Just like Fellini used to be a big gap in my filmography – something this series, with a little help from Criterion, is supposed to address -, I’ve not seen all that many films by Pier Paolo Pasolini. The ones I have seen are an eclectic bunch: Mamma Roma (starring a magnificent Anna Magnani), The Gospel According to St. Matthew, and the Greek tragedies: Oedipus Rex and Medea. Based on having watched these, it’s difficult for me to get much of a grip of who Pasolini was as a filmmaker – but tonally he definitely seems to be a fairly different, much more overtly political storyteller from Federico Fellini.

Which makes Nights of Cabiria, on which Fellini collaborated with Pasolini, an interesting blend of the two men’s styles and preoccupations. The role of Pasolini, who was one of altogether four co-writers, was to help with the dialogue of the 1950s Roman demimonde of pimps, prostitutes and their tricks, giving it more authenticity. The world of Nights of Cabiria doesn’t actually seem all that far removed from that of Mamma Roma, who, like Cabiria, is a sex worker dreaming of a different life. However, while the director and his writers evoke a believable world that is earthy, that lives and breathes, this world isn’t what defines the film the most, instead providing a background to the central performance. As in La Strada before it, the star of the show is undoubtedly Giulietta Masina – who may be even better as Cabiria than she was as Gelsomina.