In Nights of Cabiria (1957), a fiery and persistent sex worker named Cabiria navigates both the streets of Rome and her cycle of heartbreak with different men, hoping to find true love.
Night of Cabiria could be considered Fellini’s last Neorealist film, even though the film steps outside of what is classically considered to be Neo-realism.
There are two details in Nights of Cabiria that set it outside of classic neo-realism; Cabiria's persistence and faith in humanity, and Fellini's use of breaking the fourth wall (Hutcheson). Cabiria’s ability to persist goes against the way in which characters in other neorealism films were like, such as being beaten down by life, and accepting of the situation with a face of defeat (Hutcheson). In Fellini’s film, Cabiria is pushed down but gets back up.
Neo-realism was an attempt to show reality, which meant possibly pushing down any sweet humanity in the characters (Cutler-Broyles). In this film, Cabiria's humanity is emphasized in the face of her tragedy. In the last moments of the film, Cabiria has once again been beaten down, a scene that mirrors the first scene of the film. As Cabiria walks along a dark road, a group of young people suddenly appear playing music and burning time. Cabiria looks around and is greeted by this group, what follows is Cabiria looking straight into the camera, her face having changed from grief to joy.
It is this moment that separated Nights of Cabiria from the rest of Neo-realism (Hutcheson). Neo-realist films were shot in a matter-of-fact manner, while Nights of Cabiria was shot in a way reminiscent of Fellini's later work (Cutler-Broyles). Although Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria is several steps away from classical neo-realism, it still falls under the title of being Fellini’s last neorealist film. Nights of Cabiria was one step away from Neorealism and one toward classic Fellini.
