Every film is a valuable memory, and in 1957 Federico Castro was born in 1957. Fellini's "Night of Cabilla" is his sweetest memory of his wife Julietta Marcina, the reason for making this film stems from Fellini's obsession with a little crazy and inviolable little girl a few years ago, when Fellini was still Rossellini's royal screenwriter, the well-known actor Maniani once met Fellini in a restaurant and asked him to write a different story for his mentor Rossellini, asking him to "make people laugh, a little new realism but likable, like the American movies before the war, There should also be a powerful indictment against society, but with the implicit hope that, at any cost, there must be a touching Roman tune."
So Fellini completed the first draft of "Kabylia Night" according to this request, an aggressive sensual prostitute was abandoned by her boyfriend, and after being rescued, she encountered a dispute between a movie star and her lover while walking at night, and the star took the prostitute home in a huff, but at this time encountered a lover's visit, the anxious prostitute slept in the bathroom for one night, and the star forced thousands of lires to her the next morning, letting her leave the luxurious residence.
Unfortunately, this story did not interest Maniani, and she had a crush on another story, The Liar. A few years later, when Fellini became the director of The White Chieftain in 1952, he spent three minutes portraying two prostitutes with warm humanity, comforting the emotionally hurt heroine Wanda, one of whom became the prototype of Kabylia. In 1953, Fellini found a simple log cabin while filming "The Liar", sitting in a dirty environment with a woman, Fellini's consecutive food delivery visits for several days dispelled her concerns, telling Fellini about the cruel and ugly facts of her life, the "insignificant" woman named Wanda, which constituted the image of Wanda, Cabilia's best friend in the film, in "Night of Kabylia". The bridge where Kabylia was pushed into the water by her boyfriend was the real incident reported in the newspapers at the time, the only difference being that the woman died and had no chance to turn over again.
The above introduction can help readers better understand the structure of the film, but also show that this film is not a fictional story, each character and detail in it has a real source, which leads to our thinking about the tragic fate of Kabylia. This film belongs to fellini's transitional period, in which he can be found to mature his dream expression, this film contains his homage to Márquez and Chaplin, but also shows Fellini's vision of a happy life, the humanitarian concern of marginalized women and a powerful indictment of a cold society, "The Great Road" has brought it an international reputation, but the most able to express his true thoughts is "The Night of Kabylia".
Today, I will analyze Fellini's understanding of life through the appearance of Kabyria's story, the logical framework and the spiritual core, thereby deepening the audience's understanding of him and inspiring the audience to think more deeply through the appearance of the story.
Kabylia had impressed me in "The White Chief", and when she drunkenly soothed the heart of a lonely patient in the cold night, I had infinite emotions about the warmth of life, and at that time I did not realize that she would have a plot connection with the film. Kabylia can be used to refer to all women who have had unfortunate experiences in their lives, completing the ingenious grafting of tragic fate and happy life.
First of all, Kabylia is a prostitute, but she is very different from the traditional perception of the dusty woman. She has a pure heart, easy to believe in others, and has the most beautiful expectations for love, so she was deceived by three men three times in the film, but she did not lose the pursuit of a happy life, which made us feel a little warmth in the cold of the world.
Second, the fundamental cause of Kabylia's fall is not the individual, but the product of the times and the environment. When she was fourteen, her mother forced her to pick up guests, thus becoming the only skill she had in her life, and only through continuous reception could she live a better life. For Kabylia, she is aware of the shamefulness of this behavior, so when she falls in love with Oscar, she tries her best to avoid exposing her profession, which she regards as the yangguan road to a happy life, and when Oscar proposes to her, she cannot suppress the joy in her heart, like a pure girl. The prostitute corrupted her body, but never defiled her soul, so she constantly emphasized that she was "a house-owner", that owning a detached house meant that she was distinctly different from a low-status wanderer, and that her financial independence made her more confident to cover up her inferiority complex.
In nobel laureate García Márquez's book "The Innocent Elentilla and the Cruel Grandmother", an equally tragic female fate is portrayed, and the gentle and kind Erendilla is a 14-year-old girl who accidentally caused an accident to cause a fire and burned down her grandmother's house, who forced her to repay her by "picking up" in order to compensate her for her losses. This image is actually reflected as early as "One Hundred Years of Solitude", when Aureliano Buendía began to have sex, the first embrace was Erendilla, because only in Erendilla can he feel the value of living, not so much that he is having a relationship, but rather that he is seeking psychological comfort. According to Márquez, Erendilla is a 12-year-old girl he met in real life, who was reduced to a dust girl because of rape, but the stubborn character and indomitable will left a deep impression on Márquez, Erendilla has a tragic fate, but has an unremitting pursuit of a happy life. Kabylia can be seen as a reproduction of Marquez's Erendilla, she represents the spirit of not accepting fate, not accepting defeat, even if the world kisses me bitterly, I should repay it with a song, this realm makes her always maintain spiritual purity, constitute a noble personality that can be sung and wept.
When Erentilla encounters love, she chooses to run into the wilderness without hesitation, the wilderness symbolizes freedom and the unknown, this open narrative ending shows Márquez's uncertainty about Elentilla's happy destination, Fellini also adopts the same ending, when the heartbroken Kabilia walks into the circus clown, she shows a sweet smile in the soft light, and the film ends. It seems to me that a tragic fate can never extinguish the good nature, and Kabylia will continue to pursue her happy life, and she is destined to find her own happiness.
Fellini ushered in the release of Bergman's "Wild Strawberries" when completing this film, in the world film industry at that time, the dream element was so skillfully used, Bergman was the first person, which inspired Fellini to shoot the peak of his career "Eight and a Half" later, but Fellini actually has always had the idea of dream expression, which can be clearly seen in this film, and he has laid out a unique logical framework for the film for us through structuralism and dream connection.
Structuralism is a methodology founded by the Swiss linguist Saussure in the 19th century, which matured in the 1960s and 1970s, represented by the French structuralist critic Gérard Genet, who divided narrative theory into three parts: narrative time, narrative style, and narrative voice. Narrative time means that the narrator breaks the natural state of the original event and stitches them together in different sequences and rhythms. Narrative refers to the distance and angle between the narrator and the information. Narrative voice refers to the subject of narrative behavior. Due to the existence of film montage editing, the narrative time can be expanded infinitely, the film presents a Fellini-style rhythm, through the Kabylian perspective to observe the changes in the whole world is easy to understand, the sense of substitution is very strong, the audience does not have to worry about the encoding, transcoding, interpretation of the film language process.
The rhythm of the film changes with the state of Kabylia's love, and the rhythm of the film is controlled by the method of turning from reality to dream, and then from dream to reality, and the two feelings and endings constitute three dreams with different meanings, thus forming a binary opposition between deception and purity.
First Dream: Kabylia is pushed into the river by her boyfriend George, she is rescued during the day and night to solicit customers, then she ushers in the dream, sits in the star Albert's car, enjoys the gorgeous performance, comes to the dreamy mansion, what should be a sweet dream is pulled back to reality by the arrival of Albert's girlfriend.
Second dream: Kabylia came to see hypnosis after praying in church, did not expect to meet the "government official" Oscar, when she and Oscar began to date again and again, Oscar proposed to marry, excited Kabylia sold the house representing the identity class, fell into the sweetest dream, wearing sunglasses Oscar revealed the true face of seeking money and killing, at this time the dream turned to reality again.
The Third Dream: When the distraught Kabylia meets the circus, she comes to a dream and reality, which is very different from the previous two, symbolizing the turning point of life and the redemption of joy, whether this dream will be shattered Everyone will give different answers, perhaps still facing the cold reality, perhaps looking for a sweet life.
Fellini was inspired by Charlie Chaplin's City Lights when he conceived the film, and throughout the film, we will find that Kabylia is a Chaplin-style tramp, her moving dance in nightclubs is just like Chaplin's comical dance steps, and Kabilia's encounter with Albert is the same as the millionaire in "City Lights" who recognizes him after getting drunk. At the end of the film, Karin gazes at the camera, revealing that the vision of life is like the meaning of "city light", representing the noble pursuit of the spiritual world and the eternal goodness of human nature.
Both Kabylia and the tramp have an optimistic and enterprising spirit, they are easy to trust others, and they are willing to face everyone in need of help in life with a sincere smile. After the release of the film, French film critics also called Kabilia the female version of Charlo (Charlo is the Nickname of the French for Chaplin), which shows that Kabilia played by Marcina has been recognized by the audience, and Kabylia has become the embodiment of women on the edge of the city.
The origin of Kabylia's tragedy lies in the asymmetrical relationship between the harsh reality of the situation and the desire for good happiness, which creates a class confrontation between marginal women and the urban elite. Kabylia's status as a prostitute determined that she could not reach the boy of her choice, and each time the closed door foreshadowed her lonely watch in the midst of injury. In the lonely atmosphere, the audience can feel both the despair of tragedy and the hope of optimism, which reveals Fellini's humanitarian concern for women on the edge of the city.
Fellini once said, "I have always been very interested in studying loneliness, observing lonely people. From a very young age, it was natural for me to notice that some people (including myself) couldn't get into other people's circles for one reason or another. In life and in the film, I have always been interested in people who don't fit in. The strange thing is that those who are outside the circle are either too smart or too stupid. The difference is that smart people tend to be arrogant to others, while stupid people are often bullied. In The Night of Kabylia, I explore a man who has been abandoned but still has pride in himself. ”
Kabylia was once hypnotized and had feelings for an illusionist named Oscar, and the Oscar that appeared in reality was more like borrowing the hypnotic effect to get Kabylia's spiritual resonance, he said "we are two lonely beings, we need each other", why does he have such an emotion? Linked to the results of the deception, we can see that Oscar's lines are exactly the same every time, using the loneliness of the desire for love to achieve the goal, and it is not only Kabylia who is deceived, which leads to the common trait of women on the edge of the city: the lonely state of mind. They are the bullied people whom Fellini called "too stupid to break into other people's circles."
Kabylia, after two emotional setbacks, even went to the church to pray, and this act was not only the act of a person, but also the saints who held aloft religious slogans in the middle of the night, the old people who could not walk upright among the customers, and the pilgrims who poured into the church all hinted at loneliness. They pin their hopes on illusory faith, but as a result, the old man threw away the crutch and still could not move forward half a step, and Kabylia thought that the divine power proved that it was still a mirror flower, a moon, and a castle in the air.
Many of the details in the film show Fellini's dedication to marginalized women. When Kabylia was rescued from the water for the first time, the well-meaning person said that "he is like a cat with seven lives", which not only shows her difficult and immortal situation, but also hints at her emotional frustration, as long as life does not end, the pursuit of happiness will not stop. Kabilia also has a good friend Wanda who genuinely cares about her. In real life, Wanda said that "my life is indeed like a movie", and in the end she died alone, but Fellini could not bear to give up this beautiful expectation, so she sowed the seeds of happiness and determination in Kabylia's heart, allowing her to blossom the most beautiful and brilliant flowers in front of the cold and cruel reality.
"Night in Kabylia" through the dream-like structuralist narrative method layer by layer, interlocking, to achieve a happy life and tragic fate of the clever transfer, completed the tribute to Márquez and Chaplin, Kabylia's innocent kindness gave her the motivation to continue to find happiness after setbacks, her pursuit of love, happiness is a true portrayal of the bottom women in real life, Kabylia is not only an image that appears on the screen, but also a metaphor for everyone in real life who has a pure heart and bravely pursues love and happiness.