Nights of Cabiria

Thursday, May 29, 2008

I still haven't seen the rest of Amarcord, but I think checking out Fellini's Nights of Cabiria makes up for last weekend's lameness.

This is a more realistic, down to Earth Fellini than I'm used to... no flights of fancy like in 8 1/2 and isn't even really comparable to Satyricon, which is about as out-there as movies get. And actually what surprised me here is that the greatness of this film centers more on the lead character/performance moreso than on Fellini's filmmaking. I mean, his directing is what gives life to 8 1/2, which could otherwise be too ponderous, and it's the only thing that helped me tolerate the insufferable characters in La Dolce Vita, and it's pretty much the whole show in Satyricon, since the story and the characters make no damn sense. What I'm saying is, I was surprised to see how much this one relied on the charms of Giulietta Masina, who plays Cabiria and was Fellini's wife.

And it works, because she's great in this. She's somewhat abraisive, but you can't help but love her character, and it's her charm and delight in the face of the tough realities of life that make this movie such wonderful entertainment. I was expecting this to be a much more bleak, dark movie, based on the description on the box, but a lot of it is actually a joy. It gets darker as it goes along, but Fellini somehoe manages to pull a happy ending out of it. The whole film rests on its final shot, a close up on Cabiria's face, and it's a magical moment.