Fellini's Breathtaking Foreshadowing in 'Nights of Cabiria'

The classic on the latest edition of the Everyone’s a Critic Movie Review Podcast is Nights of Cabiria, Federico Fellini's lovely, episodic exploration of a very unique and poignant life. Set in Rome in 1957, the story follows a sex worker named Cabiria as she goes through several days of trials in her troubled life. Nights of Cabiria was recently remastered and re-released in theaters by Rialto Pictures. The film received a new translation and a remastering of that iconic Nino Rota soundtrack.

When we think of suspense we don’t often think of Fellini and we certainly don’t think of a movie like Nights of Cabiria. Fellini’s reputation is that of an absurdist provocateur and artist following his odd muse to unique and revealing places. Nights of Cabiria meanwhile, feels breezy with an overarching sadness in our empathy for Guilietta Masina’s wonderful Cabiria, a sex worker who is the constant folly of fate.

But watch closer, especially at the end of Nights of Cabiria, and what you unexpectedly find is a master class of foreshadowing and suspense. In this article I will walk you through how Fellini sets us up and knocks us out with his clever, unexpected, and brilliantly subtle choices. The intricacy of how Fellini seduces us, lulls us into complacency and then sucker punches us, just before doing the same to his protagonist, is absolutely masterful.

The opening scene of Nights of Cabiria sees our star, Giuliana Masina as Cabiria, on a lovely walk near a river with her lover, Giorgio. Cabiria is delirious and oblivious to her surroundings, assuming that they are having a lovely day together. Then, just as she’s been lulled into a sense of lovely romance, Giorgio steals Cabiria’s purse and pushes her into the rushing river. Cabiria narrowly escapes thanks to some kids swimming nearby and some terrifying and confounding forms of CPR.

Giorgio is nowhere to be found afterward having left with all of Cabiria’s money, made from her job walking the streets of Rome. It’s yet another in a long line of indignities that Cabiria suffers with a stiff upper lip and a waning but still existent belief in her own self worth. What follows this are a series of scenes in which Cabiria floats from one odd encounter to the next until she meets a man named Oscar.

How they meet appears to be very romantic and whimsical and I love how Fellini uses romance to misdirect us in this moment. There is magic and coincidence involved in the meet cute of Oscar and Cabiria and it is disarming in just the right way, clouding ours and Cabiria’s judgement just enough for Oscar’s real motivations to sneak past us. What we’ve missed throughout our journey with Cabiria is the way in which the opening scene, Cabiria being betrayed by Giorgio, has foreshadowed how Cabiria is to be betrayed by Oscar.

So caught up in heady romance and a desperate desire to escape from the life of a sex worker, Cabiria throws caution to the wind puts all that she has into her apparent marriage to Oscar. What is not apparent to Cabiria however, becomes apparent to us in a scene just before the end of the movie. As Cabiria, along with her friend, Wanda, pack up the home that has been her source of security in an insecure world, it dawns on us that Cabiria has all of her money in one handbag, one that looks a lot like the handbag she lost at the start of the movie.

This led me to reflect on all that came before this, the encounter with a kind but dismissive movie star that was both magical and cruel in equal measure, a brief meeting with a very kind man delivering supplies to people living in caves, including a sad, elderly woman whom Cabiria knows as a former street walker. These seemingly disconnected moments begin to add up as Cabiria heedlessly rushes toward her future with Oscar.

Perhaps the most interesting and uniquely Fellini encounter comes when Cabiria happens upon a wandering Priest. Cabiria shares with the delirious Priest that she will be getting married soon and the Priest invites her to come and find him at a local monastery. When she's ready to be married Cabiria goes to find the Priest and only encounters his absence and the utter indifference of the church, a theme of some of Fellini's well known work.

That’s the set up for the final moments with our heroine rushing headlong into the arms of Oscar unaware that fate is conspiring against her. Oscar’s treachery becomes very clear to us as the formerly shy and kind Oscar appears behind sunglasses, nervous and without the sweet nature we’d come to know. The rest of the movie, Giorgio, the caves, the ways in which Cabiria has been subject to the world around her, conspire to tell us what’s going to happen next while Cabiria is deliriously unaware.

Then, there is a long walk up a hill that takes on a Hitchcockian sense of menace as Cabiria questions why her love is dragging her into a forest and up a hill. At the top of the hill, we wait with our breath catching as we see the river in the distance. It was only a short fall off a river bank that nearly killed Cabiria at the start of the movie but this time, it’s a cliff and she’s standing over it. Slowly the reality dawns on Cabiria and when it all becomes clear it’s heartbreaking and terrifying as we wonder if Cabiria will be killed or take her own life in this moment of desperation and fear.

Fellini does nothing to underline the dread, he doesn't craft this moment as a massive revelation, it's entirely on us in the audience to understand how he's so brilliantly foreshadowed this moment. Watching it play out is heartbreaking and strangely cathartic as the whole of Nights of Cabiria emerges as an entire puzzle rather than a series of unconnected episodes. Fellini's subtle brilliance is his ability to seduce us, fool us, entertain us and then break our hearts in the same way he breaks poor Cabiria's heart.

Then Fellini tops that with an iconic and cathartic real ending. As Cabiria is wandering away from her heartbreak on top of the mountain, destitute and desperately uncertain about the future, Cabiria finds herself suddenly surrounded by a parade of revelers and musicians. It's here where despite all the despair and uncertainty, Cabiria can't help but smile, even with a tear in her eye. We and she may have no idea what happens next but this moment is open to interpretation. If you're cynical you can see it as a bitterly ironic moment of defiance. Or, if you're like me, you can be positive and see it as a sign of Cabiria's indomitable spirit, also foreshadowed throughout the movie, and the hope that even this can't keep her down.

Rialto Pictures has given Nights of Cabiria a full 4K Restoration and have been showing it in theaters in major markets this year. Follow Rialto Pictures on Twitter, @RialtoPictures, to find out how you might get to see this unforgettable classic.