The Liar and the Saint

Fellini couldn't tell the truth and his wife, Giulietta Masina couldn't tell a lie. I learned this from a woman named Fiammetta Profili, who was his last personal assistant. We met at Bar Canova in Rome (his favorite spot), where she regaled me with tales of the great man; putting him up on a pedestal, then knocking him off, then putting him up again.

Fiammetta was a realist. She adored Federico but knew she had caught him at the tail end, far removed from the films that had Fellinized him. She said writing was the problem. With his trusted collaborators long gone he was either unable or uninterested in investing the time and toil it takes to make a screenplay. His health was failing too, but he knew the cure. "Just get me behind a camera," he'd tell her. "I can be dying of cancer, but put me on a movie set and I'll be fine." A lot of her job was scheduling coffee dates at the very spot we were sitting. No matter who came to Rome (presidents and prime ministers, especially) the two people they wanted to meet were the Pope and Fellini.

Fiammetta and Federico

She had great stories and a great memory, but what she remembered most was Fellini’s penchant for prevarication. "He lied about everything. About what he had for lunch." She also said he couldn't resist the company and attention of beautiful women. In fact, she herself had met him as a young film student. Taken with a question she asked at a lecture (and the woman who asked it), he offered her a job on the spot. I thought of 8 1/2, how it was autobiographical in every way, right down to the psychic studs. But I'm not here to just talk about Fellini, he gets enough shine. I want to talk about the woman who loved him, put up with him, and to me, embodied his essence even more than Mastroianni.

Giulietta Masina makes my soul wet. Santa Masina. Saint of the underdog. You love Chaplin? She’s Chaplin with an Anna Magnani chaser. Those eyes, that swag, the sass, and sad clown heartache. There’s joy in the grief and grief in the joy. How can she be that knowing, yet that innocent? How can she be that in the moment, yet so in touch with the eternal? When she gets going there’s nothing like her. When she stands still there’s nothing like her. A tiny stick of tender dynamite, she gets to your child soul and takes you to the circus-- and the “liar” behind the camera has a lot to do with it.

Masina as Cabiria

Being “seen” is a big thing these days, and we all long to be witnessed by someone who sees us for who we truly are. But to be seen by someone in a way that allows you to be seen by the whole world is something else. Was he the perfect husband, absolutely not, but he loves her with that camera as much as much a man can love a woman or director an actor. He doesn’t fetishize her or drool over her, he adores her. Her soul, her talent, her face and what she can do with it. He cannot get enough Giulietta! Fourteen years into their marriage and all he wants to do is watch her, be close to her, let her shine. He puts her exactly where she needs to be and says, “Go on baby. Break the whole world’s heart, and mine.” And as much as he gets her, she gets him. Knows the aria to the opera in his head. Knows that the diva is a waif and the waif, a diva. Knows what he wants, what he needs, what a Fellini movie is supposed be.

La Strada is a classic, and Juliet of the Spirits, compelling for sure, but for me, it’s all about Nights of Cabiria. “Cabiria” is where it all comes together. Where you see why the liar behind the camera, and the truth teller in front of it need each other. He’s the only one who can make her soar that high or sink that low, and she’s the only one who can make an honest man of him. It’s a wedding! The movie camera the way they say “I do.” This is how they honor their vows without the messy vagaries of reality intruding. This is where honesty and illusion get to have their glorious, guiltless fuck.

The last scene of Nights of Cabiria is a two-minute miracle. By the end of the second act Cabiria’s been through the ringer. Let down by man, God and fate, she is soaked through with shame and hard luck, doomed to live a loveless life on the margins. And just as all seems lost, a humble knight appears who sees the princess inside the whore. He values her, offers her a new start, wants to make her his bride. His sincerity wears down her bitterness, and the hard shell around her heart begins to melt. She thanks her angels (the angels she thought had abandoned her) and the tears flow. But it’s a con. All he wants is her money stuffed purse. He leads her to a high cliff over a lake and she sees his eyes change; that he’s brought her there to rob and kill her. When he can’t go through with it, she begs him to, screaming, “Kill me, just kill me!” But he doesn’t. He flees with the dough, leaving her gutted, sobbing and thrashing in the dirt.

Much to her dismay, she doesn’t die of grief, and with night now fallen, picks herself up off the ground and wanders through the darkened trees, finally reaching a road. She walks alone for a moment when out of the woods pour a group of young revelers wearing party hats. Some have guitars, one a harmonica, another an accordion. They are playing Nino Rota’s lilting theme, the movie’s soundtrack literally in their hands. Cabiria wanders among them, lost, deadened, hopeless. But instead of ignoring her, they include her, circling as they play and serenading her directly. A dark girl in a white hat turns to her, and with great warmth says “Buona Sera,” welcoming her back into life.

We see Masina thaw and return to herself, the harlequin face softening into a smile, the black mascara tear on her cheek turning from a stain to a beauty mark. The unbearable burden she has carried the whole film has been transformed into a moment of grace. It’s alchemy; Fellini-Masina style.