卡比利亚之夜

    在我看过的费里尼的片子中，《卡比利亚之夜》算是最喜欢的一部，他的妻子玛西娜在《大路》中曾经扮演过一个被抛弃的孤独的灵魂，她死后，那负心汉的哭泣曾经让我动容。而本片中，没有那么生离死别的场面，但是玛西娜扮演的卡比利亚却一下被三个男人直接或间接的伤害，这个容易受伤的女人一次次在幸福的梦幻憧憬中惊醒，这样梦碎的电影实在容易让人揪心。

    我们常说“可怜人必有可恨之处”，可怜的卡比利亚难道还有什么可恨的地方吗？难道作为一个罗马底层妓女，她的善良、纯真和对幸福的追求也是一种罪过？或许她最“可恨”的地方就在于，她一次次被伤害后，还那么天真，还要去相信一个个可恨的男人。影片一开始，卡比利亚便被男友抢夺钱财，推入水中试图淹死，但是好歹捡回条命来，却从开始就预示着她悲剧性的命运，也为后面的结尾埋下伏笔。后来，与一个大明星，与一个催眠师，与一个看似忠厚的年轻人，她一次次的去相信，一次次的被伤害。

    卡比利亚是个大大咧咧的姑娘，每天晚上站街求生，在她的年龄，有着她的梦想，她的虚荣。虽然在红尘中艰难生活，但是她难得的保持着一份纯真，这是一种矛盾的情况，在她身处的环境和阶层，本来就是复杂，甚至险象环生的，本来是需要多些心计，为自己套上一层防护罩的，然而她没有，这使得她一再被欺骗，一再被伤害。但，同时也正是因为她的天真，她可以从一次次伤害中迅速恢复过来，可以继续憧憬明天。所以，尽管刚刚被负心男友险些杀害，她却没见陷入多么大的痛苦，而是很快继续带笑工作；她遇上了一个跟女友吵架的大明星，进了他的豪宅，让她天真的以为生活会发生转变，而实际上，大明星只不过把她当作解闷倾吐的对象，当作一次间歇性的“尝鲜”，这让她有些受伤，成为姐妹们的笑柄，但是她仍然会无所谓的斗嘴还击；在表演现场，她很认真的参加一场催眠，但是却成为催眠师的工具，观众的笑柄；当一次次挫折后，她向神求助，向神祷告，却也换不来她的幸福。而故事进展到后面，卡比利亚突然又看到希望，一个男人居然主动追求她，对于一个屡次受伤的她来说，这是多么大的幸福，她带着辛苦攒下的钱，离开居住的小屋（还将小屋留给一个流浪的家庭），要去与男友结婚，准备幸福的生活。但是，她却从起点回到起点，再次碰上了一个罪恶的骗子，试图将她淹死，当她几乎豁出一切，以为幸福来临时，面对的却是更大的打击。

    生活是一场冒险，卡比利亚正是在一次次的冒险中去面对生活，费里尼让她有些没有方向感的在一次次偶然中看到希望，又转瞬间跌入失望。本片有种公路片的效果，卡比利亚与不同男人的故事，也反应着不同阶层人的精神面貌，最终，上面的阶层看不起她，只是把她当作解闷对象；下面的阶层嘲讽她，甚至将她当作生财的工具。可怜的卡比利亚尽管显的有些“粗线条”，但是也有细腻的情感，片中我们时时可见她对爱情的渴望，费里尼让她的每一次悲剧都充满的喜剧色彩，让人觉的好笑，然后是一阵心酸，喜剧的糖衣最终包裹不住内在的苦痛。本片有个意味深长的结尾，卡比利亚歇斯底里的哭诉，让她终于还是再次捡回一条性命，她如同行尸走肉般的迷茫的在路上行走，一群载歌载舞的年轻人出现了，他们围绕着卡比利亚歌唱，舞蹈，那么欢快，而卡比利亚被这些欢快的人群围绕，却无法快乐，只能含着眼泪，苦涩的对快乐微笑，这正是卡比利亚的人生境遇的写照，快乐看上去离她近在咫尺，但她却无法触及。当再一次死里逃生后，看着这个受惊的女人，观众恐怕已经很难再伴随她对幸福充满期望。

    本片的成功不能不提玛西娜的出色表演，她本身体形就比较矮小，表情也比较滑稽，正好以一种可笑的神态，烘托她悲剧般的经历。同时，她的表演没有《大路》那么夸张，却更加立体，卡比利亚那外在的大大咧咧和内心的细腻都演绎的非常精彩，如被催眠的桥段都是非常出色的表演范例。


http://hi.baidu.com/doglovecat/blog/item/4701fbd392042fd7a8ec9a6d.html

      还好是电影里的卡比利亚，现实中若有此人，必让我极为生厌。
   卡比利亚的傻劲登峰造极了。没见过谁有如此笨拙的步伐，惊叹号的眉毛，粗鄙的表情，对救她性命的农民破口大骂，不分好歹。我也曾想给她一点点的好感，努力让自己喜欢上女主角。毕竟被爱人抛弃兼谋杀还是人生一大悲剧。可是卡比利亚悲愤过后立马转回常态，照旧回到街上拉客跳舞，却又让我无言以对。路遇大帅哥，轻易就尾随回家，而且还是在目睹对方和女友吵架之后，明知对方是情场失意寻找慰藉的情况下。对于卡比利亚的智商，大概不能用正常来形容。
   又蠢又丑又粗鄙的女人，谁会喜欢。
   后来的我喜欢了。很喜欢很喜欢。
   因为旧女友归来，卡比利亚被明星大帅哥藏在洗手间整夜，出门后，回望旧女友，旧女友躺在床上安详而幸福的表情与卡比利亚掩饰不住的羡慕和忧伤形成了鲜明的对比。一个人的平静却成为另一个人的幸福落差。对于卡比利亚，我突生怜悯，就快要忘记她先前的粗俗。在我内心深处，不管行为多出格，如果起因是追寻幸福，我好像都可以原谅，至少减轻责备。
   在后来，喜欢上玛利亚前后居然用不到一分钟。这时候，我要叫卡比利亚为玛利亚。玛利亚被催眠后，说出了自己的真实姓名。玛利亚摘下的面具，会采摘鲜花，会挽着恋人的手。真实的玛利亚还会在圣母前虔诚地许愿流泪。
   只有如此，只有面对神，面对一个被催眠的世界，才能展示出纯真的自我，这样的纯真却凸显了现实的残酷，生活的真实成为真实的刽子手。
   我知道，我曾笑话过的，只不过是玛利亚的纯真。
   因为有了一个热情真诚的追求者，玛利亚在街边拉客时脸上洋溢着不输前女友的笑容。可是玛利亚虽然走出了魔术师的催眠，却掉进了更为残酷的关于爱情给予的催眠。这位追求者要带玛利亚去的地方，不是幸福的天堂，而是幸福的深渊。他居然也只想着玛利亚的钱财。
   原来天上的滂沱大雨，掩不住最幸福的笑容；原来风景如画的竹林，也掩不住最悲怆的心情。风景和生活有着自己的步伐，却永远不懂那些喜怒哀乐。
   后来的那只林中乐队，奏出优美的和弦，洋溢着那些不知忧伤的美丽。
   玛利亚笑了，她的惊叹号般的双眉也趴了下来，成为了两道真正美丽的柳叶弯眉。
   生活也笑话过她的纯真，所以想要她懂得，生活是现实而残酷的。
可是玛利亚的笑容却回复了生活，虽然你曾笑话过我的纯真，但我依旧不想放弃。
  于是我爱她爱到无法言语……

Introduction
 
In this essay the film styles of these two films will be mainly discussed through several aspects that affect film styles significantly: techniques of the medium, the society and culture background, and personal taste of the two directors of each films.
 
As David Bordwell says “Style is, minimally, the texture of the film’s images and sounds, the result of choices made by the filmmaker(s) in particular historical circumstances.” Objective and subjective factors influence film style, and in objective factors, there are two aspects: material fact and spiritual fact. Material fact is the sources that are available for filmmaking, whereas spiritual fact is the psychic needs of the spectator. They are very much essential that filmmakers use limited material to make a film for their spectator’s psychic needs. For example postwar films are limited by material availability, and they meet the particular psychic needs of spectator. It is these objective factors distinct one film style from the other. And the subjective factors of filmmakers’ personal decisions are always restricted by the objective factors. There’s no such a film style that can exist without the influence of the period of time during which it is made.
 
Film techniques in the two films will be compared and contrasted briefly, due to the highlights of these two films are not technique achievement, but the themes and their explored ways. More emphasis will be put on arguing whether or not they are realism or idealism films. This argument will be set on analyze both the objective and subjective factors which affect them in style. And finally their film styles will be concluded comprehensively from different angles of view.

1. An overview of the two films
 
‘Le Notti di Cabiria’ (Nights of Cabiria) and ‘Nuovo Cinema Paradiso’ are both Italian national films, and both of them featured by their regional culture.
 
Fellini’s ‘Le Notti di Cabiria’ was released in 1957, which has been considered as one of the most interesting films of the post-war Italian cinema. It tells a tragic story about the life a little naive prostitute Cabiria, who lives in her little house at the outskirt of Rome. Although she’s been drowned by her lover for money, and treated unfairly by a famous actor, she keeps her simple and candid soul, and never gives up hope of living a happy life. Her optimism makes people laugh with a bitter feeling in the heart. She ends up with the same situation as she was in the beginning of the film, which is very much ironic ending. After robbed by her “fiancé” she walks down the street with street with the tears of despair. But gradually there appears more and more young and happy people singing and dancing around her to cheer her up, and then she smiles and cries at the same time. And at this moment, the audience can feel the same way as she does. Life is a tragedy with self-deception.
 
Giuseppe Tornatore’s ‘Nuovo Cinema Paradiso' is released in 1988, three decades later ‘Le Notti di Cabiria’. Passed its golden age, Italian cinema has been in its recession since 70s’. But no doubt that ‘Nuovo Cinema Paradiso’ brought a warm current to Italian film industry. Following Fellini’s ‘Amarcord’ in 1974,it won Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of 1989. Italy came back to the front stage of international cinema again. The story reviews the golden age of Italian cinema by telling a director’s childhood memory. The eternal friendship between Toto and Alfredo is the most touching theme of this film.
 
The ending of the film has its similarity to ‘Le Notti di Cabiria’, it is also a recall of where the story begins. A whole roll of kissing scenes edited with the negatives he asked from Alfredo when he was six. Using this gimmick to end a film is more powerful then traditional dramatic causality ending. In ‘Le Notti di Cabiria’ the recall of beginning shows an endless tragic circle that Cabiria walks on. Whereas the ending of ‘Nuovo Cinema Paradiso' presents us with an endless love that Toto received from his friend Alfredo.
 
Different film styles can be seen through how the film ends. The ironic and meaningful within Federico Fellini’s films is cold, and the emotional and seeking of eternal within Giuseppe Tornatore’s films I warm. They are in contrast, but both of the styles has their sparkle of their discussion of humanity. If ‘Le Notti di Cabiria’ is satirize of how weak is the relationship between people in this material world, then ‘Nuovo Cinema Paradiso’ is the opposite.
  
2. Film Technology
 
Colour
Fellini had never thought ‘Le Notti di Cabiria’ is an Italian neo-realism film, though film critics think so. The budget of this film was not very much, and the crew was not very big either, but these can never stop him making a good film. Under the limited budget, the film was shot in black and white，though in 1957 color film has been invented for several decades already. Try to imagine if it was shot in colour, what difference would it be? More visual information would be given to us, but is that necessary? At lease the last shot of Cabiria walking down the street with tears and smile would be less ironic than it is now in black and white. The colour of crowd would disturb our tension on the mood. Sometimes colours create mood, however sometimes they destroy it. Black and white itself is a visual style, it leaves out unnecessary information, and focus your attention on the movement on the screen.
 
Black and white films are considered as the feature of old films, there are even some audiences who are used to watching colour films find that black and white films are boring to the eyes and make them asleep. But to be honest, I cannot remember any particular colour in ‘Nuovo Cinema Paradiso', though it was shot in colour. And when I try to imagine if ‘Nuovo Cinema Paradiso' was shot in black and white, I don’t have many concern about enjoy it.
 
Colours do give a difference to the films style, but for these two films, the difference is hardly noticeable, though one of them is black and white, the other has colour. And you can never imagine if films like ‘Transformer’ without colour. So from this point of view, the unnoticeable colour is also a part of their film styles.

Cinematography
 
It is obviously the moving ability of cameras in the two films was quite improved by time and budget. Under the economy condition of 1950s， there wasn’t any crane and hardly any zoom in ‘Le Notti di Cabiria’, relatively there are more long takes and pans. ‘Nuovo Cinema Paradiso' has kept the tradition of using long takes and pans, and included zooms and cranes together. Both of the films use one direction to describe the same subject rather than use multiple camera positions. The camera can get a shallower depth of field in ‘Nuovo Cinema Paradiso' than the camera in ‘Le Notti di Cabiria’, so that it achieves a better effect when has many background crowd in shots. There are deep compositions in both of the film, which are always designed with western aesthetic preference of one thirds rule. There are no extreme angle or handhold style shots in either of the films. They share a similar shooting principle follows the classical western aesthetic， which is pleasant to watch and doesn’t feel as formalistic as the symmetrical composition.
 
Editing
 
Montages and long takes, close-ups and wide shot were all edited together with beat in both of the films. Andre Bazin’s opinion is long takes and wide shots show a more realistic vision than montages and close-ups. But montages run a faster speed and close-ups focus the attention. Long take imitates the way in which human eyes see, it doesn’t stop montage imitates the way how human brain do the job of selective memory. Not every piece of information that we see necessarily can be memorized. Montages and close-ups cut and crop out those unnecessary information is reasonable and pleasant to watch.
 
It will turn out a varied speed, if montages and long-takes edit together. And this editing technique makes the stories develop in a speed that neither too fast nor too slow.
 
There’s a difference on the timelines of the two films. ‘Le Notti di Cabiria’ has only one timeline, whereas ‘Nuovo Cinema Paradiso' has two timelines, the narration is interspersed with flashbacks. As the film is not about mystery and suspense, this editing method applies nostalgic sentiments to the whole film. The narrative styles of these two directors cannot be explained just by editing method. It is more of their personalities than the technologies terms, so it will be discussed later in this essay.
 
Sound and music
 
From 1950s to 1980s, sound recording technology was the biggest developed department of film industry. ‘Le Notti di Cabiria’ used mono sound recording tech, and 15 years after which ‘Nuovo Cinema Paradiso' recorded its sound in Dolby sound system. Dolby sound technology provides audience with a much realer hearing experience when watching images. It brings films to life. But mono sound systems can be more stylistic than 5.1 Dolby stereo sound systems, because they are hardly used.
 
Background music plays a very important role on film style. Nino Rota’s music gives a light comedy taste to ‘Le Notti di Cabiria’ despite the hypnosis scene and the ending, where the music was not exuberant. The background music illustrates an ironic style that Fellini plays the best. It makes you laugh while you want to cry, cry while you want to laugh. On the other hand, the background music in ‘Nuovo Cinema Paradiso' is deep soulful and full of nostalgia. It shapes the atmosphere with its power of tenderness. If the style of ‘Le Notti di Cabiria’ is loose and undisciplined, then ‘Nuovo Cinema Paradiso' is agglomerate and serious.
 
3. Realism or Idealism
Seeing a article says“ …the zero evidently there to remind us of the archivist’s unvanquishable enemy – empty vistas of empty time (see Fellini or Tornatore’s Cinema Paraiso for a nostalgic sentimentalizing of this self-same idealization of a cinema teeming with affective life).”, to my surprise, regarding as a realism filmmaker, Tornatore’s Cinema Paraiso is described as made from empty vistas of empty time, moreover Fellini cannot escape this judgment neither.
 
 
On the other hand, a strict realism film critic like Andre Bazin himself wrote in his “Cahiers du cinema” with full of regards. Although the last shot of ‘Le Notti di Cabiria’ is as artificial and symbolic as it can be, Bazin loved it. Though the idea of a fairy-tale prostitute is hardly realistic, but he put her in the real world, where the people surround her are very much taken shapes from reality. It is a fiction but shot in real location with naturalistic style of lighting(so as ‘Nuovo Cinema Paradiso'), conforming to the principle of simplicity. The film in my point of view is an ironic drama made in the Italian Neo-realism way. And differing from other drama films with their dramatic causality, the incidences in this film build up analogy and echo on its spectators. It is more about the theme he wants to discuss rather than the cause and affect.

 
I will never agree on the saying of “empty vistas of empty time”, because every thing in human mind reflect the life he lives in, fiction is always based on reality, otherwise we wouldn’t create alliances all with eyes, nose and mouth referring to the creatures we knows. And filmmakers would never escape from time neither. There’s always something affects him during the period of time that he is alive. A realism filmmaker, is the person who try to set his story in reality, no matter how good he does it. It is the direction that matters.

 
Conclusion
The film styles of ‘Le Notti di Cabiria’ and ‘Nuovo Cinema Paradiso' are complex. They are fictions but made in a realistic way. They try to explore the real world with their tales. The former is ironic and the later is glorifiable. Both of them put emphasis on the themes rather than dramatic causality. They are similar in technique styles, but in contrast of their themes. They are also both affected heavily by period and their national culture.
 
written by Feini Dong