cafe Pellicola - window to fine italian cinema

Where have you been during winter 1946?

Since some of us would likely say - nowhere, here is a time capsule from that period in Rome, right after WW2 is over. The American GI’s are still in town and the people wake up into the rough realities of making a living in a battered economy.

The film is a fine example of a lighter take on the neorealism genre, borrowing from the success of its emblematic predecessor - Roma Citta Aperta by Roberto Rossellini, made a year earlier. In fact, both Marcello Pagliero, the director of this film, and Nando Bruno – both played in Roma Citta Aperta.

The film uses themes of daily hardships in a much lighter tone, illustrating variety of characters that coincide one rainy night in an intricate plot that moves a pearl necklace from hand to hand.

From Andrea Checchi, who contemplates suicide over the departure of his treacherous girlfriend (Marisa Merlini), the struggling typist (Valentina Cortese) who can’t pay her rent and opts to street life, the petty thief with a good heart (Nando Bruno). And the dignified minister who lost his memory and keeps asking everyone “do you recognize me?” played beautifully by Vittorio de Sica. Friendships are formed quickly to navigate the criminal elements the night summons. Only at dawn the picture becomes clearer as things are never like they initially seem. That’s where the film extra title comes handy - La Notte Porta Consiglio - The Night Gives Wisdom.

This plot is supported by an endless chain of cigarette-smoking, alcohol/espresso-drinking, you would recognize the theme song composed by maestro Nino Rota. He then reused it in Fellini’s “I Vitelloni.” The music veers from a somber pessimistic flair to a whimsical, comic tone with a promise that no matter what, things will eventually work out fine.

Looking through another prism, with today’s Internet gold rush ignited by twenty something entrepreneurs – this film too was created from nothing by twenty something pioneers with a burning fire to explore the new medium. In fact, this is Pagliero’s first film. It didn’t find major success, but nevertheless it’s a fantastic gem with all the time-specific trappings of people, challenges, culture and Rome before its piazzas were transformed into car garages…

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This is the last film of Fellini’s second triliogy that started with La Strada (1954) and Il Bidone (1955). A trilogy dedicated to themes of people living on the margins of society (street dancer, swindler and a prostitute) that despite their rough lives eventually experience radical life change, call it redemption.

In this film, Fellini brings back Cabiria, the prostitute with the heart of gold played beautifully by his wife Giulietta Masina. Fellini has already presented us with the role of Cabiria in his 1952 film The White Sheik. There Cabiria is consoling poor Ivan at the piazza late at night after he lost hope of finding his wife.

After the dismal reviews both critically and in the box office for his previous film Il Bidone (1952), Fellini comes back two years later with the proposal of The Nights of Cabiria and receives the cold shoulder everywhere he turns. Practically, the film is about a life of a prostitute in Rome – a tough sell in 1950’s Italy. The film was eventually produced by the one and only - Dino de Laurentiis.

The film tells the story of Cabiria a Roman prostitute with an intricate personality. On one hand she’s the tough street-smart taking no pimp to manage her affairs, constantly bragging about her independence, owning her own home. On the other, she’s very fragile, naïve and desperately romantic who really wants to change her life.

Throughout the film Fellini shows us how swindlers take advantage of Cabiria; the film opens when she was thrown into the Tiber river after being mugged, and then another shady type named Oscar is fooling her with the illusion of a true love only to rob her of all her life savings.

Interestingly, there is one scene in the film that was just recently added since the church objected to include it in the original release. The scene is known as The Man with the Sack, showing a man with a big sack going from one cave to another, giving out food for the poor residents of these makeshift shelters. The church objection rationale is clear – that should have been the church role.

Another scene, shows Cabiria visiting a sacred place with her friends where they all pay their dues for a chance to be redeemed and have a life changing experience. After the service is over, during which Cabiria was deeply moved – there is a lovely scene where Cabiria and her friends are having a picnic and Cabiria suddenly realizes that nobody has really changed they’re all the same including the cripple who joined them.

Fellini provides us with a clear message about the role of the church that operates as a dream machine or some kind of lottery where you pay a ticket for a chance to win a better life. But as we know odds are slim. Cabiria’s friends accept that logic, but not Cabiria who sees through it all and in a way is asking for a refund.

The primary message of the film is simple, yet powerful. You would think that after Cabiria has been duped so many times, human trust is practically non-existent – she would break down. Yet, Fellini existential and optimistic view, shows us that redemption does not rely on external sources, but is coming from within oneself.

Simply put, YOU control your emotional climate and destination.

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In one of the greatest accomplishments of the Neorealist film movement, Vittorio De Sica dedicates this film to his father and effectively captures the grim life of the elderly in post-war Italy.

The film paints a vividly emotional picture of Umberto D. (Carlo Battisti non-proessional actor - a university professor from Florence), an older man in Rome who struggles to pay his landlady debts. His privacy and pride are constantly abused by people who simply don’t care; the ruthless landlady (Lina Gennari) tries to evict him by renovating his room during his absence, former work colleagues politely listen to his problem but then elegantly disappear.

His only support comes from two sources: the housemaid, Maria played beautifully by Maria-Pia Casilio, who tries to help as much as she can considering her precarious situation – upcoming pregnancy from unknown father and unclear job prospects once the landlady finds out.

And then there is Umberto’s dog Flike that functions as the ultimate bastion of support and loyalty throughout his owner’s ordeal. The use of the dog is indeed the director’s radical condemnation to further emphasize the crush of all social systems, the lack of human solidarity and communication where only a dog can provide that unconditional compassion.

Beyond the grim ambience, I found a few whimsical moments that provides interesting time-parallels. Maria, the teenaged housemaid, invents her own SMS service to communicate with her soldier friends. To fill in for the probable cellphone ringtone, we hear the trumpet sound several times throughout the film, that drives Maria running to the window in Umberto’s room, where outside in the piazza, her soldier friends clumsily signal her, while reporting to their unit.

What I took from the film is simple; in our daily quest to conquer the world, human communication and solidarity should take a front seat.

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Marco Bellocchio, Italy’s second generation of film directors after WW2, highly influenced by the British cinema, provides in his film debut a counter and radical approach to the bourgeois family values, religion and the Neo-realism movement.

Charged with the director’s autobiographical elements, over the edge acting style and Ennio Morricone’s circular vocal treatments - the film tells the story of a dysfunctional family in a provincial house (director’s grandmother’s house in real-life).

Alessandro, played remarkably by Lou Castel provides the plot central point from which, using his twisted mind tricks and schemes the personalities of his other family members are revealed.

In various scenes Alessandro waves his palm across his face as if to signal some kind of internal order he religously follows. For the sake of this “order” he plots against his family members and executes his plans with minimal effort nudging victims only with his index finger. In such broad strokes Bellocchio conveys his indictment of Italian bourgeois life.

I especially liked the scene when Giulia (Paola Pitagora) who plays the sister, lies idly on her bed staring at the ceiling, then flipping boringly pages in a photo album of relatives’ portraits on her right nightstand, catches a glimpse of a book on her left nightstand and then positioning it vertically, starts reading, while puffing a cigarette that had already been positioned at the edge of the table. This aimless wandering in personal spaces that captures fleeting gratifications only to go back to a constant emptiness – is apparent throughout the film.

Looking at the film as a whole, the film weaves an ambience of tensed uneasiness stretched to the extreme that flanks the secluded life in the province (the pocket) against the boiling aspirations of its young inhabitants (the fists) to the possibilities of the world outside. In this respect, the film is indeed an internal representation of the transition in Italian society of those days.

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