells her house, packs up only what she can carry, says goodbye to her best friend Wanda (a wonderful Franca Marzi) and goes ecstatically to meet her fiancé. She is the very definition of happiness. She practically floats as they take a walk in the woods and come to a lovely setting on a cliff above a lake. It is there that she realizes that he intends to murder her. She tearfully throws her purse at him, filled with the cash from the sale of her home and entire savings, and begs him to kill her. He ultimately runs away with the purse and leaves her collapsed on the ground in tears of bitterness. She rises in sadness, but as she walks dejectedly she meets a group of children cheerily dancing and playing music. In a remarkable transition, her entire soul seems to wake up to the joy of life, and she looks to begin the search for happiness once again.

Masina is an irrepressible, irreplaceable personality who truly makes us believe in the power of love. Her lack of shame at her lifestyle, her utter (if unwise) openness to everyone, her pride in her small home (nowhere more palpable than when she hands the keys to the poor family who buys it), and most of all her conviction that “happiness comes along for everyone” create one of film history’s greatest characters. The final scene, which in the final 20-30 seconds is just a close-up of her expressive face, was one of the most remarkable endings I’ve ever seen. I’m amazed that they could get from suicidal to blissful so naturally. I finally understood what they were getting at toward the end of the Sweet Charity film. As much as I like Shirley MacLaine, the experience is entirely different in Masina’s hands. A great performance by any measure.

Franca Marzi, as noted, was also terrific as her prostitute friend and rival. Others were less memorable but absolutely fine in context in the rubble of still-recovering Italy. The lively back-and-forth among the characters was always fun, and while I wasn’t as crazy about the key magic show, it did give Masina one of her nicest scenes. I loved this film.