silver nitrate notes

Nights of Cabiria and Giulietta Masina's Last Look

23 jun 2025

Federico Fellini made Nights of Cabiria (Le notti di Cabiria, 1957) three years after La Strada, again with Giulietta Masina in the lead and again with Otello Martelli as cinematographer (with Aldo Tonti on some sequences). The film follows Cabiria, a short and optimistic prostitute in the suburbs of Rome, through a series of misadventures with men who want her money and her faith.

The film is set in and around Rome in the mid-1950s. Martelli shoots the streets in long takes, mostly at dusk or in the pre-dawn blue hour when prostitution worked openly along the via Veneto. Cabiria and her colleagues are photographed at middle distance against the city's architecture, small figures in large frames. The camera does not emphasise them; they are one small thing happening in a larger setting.

The sequence that every viewer remembers is the film's last shot. Cabiria, robbed and abandoned in a forest by the man she thought she would marry, walks back toward the city alone at dawn. A group of young people pass her on bicycles, playing instruments, dancing. One of them gives her a small smile. Fellini cuts to Masina's face in close-up. Tears are on her cheeks. She smiles back at the passing group. She looks into the camera, briefly, acknowledging the audience. She continues walking. The film ends.

The fourth-wall break is the one that everyone talks about. It is, in fact, less shocking than similar moments in Bergman from the same period. What makes it work is Masina. The look is held for perhaps a second. It registers as recognition between Cabiria and the audience that has been watching her suffer for two hours. After the look, she returns to her walk.

[ « prev: Breathless · next: Wild Strawberries » ]

» leave a comment in the guestbook

sources
[1] Kezich, Tullio. Federico Fellini: His Life and Work. Faber, 2006.
[2] Bondanella, Peter. The Cinema of Federico Fellini. Princeton UP, 1992.
[3] Fellini, Federico. Fellini on Fellini. Faber, 1995.
[4] Burke, Frank. Fellini's Films. Twayne, 1996.