Funny, beautiful, heart-warming, heart-wrenching then heart-warming. Wonderful story.

So damn good. Giulietta creates one of cinema's greatest female protagonists.

Heartbreaking. Think my heart was torn out and stepped on about 20 times in the last half hour. I could watch Masinas face for hours, for days.

Masina is magnificent, even topping her performance in La Strada. She won my affection and my sympathy in this heartbreaking but absolutely lovely story. When you see disappointment heading Cabiria's way, you hope and pray that she endures it. Pretty much every scene was great, but the episode with the hypnotist was incredibly touching. Fellini masterfully balances each bit of sorrow with a touch of humor, and vice versa. And the photography is stunning as well. A wonderful film.

It's got some great wandering vignettes until we get to the stupid magician scene and introduce the predictable ending plot. I'd hesitate to call that plotline misery porn, but La Strada really did the sudden heartbreak much better and organically.

The nights of a whiny whore is a movie that just doesn't work. The dramatic parts have no substance because Cabiria is unlikable and the comedic parts are more lighthearted than actually funny. The second half struggles to recover the film with some interesting scenes, and Fellini has a shot at salvaging the movie with the ending, but he muddles that up as well.

For those who like La Strada, this one gives us more of that totally awesome and emotive lady who played her part in that one really well. Although in this one, she isn't that expressive really. She ends up complaining and yelling and being mostly unpleasant. Maybe it was in her character, I don't know. I guess the tragedy here is that this character was frustrated, naive, and prone to clumsy mistakes. This performance gave her depth but I could not sympathize with her as easily in this.

I don't know that I fell in love, though I could sometimes feel my heart shake. I followed these sad steps, and I felt touched by Cabiria's fate, but I think Fellini may have stumbled. He reveals life but not redemption, and while I felt the pangs I may have missed the point. Wherefore was I forced to taste the bitter grit of hopeless loss, life cast as grindstone only, and is that fair or false pretension?

The genius of this film begins with the performance by the expressive and delightful Masina, who manages to walk the line beautifully between both comedy and tragedy. Fellini paces the film just right interspersing encouraging encounters with charitable men and priests with the regular disappointments of life. The mysterious and beautiful moment of grace that ends the film carries with it a complex series of emotional cues that make it one of the more memorable endings in cinematic history.

180

I'll state up front that it's possible I just don't "get" Fellini, but this film did not grab me. It seemed as if style took priority over storytelling, and I think Masina oversold her character. It seemed more like a "woe is me" tale than one that had a real message. Better than 8 1/2 though.

Much like Antonioni's L'Eclisse this movie portrays modern age as a cold and hostile environment, shaping humans unable to interact without personal gain and feel trust for one another, but still longing for the comfort of another being. Cabiria as a prostitute is aware of this, but chooses to ignore the truth, because accepting it would mean accepting a world without love and hope. Masina is just wonderful on the screen. I can see why a director would marry her, this woman breathes cinema.

Although not a big fan of Fellini, his movies are always very well acted. This film starts slow, almost boring. But gradually will captivate the viewer with its lightness and beauty.

This movie has what is now probably my favorite performance by a female actor. Masina plays one of the most sympathetic characters I've ever seen. Simply looking at her face you can read deeply into who she is. Worldly yet naive, cynical yet hopeful. The film is beautiful, with my favorite shot being the one of Oscar overlooking the river, the sunset reflecting in the water far below. Knowing what he's likely thinking gives that shot a wonderfully bittersweet weight. What a great movie.

Fellini deliver some scenes here of eloquent poignancy and pathos, but the overall dish lack the forcefulness of most of his other films. Masina's expressive facial expressions still radiate a charming and solemn tenderness, but Fellini seem too eager to tell his story; more patience, more intimate, lingering close-ups of Masina's face, more observation of silence - that would have tasted!

It was only until the movie was nearly over that I really got invested in Masina's Cabiria. I didn't really like the episodic nature of the film. Cabiria's constant struggles and failures just weren't that interesting to me, for the most part. The ending was truly great at least.

<3 Giulietta Masina <3

such an incredible character . this is a character who we can share our feelings with . in the last sequence I was worried about her and her destiny . of course Masina's performance is the result of the crafty directing and good script .

This is a remarkable, touching and undeniably heartwrenching tale of a lost & lonely woman's search for love in an unsympathetic, uncaring, irrational 20th Century Rome. Like Masina's character, we are given illusions of her being successful.. but uncomprimisingly so, and brilliantly I might add, Fellini strips this "truth" away and replaces it with the cold, unwavering stare of the empty universe. Compelling stuff.