Le Notti di Cabiria, 1957
[Nights of Cabiria]
Nights
of Cabiria is a touching, humorous, and poignant film about
hope and survival. As the first film of the trilogy of loneliness,
Federico Fellini pares the story of an endearing prostitute searching
for love and happiness down to its fundamental substance. The result
is a social criticism that is honest, impartial, and searing. We first
see Cabiria (Giulietta Masina) walking by the lake with a lover who
steals her purse, then throws her into the water. It is a familiar
pattern with the hapless Cabiria: men who exploit her, then abandon
her. She is not morally bankrupt, but deeply spiritual, interminably
optimistic, and trusting. She attempts to project an image that she
is confidently in control. Yet, we see that she is a victim of circumstance.
She resorts to prostitution as a means of income in an economically
depressed city. She is duped by pilgrims professing to witness a miracle.
She is denied an evening with a celebrity when his girlfriend unexpectedly
returns to reconcile. Nights of Cabiria
is a simply told, profoundly affecting film about the misery of existence,
and the triumph of the human spirit.
The
imagery of water is a prevalent theme in Fellini's films. It is the
symbol of catharsis (as in Krzysztof Kieslowski's Blue)
and eternity. (In Fellini's La
Strada, Zampano returns to the tranquil cadence of the sea after
a heartbreaking revelation.) In Nights of
Cabiria, the film begins and ends with water. It is an imagery
that illustrates that life, itself, is cyclical - eternal - as the
human condition. Water is also a symbol of purification. Cabiria's
soul remains untainted, despite her sordid profession (a theme that
echoes the works of such writers as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Gustav Flaubert,
and Jean-Paul Sartre, among others). It is a humanist idea that people
are innately good, but forced by their circumstances into acts of
desperation (a familiar neorealist theme). The result is a powerful
metaphor: a fusion of hope and misery, perseverance and suffering,
a synthesis not unlike life itself.
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A
bishop and a priest are chauffeured to the rural home of two peasant
sisters. They recount the story of an unnamed man who has made a deathbed
confession of burying a treasure chest along with a murdered victim
by a tree in the middle of their property. The confessor has bequeathed
the hidden bounty to the landowners, in exchange for 500 masses to
be held in his memory. It is a fantastic tale that is made plausible
by the seeming benevolence of the two clergymen. But these men are
not emissaries from the Catholic Church. An earlier scene shows the
middle-aged Augusto (Broderick Crawford) and the younger Carlo (Richard
Basehart) (who goes by the nickname Picasso) preparing for the confidence
game, as the charismatic Roberto (Franco Fabrizi) switches license
plates. The unsuspecting sisters have just surrendered their life
savings to a band of career criminals. And so the ritual of their
existence is revealed: posing as housing officials, selling worthless
watches, bartering inexpensive coats for money and a full tank of
gasoline. Augusto has grown weary of his profession, but has never
known any other life. One day, he encounters his daughter, Patrizia
(Lorella De Luca) on her way home from school. She wants to become
a teacher, but can neither afford the tuition, nor pay the deposit
required to earn a decent wage to fund her studies. Augusto is clearly
devoted to her, but can only make empty promises of support. While
spending the afternoon with Patrizia at a movie theater, he is recognized
by one of his nameless victims, and is promptly sent to jail. Separated
from his daughter, he returns to the familiarity of his disreputable
trade.
Few
films have indelibly defined society as caustically and honestly as
Federico Fellini's