The Heartbreaks and Triumphs of NIGHTS OF CABIRIA

I. You suffer, you go through hell. Then happiness comes along.

Human beings are nothing if not resilient.  

It’s a good thing, too. Even for mammals, we’re a wildly anxious breed, likely stemming both from our capacity for abstract thought as well as our unique awareness of our own mortality.  We typically view the way we spend our time on Earth through the prism of knowing that this is the only chance we get.  Unfortunately, this can manifest in ways considerably less than stellar.  We learn to hate, create and purchase and use weapons, wage wars, all out of the fear that somebody or something may try to take our one solitary life away from us prematurely.  We also have the less than favorable habit of making unhealthy and impulsive decisions.  We take leaps both metaphorical and literal with the justification of, “well, you only live once, right?”.

On the other hand, the anxiety of humanity can lead to more productive habits.  We aspire and yearn.  We learn to create.  And play.  And worship.  Despite living amongst the people who channel their existential dread destructively, we can and will decide to use the ticking clock of time to make the world a better place than when they found it.  To take a second to dance to music.  To look for love.  To just…not let things get to them.

More than anything else, though, human beings dream. We imagine ourselves in a better place, doing something more fulfilling, finally leaving behind whatever’s holding us back. Even more than fear, the pursuit of a dream is perhaps the most powerful driving force the species has at its arsenal. A dream is ultimately the thing that gets us up in the morning.  It’s what allows us to take a beating from a world filled with other human beings making fear-based decisions.  Because, who knows?  Maybe if you just keep going, things will get better.  Maybe if you take just one more step, you’ll arrive at the place you’ve always wanted to be.

At the end of the day, human beings are resilient, all because of our ability to dream.

It’s a thought that kept recurring to me when re-watching NIGHTS OF CABIRIA, Federico Fellini’s sixth film and influential 1957 masterpiece.  It stars his wife Giulietta Masina and tells the story of…well, Cabiria, a prostitute on the streets of Rome (referred throughout via euphemisms such as “working girl”) who keeps aiming for something more, despite both her insecurities as well as her apparent inability to attain anything resembling genuine affection from anybody. She searches every conceivable avenue one could think of to locate love.  She ends up briefly in the arms of a vain (and scummy) film actor.  She throws herself at the (metaphorical?) feet of the Madonna at the local church.  She attends a magic show at a local music hall.  She even meets the man of her (maybe literal) dreams.  Nothing seems to take and, in fact, everything only hurts her more.  Although it’s a movie basically told in vignette, the emotional continuity from beginning to end is palpable.  The movie does have what could be interpreted as a happy ending, although I’d argue it’s more defiantly hopeful than anything else.

If you’ve never seen it, it’d be rational to assume from the description above that NIGHTS OF CABIRIA is a huge fucking bummer, or maybe a weepy melodrama, a maudlin affair.  But here’s the thing: it kind of isn’t.  Okay, maybe it is, purely in the sense that the story it tells is extremely heartbreaking.  But it’s also as good of a testament to the human spirit as anything I can think of, the kind of movie that actually makes you want to get out and live rather than shrivel up and die.  NIGHTS OF CABIRIA is probably the premier Fellini film as a result, the perfect bridge between his “let’s go to the circus” early work and the dreamlike feel to his later periods.  And, honestly, even if it wasn’t so insightful in its writing and intuitive in its direction, it would still be a five-star affair because of the dead-perfect performance from Masina at its center.

It’s a movie I’ve been meaning to write about for a long time!  Let’s explore NIGHTS OF CABIRIA.

II. Stay out of trouble. You'll get a miracle, like me. It'll happen.

Cabiria is a character that became the lead of her own film sort of by accident; she first appears in a brief scene in one of Fellini’s first movies, 1952’s THE WHITE SHEIK.  To be perfectly honest, although she’s still played by Giulietta Masina, this version of Cabiria doesn’t quite jive with the fully fleshed out woman we get later on in NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (the WHITE SHEIK iteration generally feels more in control of her life and emotions, for one). It’s ultimately a somewhat minor sequence in a somewhat minor film.  Still, Masina was clearly comfortable commanding the screen, and it allowed Fellini the freedom to start featuring her more and more as their intertwined careers moved forward.

Signs of Masina possibly becoming a major film lead perhaps shouldn’t have been all that surprising; after all, she had already appeared in what is generally considered Fellini’s first film, 1950’s VARIETY LIGHTS* and a handful of other films by the time her first scene as Cabiria rolled around.  THE WHITE SHEIK definitely wasn’t her first movie or anything.  But there was clearly something there and, watching her quick Cabiria cameo, it’s hard to deny that the movie picks up just a little bit in her four solitary minutes.

*A movie in which she seemed to have an early lead in portraying the beleaguered wife of an artist with fame and younger women on his mind, something that would serve her well both on and offscreen.

The major Fellini-Masina collaboration between 1952’s WHITE SHEIK and 1957’s NIGHTS OF CABIRIA is, of course, 1954’s LA STRADA and we’ll get into that one in a second.  Suffice to say, though, that after initial mixed reception, LA STRADA eventually found international acclaim, capped off with its victory as the inaugural winner* of the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award in 1956.  However, even with Fellini and Masina’s growing international acclaim and clout, finding a studio willing to finance NIGHTS OF CABIRIA proved difficult, allegedly due to its featuring of prostitutes as sympathetic leads.  It took legendary super-producer Dino de Laurentiis to put the money up himself before filming could begin.

*Technically speaking, anyway; the category actually goes all the way back to the 1946 Academy Awards.  However, prior to 1956, winners received Special/Honorary Awards as opposed to actual Oscars.  In case you were looking for some conversation grease at your next dinner party.

**Note that I couldn’t find anything to necessarily substantiate this.

De Laurentiis’ bet paid off; in 1957, NIGHTS OF CABIRIA won the very next Best Foreign Language Oscar.  As well, Giulietta Masina snagged a Best Actress award at that year’s Cannes Film Festival.  Although there are many people* to credit for the high quality of NIGHTS OF CABIRIA, it’s hard to argue against placing its success at the feet of its primary collaborators, the husband and wife team at the top.  Thus, I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about them and what specifically brought to CABIRIA.

*Including the singular Pier Paolo Pasolini, who cowrote CABIRIA’s screenplay before going on to become a legendary and provocative director himself.

III. Too much thinking will make your head explode.

Federico Fellini is one of those directors that is often presented as a “titan of cinema”, one of the guys who changed the language of movies as we know it, whose works inspired an entire generation of future Scorseses and Kubricks.  And look, in this instance, the shoe fits.  Fellini is a guy you just eventually need to know if you aspire to be any sort of film fan at all.  His is a filmography well worth diving into head first.

Thankfully, it’s not as esoteric an oeuvre as others can be; although Fellini has a signature style all his own (playful, dreamy and highly emotional), he filtered it through all kinds of different movies.  There’s big bombastic meta-narratives, there’s melancholy character pieces, there’s scummy little crime stories.  Look around enough, and there will inevitably be something that speaks to you.  However, he also happens to be a director whose major, seminal, medium-defining works (LA DOLCE VITA, 8 1/2) are NOT the ones I would point first-timers towards, great though they may be.

My favorite Fellini period is actually his first, his smaller (but no less powerful) character pieces from the 1950’s, often featuring his wife Giulietta Masina.  Now, that doesn’t mean I dislike his stuff from the 60’s, where he started playing with format, and really dug into his famous penchant for excess.  8 1/2 might be the most important Fellini movie.  But it definitely needs to be worked up to.  On the other hand, films like LA STRADA, IL BIDONE, and I VITELLONI are just as wonderful because of their accessibility, as well as their stopwatch-like precision and thematic resonance.  The characters are complete humans vividly drawn, and their actions continuously drive the narratives and conflict.  Maybe that’s all Basic Filmmaking 101, but they’re reminders that, for all of the barely-controlled chaos of his 60’s and 70’s work, Fellini could do the basics better than anybody.  It makes sense; you have to become fully fluent in a language before you can begin to take it apart.

Of this period, LA STRADA is probably the film most recognized as Fellini’s first masterpiece, and you should absolutely go watch it as soon as you can.  It’s a devastating story of a cruel man, his meek and naive assistant/companion/maybe wife, and the charming performer she connects with on the road.  It features American legends Anthony Quinn and Richard Basehart, whose performances are all the more astounding when you consider they’re dubbed in Italian.  And, of course, it features Masina in a role that feels somewhat like a precursor to Cabiria.  Her Gelsomina is emotional and fragile, isolated from how the world really works.  Yet she’s susceptible to love, and yearns to be treated with warmth.  LA STRADA is one of the finest films ever made, and certainly one of his most influential (just listen to Martin Scorsese fawn over it).

But I’ve always liked NIGHTS OF CABIRIA more.  As you’ve undoubtedly already gleaned, it’s my favorite Federico Fellini movie.  Now, to be perfectly fair, this might just be because I saw it first; CABIRIA was my introduction to Fellini as a whole and I was both captivated by the performances at its center and genuinely surprised at how accessible the movie was at its core (I can’t imagine anybody watching this and not at least follow along).  But even after consuming much of Fellini’s filmography, I still gravitate to CABIRIA over all others more because it features all of the same qualities as LA STRADA: a tragic human story about people on the margins of society, featuring at its center a sweet fragile girl who wants to be loved.  Crucially, though, Cabiria as a character has two beautiful features to her personality that LA STRADA’s Gelsomina seems to lack: passion and perseverance.  Both characteristics are displayed perfectly by Masina (who we’ll talk about in a bit).  And that’s what gives the movie its juice.

As far as directorial style goes, Fellini would go on to be known for a very playful style (undoubtedly stemming from his avowed love of the circus as a young boy) that would become less and less literal as time went on.  LA DOLCE VITA and 8½  played with the format of film itself with unintuitive editing or unexpected shifts in perspective and almost always with a unstated desire to fill the screen as much as possible with stuff.  As he moved into the 60’s and 70’s with movies like JULIET OF THE SPIRITS, FELLINI SATYRICON and even his segment of SPIRITS OF THE DEAD, he used color, costumes and dream logic to evoke a completely different cinematic world than anybody else was quite playing in.

NIGHTS OF CABIRIA is admittedly simpler than all that, and it’s very much grounded in a relatively recognizable world.  But something more dreamlike, even supernatural, seems to exist in the margins.  Consider something like the famous “Madonna” scene where Cabiria decides to give religion a try as a solution to her troubles.  It’s a stunning and memorable sequence, and about as maximalist as the movie gets.  Cabiria tags along with her fellow prostitutes as they take a pimp’s uncle to the local church in order to get his limp healed.  The church is filled with unfortunate souls moaning, wailing, prostrating themselves in front of the Madonna shrine, crying for salvation, for healing.

Cabira slowly, reluctantly gets into the spirit.  She kisses the altar, kneels, then quietly prays, almost to herself, “help me to change my life.  Bestow your grace on me too.  Make me change my life.”  As time goes on, it’s clear that nothing has changed, and she eventually grows resentful of the experience.  But the way the scene in the moment builds, as everyone is screaming for mercy, and Cabiria manages to find peace amidst the chaos….to watch it, it sure does feel like God might be there, waiting for Cabiria to find her strength.

Of course, what helps us believe in it all the more is the way Masina plays her in that moment, completely lost but open (desperate, even) for direction.  Actually, to put it bluntly, without Masina, most of the key CABIRIA moments wouldn’t hit the way they do.  The film’s greatest strength is its star, and it’s time we get into why.

IV. The cynical mask drops off and all that is best in us awakens.

It should be noted that, when it comes to art, I believe in the spectrum of opinion.  Not everyone likes everything, and there is no real objectively correct viewpoint when it comes to film.  Even the most set-in-stone classic films, performances and performers deserve to be questioned, maybe even despised.  I don’t really believe that you have to think something or someone is good or bad.

That said, if you don’t like Giulietta Masina, I think you’re a huge fucking loser.  

Sorry, I just have genuine trouble imagining the kind of person who could watch her in a movie and not immediately fall even a little bit in love.  She just…kind of has that kind of expressive face and imperceptible aura, you know?  The second Masina appears on the screen, your sympathies lie with her completely and totally.  You start living with every little scrap of happiness she gets, and dying off of every mountain of pain she gets thrown against.  Although her filmography is shorter than you might expect (less than thirty movies), she managed to make a lasting impact on the industry anyway due to her unique ability to express joy and heartbreak in equal measures.

Masina is just the best, and a major reason I’m so fond of Fellini’s early run of masterpieces.  Considering the types of stories he liked to tell, her unique ability to express joy and heartbreak in equal measures made her the perfect leading lady for Fellini in this period.  And, oh my god, does she ever get to express both joy and heartbreak, in all their different shades (and sometimes simultaneously) throughout NIGHTS OF CABIRIA.  As it happens, Cabiria turns out to be a fully realized human being, whose gruff and prickly exterior seems to be developed from a lifetime’s worth of insecurities and abuse from strangers.  That exterior can’t keep her from taking time to dance to a mambo, or continuing to desire something more.  This is the kind of thing Masina’s bread is buttered on.  She’s able to take this fleshed-out character off of the page and make you feel everything she feels.  Your heart soars when Oscar (Francois Perier) sweeps her off her feet.  You’re crushed when movie star Alberto Lazzari (Amedeo Nazzari) simply sweeps her under the rug.  It’s an astounding performance, made all the more impressive by its simplicity.

The moment I think about over and over when it comes to Giulietta Masina as Cabiria is the movie’s few moments of unbridled happiness. It’s when Cabiria meets Oscar, a man she meets after a disastrous night at the theatre (more on that in a bit). He’s handsome, thoughtful, and kind. Most of all, he likes her for who she is. He seems eager to marry her and whisk her away to a life of industry and comfort. Overwhelmed by this good fortune, Cabiria runs home to the place she shares with her friend Wanda. Through the fence, she lets loose on all of Oscar’s wonderful qualities. She caps it off with a triumphant, “He loves me!”

Now…even on a first watch, it’s the kind of moment that makes you check the runtime, notice there’s like twenty minutes left, then sit back and wait for the knife to twist into your heart. It’s worth mentioning that even Wanda seems skeptical of this man being dropped seemingly from heaven. Although we’re all hoping for NIGHTS OF CABIRIA to simply coast to a happy ending and get out, we know realistically, another shoe is about to drop.

But…Cabiria is so fucking happy. Masina radiates so much innocent joy, the kind that mostly gets beaten out of us in adulthood. In the face of her exuberance, what are we to do? We’re happy right along with her. He loves her! Why root for anything else?

V.  Loneliness is a heavy burden, but I'd rather be alone than make compromises.

It’s difficult to decide which section of NIGHTS OF CABIRIA is the most heartbreaking.  Hell, the damn thing starts with poor Cabiria being thrown off a bridge; things manage to go downhill from there. The clear frontrunner for “most devastating” would seem to be its final sequence, where Oscar turns out to be just one more motherfucker, his solitary goal revealed to be robbing her of her money and throwing her off a cliff (he at least restrains himself from following through on that last part).

However, even given that punch in the head, I’ve always found the preceding vignette even more distressing.  It’s the scene where Cabiria tries to find solace in a little local art.  A magician is putting on a show, and plucks a reluctant Cabiria from the audience to be a part of his next trick.  He puts her under hypnosis and asks her to visualize the fictitious handsome man in front of her (whose theoretical name is also Oscar).  As he describes what she’s supposed to be seeing, Cabiria ends up buying into the illusion completely and totally.  For just a minute or so, she’s done it. She’s achieved everything.  She’s about to be married, and whisked away to a life of domesticity.  Of respect. Of something resembling dignity.  Even if for a moment, it’s real.

Alas, as all tricks must, the hypnosis comes to an end and Cabiria is harshly returned to reality by the peals of laughter from the audience.  It’s immensely sad to watch her genuinely not understand why she’s being mocked.  As a viewer, it’s hard to even understand the point of the illusion from an entertainment perspective; one is forced to conclude the “funny part” is the idea that someone of Cabiria’s status could ever have anything resembling love or contentment.  It’s just one more moment of her being used for something cheap, and by this point in the film, you’re just so frustrated for her (which, again, wouldn’t be the case if Masina didn’t have you in her pocket from the jump) that you feel just as helpless as if it were happening to you.

And yet, that feeling of helplessness is where the movie’s famous ending derives its power.  Because, even after being thrown into the river, and cast aside, robbed, mocked, possibly ignored by God himself, somehow Cabiria still stands on her two feet, broken but not defeated.  As she slowly walks away from Oscar’s betrayal, a traveling troupe of musicians emerges from the forest and starts walking along behind her.  It should be noted that the song they’re playing is a riff on Nino Rota’s main theme for Cabiria, a melody that is more sweetly haunting than it is cheery (i.e. the exact right tone).  But, the meaning remains the same.  For the first time in 120 minutes, someone crosses Cabiria’s path and provides something kind.  The thick tear of mascara that has run down Cabiria’s face is slowly paired with a reluctant smile.  As you swear she glances right at us, we now know: she’s going to make it, even if it’s just to the next disappointment.  

There’s a reason why SWEET CHARITY, the Cy Coleman scored musical and subsequent Bob Fosse movie that directly adapts NIGHTS OF CABIRIA and retrofits it to exist in 60’s America, adheres closely to this ending as well.  Not only is it one of the strongest and most memorable conclusions in film history, it’s the only possible one that the story of Cabiria could ever have.  Even in the midst of our lowest moments, beauty can suddenly surround you at a moment’s notice.

You never know.  And that’s why you have to keep moving forward.

After all, you only live once.