Fellini’s Roma (1972) dir. Federico Fellini
Starring: Peter Gonzales, Fiona Florence, Pia De Doses, Renato Giovannoli

By Alan Bacchus

During one of the sequences, in which we follow a camera crew around town photographing a hippie student rally, we watch a group of bystanders discuss with Fellini himself their desire for the director to depict Rome with a modern sensibility. Fellini candidly admits he can only make a film from his point of view with his own unique peculiarities. Thus Roma feels like his final chapter of self-reflection after his notable pictures La Dolce Vita and 8 ½ .

The opening chapter takes place in the pre-War 1938, depicts a teenaged Fellini arriving in Rome for the first time and observing the strange and wonderful characters in the tenement housing community of his family. The episode is anchored by a stunningly visual sequence of the community preparing for and indulging a group meal on the evening streets. It’s a sequence featuring a hundred or so actors and background players choreographed with the hypnotic, trance-inducing thrill only Fellini can create.

Two other mesmerizing sequences stand tall in Fellini canon. First, a journey underground into a subway construction project, wherein Fellini and his crew get a glimpse of the massive engineering project next to newly discovered artifacts from ancient Rome. When the crew discover a lost chamber they are forced to stop digging to investigate. Unveiled is a pristine room full of wall frescos which upon exposure to the exterior atmosphere degrades and fades never to be viewed in his former condition again. It’s an astonishing sequence.

A papal fashion show and an early brother sequence showcases Fellini’s indulgence in garish pomp, but his scenes of brilliantly choreographed movements recall the cinematic elegance of 8 ½. In particular the final sequence which follows a group of motorcyclists through the streets and roundabouts of the city is gorgeous and supremely cinematic.

Fellini’s Roma is available on Blu-Ray from the Criterion Collection


 
 

La Dolce Vita (1960) dir. Federico Fellini
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Yvonne Furneaux, Anouk Aimee, Anita Ekberg, Alain Cuny, Walter Santesso, Magali Noel, Annibale Ninchi, Nico, Valeria Ciangottini, Alain Dijon and Lex Barker.

****

By Greg Klymkiw

It has been said that in death we all end up alone.

If we are alone in life, bereft of love, is existence itself then, not a living death?

For me, this is the central theme of La Dolce Vita, Federico Fellini’s great classic of cinema – a film that never ceases to thrill, tantalize and finally, force its audience to look deep into a mirror and search for answers to questions about themselves. This is what makes for great movies that live beyond the ephemeral qualities far too many filmmakers and audiences prefer to settle for - especially in the current Dark Ages of cinema we find ourselves in. It’s the reason why the picture continues to live forever.

What makes La Dolce Vita especially great is that Fellini – as he was so often able to achieve – got to have his cake and eat it too. He created art that entertained AND challenged audiences the world over.

On its surface, La Dolce Vita is cool – cooler than cool, to be frank.

The title, translated from Italian into English means "The Good Life", or more appropriately, “The Sweet Life”. The movie plunges us headlong into a spectacular, decadent world of sex, sin and indulgence of the highest order. Against the backdrop of a swinging post-war Rome, the picture works its considerable magic beyond those surface details and Fellini delivers yet another magnificent entertainment that explores the eternal divide between men and women.

My poor daughter; she’s only ten years old and her Daddy has been showing her more Fellini movies than any ten year old has probably ever seen anytime, anywhere on God's good, green Earth. About halfway through La Dolce Vita – after an umpteenth sequence where Marcello Mastroianni indulges himself in the charms of yet another woman whilst his faithful girlfriend waits home alone by the phone, my daughter (who recently watched I Vitelloni, that great Fellini male layabout picture) turned to me with the sweetest straight face I will always remember and she said, “Dad, when I get older, remind me never to date Italian men.” I reminded her it wasn’t only Italian men who behaved this way. After all, had she not also recently seen Barry Levinson’s Diner? “Okay,” she added, “remind me not to date American men either.”

For those from Mars (and/or anyone who has NOT seen this movie), La Dolce Vita tells the episodic tale of Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni), a journalist in Rome who covers the society and entertainment beat of a major tabloid newspaper. He spends most of his days and (especially) nights, hanging out in clubs, restaurants, cafes, piazzas and parties covering the lives of the rich and famous with his trusty photographer sidekick Paparazzo (Walter Santesso). (The word paparazzi, used to describe annoying news photographers came from the name of this character.)

Downright ignoring and/or paying lip service to his beautiful, sexy long-suffering live-in girlfriend Emma (Yvonne Furneaux) whilst dallying with an endless parade of gorgeous women he’s writing about, Marcello is as much a celebrity as those he covers. Though he lacks the wealth his subjects are endowed with, he certainly wields considerable power.

It would seem that Marcello is living the sweet life to its fullest – at least on the surface.

It is, of course, the surface details of La Dolce Vita - both its cinematic style and content - that made it one of the biggest Italian films at the box office worldwide.

Of course, though, what audience would NOT be susceptible to the stunning form of one of the picture's ravishing stars, Anita Ekberg? As Sylvia, the Swedish screen sensation visiting Rome to make a movie, Ekberg squeezes her to-die-for curves into a series of fashionable outfits. Ekberg is style personified. From her spectacular entrance from within a private jet, posing willingly for hordes of slavering reporters to her gossamer movements round a huge luxury suite as she throws out delicious quips during a press conference and then, to her lithe, gazelle-like bounding up the endless St. Peter’s staircase until she and Marcello, who follows her avidly to the balcony, enjoy a quiet, magical, romantic interlude, perched in a holy nest towering above the Vatican.

It is the Ekberg sequences that everyone most remembers – possibly because they appear so early in the film and serve as the most sumptuously sexy introduction to Marcello’s world.

Granted, prior to Ekberg’s entrance we’re treated to the famous opening sequence of Jesus Christ in statue form being airlifted into Rome on a helicopter as Marcello and Paparazzo follow closely behind in their own whirlybird, snapping photos and hovering briefly over a bevy of bikini-clad beauties to try and get their phone numbers.

Following closely behind, we’re indulged with the ravishing beauty of Anouk Aimee as Maddalena, the bored heiress who whisks Marcello away from a nightclub, drives him through the streets of Rome in her swanky Cadillac, picks up a street whore, hires her to provide a dank, sleazy, water-flooded basement suite – a sordid love-nest, if you will, for a night of lovemaking with Marcello whilst the whore waits outside for the rest of the night - arguing with her pimp about how much room rent to charge the kinky couple.

To cap off the shenanigans we're further tantalized by Marcello’s gorgeous, heart-broken Earth Mother girlfriend Emma, writhing about from a dangerous overdose whereupon our duplicitous hero races her madly to the hospital professing his love to her all the way into the recovery room until he steps out to telephone Maddalena.

These stunning episodes not only provide insight into Marcello’s stylish rakishness, but also careen us to and fro within a veritable roller coaster ride of pure, unadulterated hedonism.

There’s no two ways about it, Marcello’s a cad, but we love him.

And seemingly, so does everyone.

By the time we get to the aforementioned Anita Ekberg sequences, it’s as if Fellini had structured the movie to luxuriate us in ever-more potent fixes of pure speed-ball-like abandon:

Jesus flying above Rome; screw it, not enough.

Gorgeous heiress banging our hero in a whore’s sleazy digs; nope, still not enough.

Lonely sex kitten girlfriend pumped on drugs and near death; uh, yeah, we still need more.

What act could possibly follow any of this?

Anita Ekberg, of course.

Fellini ups the ante on overindulgence to such a degree, that as an audience, we’re as hyped up as Marcello and those who populate this world.

As if this wasn’t enough, Fellini manages to get Ekberg to out-Ekberg Ekberg with MORE Ekberg. From airport to press conference to the Everest of Rome above the Vatican, he plunges us from the clouds of Heaven deep into the bowels of a party within the ancient walls of the Caracalla Baths. Here Marcello gets to dance arms around waist, cheek-to-cheek and chest to breast with La Ekberg until all Hell breaks magnificently loose with the arrival of the flamboyant Mephistophelean actor Frankie Stout (Alain Dijon). Marcello is banished to a table with Ekberg’s sloshed, thickheaded beefcake boyfriend Robert (played hilariously by the genuine B-movie idol Lex Barker, RKO’s Tarzan and star of numerous Euro-trash action pictures) while Frankie and Ekberg heat up the floor with a cha-cha to end all cha-chas.

Fellini continues topping himself. The next sequence of Ekberg-mania is cinema that has seldom been matched.

Can there be anything more sumptuous and breathtaking in Rome, nay – the world – than the Fountain of Trevi?

Yes, the Fountain of Trevi with Anita Ekberg in it.

I can assure you this beats any wet T-shirt contest you're likely to see.

As Fellini has incrementally hoisted us to dizzying heights, we are only one-third of the way through La Dolce Vita .

Where can the Maestro possibly take us from here?

We go where all tales of indulgence must go – down WITH redemption or down with NO redemption. Fellini forces us to hope (at times AGAINST hope) that Marcello will see the light or, at the very least, blow it big time and gain from his loss.

What we come back to is what I feel the central theme of our picture is – that if living life to the fullest is at the expense of love and to therefore live life alone, then how can life itself not ultimately be a living death?

For me, one of the fascinating ways in which Fellini tells Marcello’s story is by allowing us to fill the central character’s shoes and experience the seeming joy and style of this “sweet life”. For much of the film’s running time, we’re along for the ride – not just willingly, but as vicarious participants.

The magic Fellini conjures is subtle indeed. The whole business of getting the cake and eating it too plays a huge part in the proceedings. So often, great stories can work by indulging us in aberrant behaviour – glamorizing it to such a degree that we’re initially unable to see precisely what the protagonist’s real dilemma is. Not seeing the dilemma in the early going allows us to have some fun with the very thing that threatens to be the central character's potential downfall.

For Marcello, it eventually becomes – slowly and carefully – very obvious. He is surrounded by activity, enveloped by other people, the centre of attention of those he is reporting on, yet he is, in a sense, an island unto himself.

Marcello is, in spite of those around him, truly alone.

His real challenge is to break free of the shackles of excess in order to love. Alas, to love another and, in turn, accept their love, he must learn to love himself. On the mere surface, Marcello is all about self-gratification, but as the story progresses and Fellini places him at the centre of yet more sumptuous and indulgent sweet-life set pieces, we see a man struggling with the demons – not only of excess, but those ever-elusive opportunities to gratify the soul.

Even the roller coaster ride of Marcello’s relationship with Emma, the one constant person in his life willing to die for love of him, is a story element that keeps us with his journey. When he is annoyed and/or even disgusted with her, so too are we – and yet, we have the ability – one that Fellini bestows upon us by alternately keeping us in Marcello’s perspective and at arm’s length from it to see just how unconscionable and even wrongheaded he’s being. Most importantly, we begin to feel for Emma and understand her love and frustration. We see how brilliant and charming Marcello is also and a part of us craves for him to find peace.

Finally, what is especially poignant and tragic is that Marcello can only admit to both Emma and himself that he does love her when he is alone (or as in one great scene - seemingly alone) with her. Strangely, these are the few times in the movie when Marcello is truly NOT alone.

When Marcello is together with Emma in the presence of others, it's a different story altogether. When he brings her along to cover a Madonna-sighting which turns into a wild carnival of Catholic hysteria, he withdraws from Emma and she finds herself caught up in the craze of this "miracle". The miracle is, however, false. The two young children who have been put up to claiming they can see the Madonna by their fortune-seeking family, run to and fro - hundreds of the faithful following madly in their footsteps - even Emma, who begs God for Marcello to be with her exclusively and forever.

When Marcello seeks solace in his old friend Steiner (Alain Cuny) a man who has filled his own life with art, literature, culture and most importantly, a sense of home and family, Marcello sees a potential way of escape. Alas, further set pieces involving Steiner dash Marcello’s hopes.

During a vicious argument that eventually ensues between Marcello and Emma, Fellini once again proves that – in spite of his excesses as a stylist – he is ultimately a filmmaker endowed with considerable humanity. Though the bile rises and invective is hurled violently from both parties, we are placed squarely in front of humanity at its most raw and vulnerable.

The final sequences in this film are laden with excess, but they’re certainly no fun anymore. Nor is Marcello. After a pathetic failed attempt at instigating an orgy amongst an especially ragtag group of drunks (climaxing with Marcello riding on a woman's back horsey-style), the party goers (included here is a cameo from the iconic rock legend Nico) stumble out in the early morning onto the beach.

Caught in the nets of some fishermen is a dead sea creature - a strange cross between a stingray and coelacanth, its eyes still open and staring blankly into the heavens. It's the first of two images Marcello encounters on the beach which he bores his own gaze into.

This one is dead - surrounded by many, but finally, ultimately and unequivocally alone.

He then encounters, from a considerable distance across the sand and water, the angelic figure of Paola (Valeria Ciangottini), a pure, youthful young lady he met much earlier in the film - one of the few times when beauty and innocence seemed to touch him far deeper than surface fleshly desires. They look at each other - as if they can see into each others' eyes. The stunningly beautiful young woman, with her enigmatic smile, tries in vain to communicate with Marcello, but the wind drowns out her words and Marcello, his eyes at first bright, turn blank like the dead leviathan. He gives up, turns and joins his coterie of losers.

There is, however, hope in Paola's eyes - perhaps even the hope of a new generation.

Finally, though, Fellini offers no redemption for Marcello.

All that remains is the inevitability of a living death in a sweet life lived without love.

The sweet life, such as it is, proves sour, indeed.

A gorgeous restored film print of La Dolce Vita is being presented in Toronto at the TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) Bell Lightbox as part of the phenomenal programme entitled “Fellini: Spectacular Obsessions”. The film screens August 13, August 28 and September 2. On August 28, there will be a special pairing of both film and food. Following the screening, moviegoers will feast on delectable morsels prepared by Executive Chef Jason Bangerter. The three-course Italian menu, inspired by La Dolce Vita, will be accompanied by Italian wine via sommelier Anthony Demas. While this seems like a perfectly good idea, I have to admit that a movie that so powerfully and provocatively explores the emptiness of decadence in a world without love might not best be served by bourgeois indulgence. Oh well, ‘tis to be expected, I suppose. It is Toronto, after all. That said, upon experiencing any great work of art, the last things I usually want to do are stuff my face and guzzle wine. But, hey! That’s my trip. You’re welcome to yours. La Dolce Vita is, frankly, a trip enough for this fella’.

Under the Sun of Rome - Sotto il sole di Roma (1948) dir. Renato Castellani
Starring: Oscar Blando, Liliana Mancini, Francesco Golisari, Maria Tozzi, Ferrucio Tozzi, Gisella Monaldi and Alberto Sordi

***½

By Greg Klymkiw

At one point in Renato Castellani’s strange neorealist comedy-drama Under the Sun of Rome, the layabout teen hero Ciro (Oscar Blando) and his hard-working beat cop Dad (Ferrucio Tozzi) are sleeping not-so-soundly during the day for very different reasons.

Ciro busily toils day and night doing nothing – save for occasional forays into mischief with his equally lazy pals. Pops, on the other hand, is on perpetual night shift – patrolling the dark streets and punching in tediously at the requisite check-in points. The son is only at risk getting caught for petty thievery. Pops is at risk every night keeping the eternal city as safe as possible.

One works, the other doesn’t – but as the sun of Roma beams through the windows of their tiny walk-up – both men on this particular morning, are getting no sleep.

Roly-poly Mamma (Maria Tozzi) is multitasking like only a mother can and berating both of them – at the top of her considerable lungs.

In a brief moment of respite from her justifiable haranguing (she works harder than the two of them together – multiplied, no doubt, to infinity), bleary Ciro calls out to his equally groggy Dad asking if ALL married women are like his mother.

Dad sighs with resignation and replies, “All.”

Ah, the eternal chasm ‘twixt man and woman.

Luckily, for the not-so-gentle sex, they have each other.

Under the Sun of Rome unfolds its episodic coming-of-age tale during World War II, but for a good portion of the picture, we’d never know it. Ciro and his buddies busy themselves with the fine rituals of doing nothing. Our hunky hero, adorned in a sporty new pair of white shoes and to-die-for shorts that outline the supple form of his delectable posterior and swarthy gams – Yes, GAMS! They’re that gorgeous – is supposed to be getting a presentable haircut for his new job.

Ciro has other plans. He rounds up his buddies for a day of slacking. Wandering through the crumbling Coliseum they come across Geppe (Francesco Golisari) a lad of the streets who makes his home there. Ciro and Geppe hit it off immediately and the new pal joins the layabouts for a dip in a secluded creek on railway property.

When rail company bulls show up to intimidate trespassers, Ciro loses his new shoes and the money Mamma gave him for a haircut. Nor has he bothered to go to work as promised. Terrified with the severe beating he’ll receive, Ciro does what any young lad would do – he doesn’t go home and instead, spends the night with Geppe in his magical little Coliseum hideaway.

This affords both young dreamboats the opportunity to gaze intently at each other’s fresh, lean man-boy perfection – replete with gentle digital gesticulations. Here Castellani directs veteran cinematographer Domenico (Ossessione) Scala’s camera in loving compositional directions to highlight the bountiful facial and physical attributes of both actors. (Larry Clark – eat your heart out.)

As time moves on, the picture recounts several entertaining incidents in the life of Ciro – stealing shoes from a shopkeeper (the great Alberto Sordi of The White Sheik and I Vitelloni fame), an on-again-off-again relationship with Iris (Liliana Mancini) the proverbial girl-next-door, dabbling in black marketeering once the German army enters Rome, dallying gigolo-like with the BBW-splendour of Tosca (Gisella Monaldi) a married-woman-cum-streetwalker and eventually crime that leads to the expected tragic ending.

Castellani’s storytelling technique and, in fact elements of the story itself, are delicately odd. I suspect his approach is intentional, though it is, at times slightly off-putting.

First of all, there is the first-person narration, which I think, IS exceptional. It’s literary AND literal. Often the voiceover will describe a physical action just before or during its execution as well as describing characters whom we see as described during said descriptions. Further to this, we will often hear narration to the effect of “So-and-so said…” and we’ll then hear the character recite the line of dialogue. The basic tenets of Screenwriting 101 suggest you should NEVER do any of the above. This, of course, is why the self-appointed scenarist gurus the world over are so often wrong. If it works, it works and IT does so splendidly here.

Secondly, I’m not so sure Castellani’s perspective on his female characters is as deep and sensitive as it could and should be. Even in I Vitelloni, the pinnacle of all male layabout films, Maestro Fellini is able to render strong female characters without turning them into borderline harridans as Castellani does with Mamma or worse, Iris – a harridan-to-be. (Not that the performances of the actresses are bad though – they’re as good as can be expected within the shallow dimensions they’re given to work with.)

Strangely, the female character that seems the most well rounded and lavished with the greatest degree of sensitivity is that of the plump, whorish Tosca. Even Scala’s cinematography of the women – save for the latter female character – is certainly competent, but lacking the loving detail and care so copiously drenched upon the young boys. One could argue this is intentional, but to that I say – argue away. Larry Clark rests MY case on this one – boys AND gals need equal cinematographic love. (In fairness though, there is ONE boner-inducing close-up of Liliana Mancini slowly opening the door.)

Finally, the strange element I find most appealing and flawed is the manner in which Ciro is portrayed – not in Blando’s performance, which is excellent within the parameters provided by Castellani, but the odd turns the character takes. When he is at his rakishly appealing, Ciro is a character we’re completely rooting for, but often he does and says things so abominable (for example, the way he continually professes love to Iris, kisses her passionately then hurls some invective that clearly hurts her feelings) that we turn on him so violently that it occasionally threatens to wrench us out of the drama. That said, what may feel like a storytelling flaw might well be completely intentional. In retrospect, Ciro’s eventual coming-of-age, his redemption if you will, has even greater force. The problem for me is that it’s in retrospect and not within the drama as it unfolds. Perhaps this is the film’s literary quality working, as it should and if so, I applaud Castellani’s brave choice in making such a bold series of moves.

What I love most about this picture is the craft employed in the forward thrust of its episodic narrative. The movie never feels like it’s overstaying its welcome at any point and yet, very often, it has a rhythm not unlike that of a lazy day and as such, is easily in the same sphere attained by Fellini in I Vitelloni. In fact, the slicing and dicing of editor Giuliano Betti is not only exceptional, but at times it is utterly breathtaking. Among many spectacular cuts, the one that stays with me is a gorgeous cut to a foot-level shot on the stairs in the walk-up when Ciro and Iris go into the hallway from his flat. Not only is this a cut of exquisite beauty, but also it leads us into a shot that is equally stunning (followed by a move that’s richly evocative and romantic.

Wow! This is rare cutting indeed.

Many of the cuts are suitably "silent", but only when they need to be. On occasion they knock you completely on your ass and force you to almost re-focus your gaze IN to the action on screen.

I have to sadly admit to having seen only one Castellani picture before (a weird English-dubbed public domain VHS tape of Hell in the City during the mid-80s - issued I think, to capitalize on Chained Heat and other babe-in-prison flicks starring Linda Blair and rented pour moi to satisfy my babe-in-prison fetish). Because of my Castellani-deprived state, I couldn't begin to claim that these cuts are a DIRECTORIAL trademark style of his and can only assume they were made in collaboration with a brilliant editor.

The credited editor is one Giuliano Betti. I have scoured the Internet quite extensively - including Italian sites, and found virtually no information about him. In fact, this appears to be his only editing credit (along with a bunch of assistant directing and continuity credits). Go figure. Whoever was responsible is a genius.

Under the Sun of Rome is a tremendously entertaining picture and even if it occasionally feels like a Diet Chinotto precursor to Federico Fellini’s I Vitelloni (made six years before the Maestro’s masterpiece), it’s a worthy entry in the Italian neorealist sweepstakes.

The movie is playing Saturday August 6 on 35mm in the Toronto International Film Festival’s home at TIFF Bell Lightbox (as part of the delicious series “Days of Glory: Masterworks of Italian Neoralism”). Under the Sun of Rome will be a rare treat for those who make the effort to see it on a big screen as the picture still does not appear to be available on DVD other than as a non-subtitled Italian import. I Vitelloni will, by the way, screen in the same venue on Monday August 8 on a cool double-bill with Barry Levinson’s Diner. If you’re interested in reading several thousand words on the TIFF Bell Lightbox series and the Fellini-Levinson double bill, feel free to read my article at Electric Sheep Magazine.

Nights of Cabiria (1957) dir. Federico Fellini
Starring Giulietta Masina, Francois Perier, Alberto Lazzari

****

By Greg Klymkiw

Can there be any greater feeling than that which comes from ascension?

Movies at their very best can make you feel this way. They make you soar.

Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria is just such a movie. Screening in Toronto at the TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) Bell Lightbox cinemas on Sunday, August 14 at 6:15pm, it is part of a sumptuous celebration entitled “Fellini: Spectacular Obsessions” and includes a very cool series of double bills that pairs a Fellini picture with the work of another filmmaker treading similar (or contrasting) waters.

(My only criticism of this great collection of pictures is that Il Bidone is not screening at all. In fact, a perfect pairing for it would be something like Your Three Minutes Are Up, the neglected 70s American classic by Douglas Schwartz. A personal note to TIFF Bell Lightbox topper Noah Cowan: "Get on this, bud – it’ll be an evening guaranteed to blow us all away".)

In the TIFF Bell Lightbox Gallery, one will also find a series of exquisite exhibitions that include screen tests of Fellini grotesques, the inspiration for the Trevi Fountain sequence from La Dolce Vita and a whack o’ photos of pure tabloid genius.

As for the upcoming Nights of Cabiria I can freely and happily declare that it never fails to cascade me emotionally into what feels like another dimension. As a filmmaker, Fellini makes it all seem so effortless. His genius notwithstanding, he (nor we) would ever get there, I think, without some experience, or at least understanding of Judeo-Christian tradition (particularly, the Christian portion, and more precisely, that of Catholicism). The maestro was, of course, Italian and what is it to be of that heritage if one has not been touched, shaped, moulded, pounded and cudgelled by the patriarchal power that is the Catholic Church? (Doing the math on this, Fellini's childhood would have corresponded quite neatly with that of Pope Pius XI - Mr. Anti-Contraception and Pro-Sex-For-Procreation himself.)

Fellini knew all too well and continually explored the notion of redemption via false prophets. And I do not mean Christ, but rather, those within, and most often at the highest levels of any organized faith who seek to dominate and control by proselytizing distorted teachings to the weakest and most vulnerable of society.

Cabiria (Giulietta Masina) is just such an individual and it’s no surprise that even the film’s title states clearly that we are to journey through the Nights of Cabiria. It’s the darkness of night that roots us in a place from where we are allowed find the light.

One of the picture’s screenwriters was none other than the iconoclastic Pier Paolo Pasolini (Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom). In both life and his art, he knew a lot about sexual exploitation – most notably, the world of prostitution wherein the body becomes the sought after commodity through which money is paid to experience la petite mort. (Pasolini was the go-to boy for those in Italian cinema seeking an "expert" on the fine art of whoring and whoredom.) In Nights of Cabiria it is, finally, the “little death” that seeks to undermine our title character – the dashing of hopes and dreams that come from unspeakable and/or unwanted acts of cruelty perpetrated upon those hoping to achieve a higher state – a state of grace, if you will.

And so goes this simple tale of Cabiria, a waif-like, almost Chaplinesque figure of innocence (or naiveté) who works the world’s oldest profession to preserve a standard of living (owning her own home and having a bank account - vaguely and interestingly rather bourgeois values) that is achieved by a life of “sin”.

Her goal is to find love. What she gets in return is redemption. From the opening scene where a loathsome pimp steals her money and shoves her into the river, to the horrendous moments when Carlos (François Périer) the man she thinks loves her, contemplates murder to secure a life’s worth of savings, Fellini delivers a powerful drama. We see, ultimately, a woman who is abused and exploited at the hands of men within a society that is rooted in the abovementioned patriarchy of persecution - indelibly linked, as it is, to the “business” of spirituality, of religion – the monetization of faith.

Thankfully, through all this remains Fellini’s command of the filmmaking process and his faith in the title character. His beloved Cabiria is no fool, nor is she a pushover. She’s a tough cookie in a den of lions – a fighter, a wise cracker, a street-smart streetwalker who, when she accompanies a good Samaritan on the rounds to feed the poor, is still able to see in others a mirror image of what could become of her if she doesn’t remain wary, and most importantly, IN CONTROL.

Control is, of course, the continued plight of those women who work in the sex trade. Their buyers are men and often, their true exploiters are not always the Johns, but rather, a society that allows – through the demonizing and criminalizing of the profession – a systematic exploitation of those same women at the hands of pimps, gigolos and gangsters (many of whom are corrupt cops, lawmakers and more often than not, men). In one of the picture’s more harrowing sequences, we follow Cabiria and a group of other whores as they attend a religious miracle revival outside of Rome as the disenfranchised, seeking quick-fix redemption, are surrounded by the cheap hucksterism and circus-like atmosphere of the root of this exploitation – religion itself, or, if you will, the corruption and exploitation of faith.

It is finally faith that is at once shattered and just as quickly restored in the film’s final moments. Cabiria believes in the lies of the seemingly sensitive and very charming Carlos, but it is her will to survive and to persevere and finally, her belief in her own goodness and that of humanity that allows her to go on – to disappear back into the world and begin again.

None of this would be possible without Fellini. In fact, Nights of Cabiria is really the last of his great works in the neo-realist tradition of I Vitelloni, La Strada, Il Bidone (a film in which Fellini purportedly came to know a prostitute who provided him much of his inspiration for the Cabiria role) and The White Sheik (in which Cabiria appears as a supporting character). From La Dolce Vita and onwards, there would be occasional dollops of neo-realism, but more often than not, his work became increasingly surreal and fantastical. While there is considerable greatness in many of them, nothing really comes close to the overwhelming compassion of this earlier phase.

With Nights of Cabiria, I’d also argue that we see Masina’s finest work as an actress (somehow she truly does embody the spirit of Chaplin) and among a lifetime of indelible scores, Nino Rota’s music for this is at his most heartbreakingly eloquent.

Like I said before, the picture will have you soaring higher than you ever thought possible. That’s the real greatness of Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria – it allows you the freedom to be weightless within the overwhelming spirit of humanity.

While “Nights of Cabiria” is currently out of print on the Criterion Collection DVD label, it can still be found for sale or rent.