• 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. Continue reading →