Books, Arts & Manners: The Best, or the Biggest?

SUDDENLY, a number of films are getting belated releases in the director’s cut. One of them is a Fellini masterpiece, Nights of Cabiria (1957), shown complete only once at the Cannes Festival, now with the missing scene restored. It makes most of what is being turned out today look smaller than the smallest new potatoes. The story of the waiflike prostitute Cabiria, who falls for the wrong kind of men and, despite their abuse, conquers despair as she bustles through endearingly comic or touchingly wistful misadventures, is told superlatively by Fellini and his two usual co-writers, Tullio Pinelli and Ennio Flaiano, with an assist on the Roman dialect from Pier Paolo Pasolini.

In the lead, Giulietta Masina (Mrs. Fellini) gives one of the all-time great cinematic performances, with a pair of rolling eyes that can express as much in a couple of seconds as the finest dialogue in two pages. There are few characters or actresses—for, in this case, the two are sublimely fused—who can so swiftly move you to laughter or tears or both together as this Cabiria-Giulietta. The music by Nino Rota, who may have been the truest film composer ever, is almost unbearably lovely, with transitions from merry to melancholy or vice versa that toss you about in an emotional roller-coaster ride that leaves you breathless and exhilarated.

SUDDENLY, a number of films are getting belated releases in the director’s cut. One of them is a Fellini masterpiece, Nights of Cabiria (1957), shown complete only once at the Cannes Festival, now with the missing scene restored. It makes most of what is being turned out today look smaller than the smallest new potatoes. The story of the waiflike prostitute Cabiria, who falls for the wrong kind of men and, despite their abuse, conquers despair as she bustles through endearingly comic or touchingly wistful misadventures, is told superlatively by Fellini and his two usual co-writers, Tullio Pinelli and Ennio Flaiano, with an assist on the Roman dialect from Pier Paolo Pasolini.

In the lead, Giulietta Masina (Mrs. Fellini) gives one of the all-time great cinematic performances, with a pair of rolling eyes that can express as much in a couple of seconds as the finest dialogue in two pages. There are few characters or actresses—for, in this case, the two are sublimely fused—who can so swiftly move you to laughter or tears or both together as this Cabiria-Giulietta. The music by Nino Rota, who may have been the truest film composer ever, is almost unbearably lovely, with transitions from merry to melancholy or vice versa that toss you about in an emotional roller-coaster ride that leaves you breathless and exhilarated.