Nights of Cabiria opens with Cabiria (Giulietta Masina) and her boyfriend playfully embracing by the seaside -- and then he shoves her into the water and steals her purse. Cabiria is revived by some local boys and runs off by herself, shouting. What follows is a series of similarly humiliating episodes, in which the defiantly positive prostitute Cabiria is hurt, but never broken. She gets picked up by movie star Alberto Lazzati (Amedeo Nazzari, doing a self-parody) and taken to his palatial
estate. However, his mistress shows up and Cabiria gets locked in the bathroom all night with the dog. She then joins her fellow prostitutes for a blessing from the Virgin Mary, and ends up getting drunk and wandering into a local show, where the hypnotist invites her to join him on-stage. The audience heckles her, and she toughly reminds them of her independence and that she owns her own house. There she meets Oscar (François Perier), an accountant who romantically pursues her. Despite the warnings of her fellow prostitute friend, Wanda (Franca Marzi), she prepares to sell all her belongings and accept Oscar's proposal of marriage. After being ruthlessly taken advantage of once again, Cabiria walks off alone with a smirk of hope. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
What makes the character so poignant is that her final fortification is not her street wisdom -- that's all surface -- but her innocence. Her ultimate protection is our sympathy for her.
As artificial as Cabiria's behavior sometimes seems, it always seems her own, and this little woman carries herself proudly through the gutters of Rome.
Fellini's masterpiece, which won the Foreign-Language Oscar, features Giulietta Masina (Fellini's wife) in her most heart-breaking performances, playing a naive prostitute who endures an endless series of devastating misfortunes with her soul intact.
In 1957, Fellini was still as indebted to neo-realism as to surrealism, and this melancholy tale of a prostitute working the outskirts of Rome is notable for its straightforward depiction of destitution.
Ingênua, romântica e sempre esperançosa, Cabíria é a personagem definitiva de Giulietta Masina e também uma das mais marcantes da filmografia de Fellini, que constrói um filme comovente e incrivelmente revelador sobre a força da natureza humana.
Giulietta Masina was a great actress. I preferred her character in La Strada but her performance in Nights of Cabiria is much stronger. I've not seen Sweet Charity but I'm aware of it and I'm quite shocked at the audacity of it, I shan't judge until I've viewed it for myself but this is a great film, an untouchable
classic and a crucial point in Fellini's career as this marked the departure from neo-realism into the surreal and wonderful! It's all good though and I really think he's a director you should follow chronologically.
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