Anniversary of the Nights of Cabiria
On May 10, 1957, Federico Fellini's film "Nights of Cabiria" premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival.
The main contribution to the creation of the script for the picture was made by Federico Fellini. But some other well-known Italian playwrights were involved in this work, including Pier Paolo Pasolini ("Accattone"), who knew the world of prostitutes and pimps well. The plot of the film is based on the novel by the Spanish writer Sebastia Juan Arbo "Maria Molinari" (1954), which was not mentioned in the credits of the picture. But the name, or rather, the pseudonym of the main character, whose role is played by the director's wife Giulietta Masina, Fellini changed, and not by chance. The main character of the picture, whose real name is Maria Ceccarelli, calls herself "Cabiria". Cabiria was the name of a little girl in a 1914 Italian silent film. Thus, Fellini wanted to show that the main character of his film, despite prostitution, retains childish naivety and spontaneity.
In Cannes, Federico Fellini's film "Nights of Cabiria" was nominated for the Palme d'Or. The jury of the film festival, chaired by the famous French writer Andre Maurois, gave preference to the American film "Friendly Persuasion" by William Wyler. However, in the company of losers along with Fellini's film were Ingmar Bergman's "Det sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal)", Robert Bresson's "Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut (A Man Escaped", Andrzej Wajda's "Kanal", "The Forty-First" by Grigory Chukhrai. Not a bad company! In addition, the prize for Best Actress was given to Giulietta Masina.
In addition, Fellini's film was awarded the Prize - Special Mention of OCIC. And this is quite remarkable. The fact is that initially the film was banned by the Italian censorship, mainly at the request of the church authorities. Then Federico Fellini took the tape with the film and went to Genoa to his confessor and mentor, Cardinal Angelo Arpa. The cardinal watched the film all alone and, according to the director's memoirs, he does not know whether the prelate watched the film to the end or not. But after a while, the cardinal came out to Fellini, who was waiting for him, and said: "Poor Cabiria, we must do something for her!" After that, Cardinal Arpa phoned another cardinal - Giuseppe Siri, who occupied a higher rank in the church hierarchy, and informed Fellini that Siri insisted on removing the episode from the film with the so-called "the man with the bag". Cardinal Siri's argument was: "Doing good is an activity reserved for the Church and its ministers, it is inconceivable that a layman could do it." After the removal from the film of the specified episode lasting about 7 minutes, which was considered by many to be the key one, the censorship objections were removed. In October 1957, the film was released in Italian cinemas.
But even before the release of Italian cinemas, Federico Fellini's film "Nights of Cabiria" in July 1957 took part in the international film festival in San Sebastian, Spain, where Giulietta Masina was again awarded the Best Actress Award. After the removal of claims to the film by the Catholic Church, the Italian Film Academy also recognized the obvious merits of the film "Nights of Cabiria" and awarded its David di Donatello award to director Federico Fellini and producer Dino De Laurentiis.
At the beginning of the following 1958, Federico Fellini's film "Nights of Cabiria" was awarded the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. In 1959, Federico Fellini's film received 2 nominations for the British BAFTA Award, including in the most important category - Best Film from any Source. But the British Film Academy awarded their award to the British film "Room at the Top" directed by Jack Clayton. And this despite the fact that the same film was awarded this award in the Best British Film nomination. However, the picture "Nights of Cabiria" turned out to be in more than worthy company: "Cat on a Hot Roof" by Richard Brooks, "Летят журавли (The Cranes Are Flying)" by Mikhail Kalatozov, "Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries)" by Ingmar Bergman, "Aparajito" by Satyajit Ray, "The Defiant Ones" by Stanley Kramer and others.
Reviews of film critics for Fellini's film "Nights of Cabiria" can be considered almost 100% positive. Almost, because Bosley Crowther from The New York Times could not get over his nature and added bile to his generally benevolent review, published on October 29, 1957. According to Crowther, "there are two weaknesses in Cabiria. It has a sordid atmosphere and there is something elusive and insufficient about the character of the heroine. Her get-up is weird and illogical for the milieu in which she lives and her farcical mannerisms clash with the ugly realism of the theme."
Curiously, Bosley Crowther's successor as film reviewer for the largest American publication, Janet Maslin, in her enthusiastic review from 1998, completely refuted her predecessor's conclusions, writing: "There is more grace and courage in the famous image of Giulietta Masina smiling through her tears in Federico Fellini's 1957 "Nights of Cabiria," ... than there is in all the fire-breathing blockbusters Hollywood has to offer." In the same 1998, the guru of American film criticism Roger Ebert, in his review, rated "Nights of Cabiria" with the maximum 4 stars and included it in his list of "Great Movies".
After several decades since the creation of the film "Nights of Cabiria", its assessment by ordinary moviegoers has not decreased at all, as evidenced by the following figures. 70% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated Federico Fellini's film from 8 to 10, and 21% of users rated the film with the highest score - "ten".
With that said, Federico Fellini's "Nights of Cabiria" was rated 9,066 by FilmGourmand, making it 150th in the Golden Thousand.
