© 2006 William Ahearn

Between colleges in my misspent youth, I banged around Europe in late fall and early winter in a rickety and unheated nine-year-old 1961 Volkswagen minibus. A bout of pneumonia settled in my lungs somewhere in the bleak and leafless forests of France as we were headed for the Riviera and rumors of sunshine.

“Vedi Napoli e poi muori,” wrote Johann Wolfgang Goethe in the late 18th century. “See Naples and die,” is how it’s translated and Goethe was remarking about the beauty and splendor of what was then Europe’s third largest city. That line came back to me as I was sitting in the shotgun seat of the VW van parked at the mouth of an alley and drinking the syrup that one of my multi-lingual fellow travelers bought at the farmacia and handed me before they all trekked off for pizza. Naples is where pizza was created. The red sauce, white mozzarella and green basil leaves are symbolic of the colors of the Italian flag. So I sat and waited and slugged the syrup like warm soda and soon realized that we had parked next to a funeral home as every five minutes or so a hearse would drive by.

A hearse is a hearse, of course, of course. Except in Naples. In Naples the hearses look like the Disney Cinderella carriage painted black and festooned with black plumage and are – at least then – occasionally drawn by a team of black horses. After an hour or so of this disjointed parade of mortality it occurred to me that I should be feeling a lot worse than I did. Between the passing of the carriages and the clip clop of the hooves, I read the label and discovered that the syrup was about 25% codeine.

We never made it to the Riviera and we ended up staying at a villa on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, just outside Naples, that was occupied by several air-traffic controllers for the nearby US military base. One of the guys was a friend of a sister and he took us in.
After almost a week of being confined to a bedroom breathing boiling Vick’s Vapor Rub and massive doses of antibiotics from the dispensary and the inability to eat much of anything, one of the sailors told me if I wasn’t up and around soon, they were sending me to the base hospital.

And so began my recovery. In the mornings, with the sailors off at the base, I would sit outside at a small table where the sand from the beach met the flat stones of the patio floor and try to eat some bread with butter, have a cup of fabulous coffee, smoke inexpensive and unfiltered Nazionali cigarettes and listen to the women.

The women were at a nearby picnic table and they were the girlfriends of the sailors, the cleaning lady, and various other female visitors who arrived in gray and dented Fiat 450s or the occasional Vespa in late morning. On some days only the three or four girlfriends and the cleaning lady would be there and that would be the day for cards and gossip. They would tell stories that would make them laugh or argue about the cards. Back and forth went the laughter and the recriminations like waves cresting and falling. When the visitors showed up, food and wine would appear and they would crowd around the picnic table and gossip and joke and tell stories.

At my little table with my coffee and my cigarettes and the warm breeze carrying the smell of the sea and the warm sand, I would listen. My Italian was broken and less than basic and I had no clue what they were saying and in my sometimes quasi-febrile mind I would try and construct narratives based on the rising and falling tones of speech, on the body language and the laughter, on the reactions of the faces. It is such a beautiful tongue that I abandoned my search for a radio, which is how I had planned to spend the mornings, and instead just watched the freighters smudge the sky with their billowing smokestacks and boats with bellying sails on the calm seas and listened to the voices as they expressed their lives in a language I would never understand.

On an early afternoon when the patio was crowded and Fiats and Vespas were scattered on the flat grass that surrounded the villa, a dozen or so women celebrated some good news that I could only guess at. The picnic table was covered with food and the aroma from the hibachi of roasting peppers and strips of chicken roused something that had I hadn’t felt in a while: Hunger.

Later, as I walked along the beach and looked at the coast of Italy stretching off to the horizon lit by a warm afternoon sun, I realized it was time to get back on the road. Get back in the van and head up north to Milan, Rome, Venice and Florence.

Arrivederci, Napoli.

Whenever I watch an early Federico Fellini movie, I am reminded of those women and my recuperating days on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Even more than the time I spent in Rome (although it’s always nice to see places you’re been in foreign films). Recently I watched “I Vitelloni,” Fellini’s third film and his breakthrough in terms of audience. It is supposedly the inspiration for Martin Scorsese’s “Mean Streets,” George Lucas’ “American Graffiti,” Barry Levinson’s “Diner,” and -- if you read the incoherent drivel that passes for film criticism in The Village Voice -- “Seinfeld.” Whether or not all of that is true is neither here nor there. (Levinson has stated that he hadn’t see “I Vitelloni” when he wrote “Diner” and had only heard of the Fellini flick when Mel Brooks mentioned it after Levinson explained the plot of “Diner.”) Many directors regard the film highly. When asked to list his ten favorite films, Stanley Kubrick listed “I Vitelloni” first.

The last thing Fellini needs is to be justified by his influence on other film directors. All someone has to do is see “8-1/2” or “La Dolce Vita” and watch his genius unfold. Or “Juliet of the Spirits” or “Amacord.” More people think of “Satyricon” than “I Vitelloni” when someone mentions Fellini and “Satyricon” has some painfully beautiful images and some staggering scenes but it lacks the love of the characters and their stories that “I Vitelloni” and most other Fellini flicks express so easily.

“I Vitelloni” is the story of five male adolescents in a small town in postwar Italy. The title is an idiom that translates as “overgrown calves” and it indicates that the young men are lazy and living off their parents. It is Fellini’s first autobiographical work and his most accessible. While I really liked Levinson’s “Diner” and to a lesser extent Lucas’ “American Graffiti,” “I Vitelloni” is the work of a master who has little to work with in terms of budget and resources and plays the film off the actors, the camerawork and the script.

As much as I think “I Vitelloni” is a great film, it isn’t Fellini arriving at his final cinematic destination and doffing his hat to his new home. It is merely a larger station than those that he has stopped at along the way.

His first film “Variety Lights” contains images and scenes that he will play with throughout his career and stars Giulietta Masina who would go on to star in many of his movies. But it’s not a Fellini film.

There is a convergence in his second film, “White Sheik,” that will bring Fellini even closer to being the filmmaker that he will become. It’s the first time Fellini will work with Nino Rota, the composer who will score all of his movies until “Orchestra Rehearsal” (1979). (Rota will also be acclaimed for scoring Francis Ford Coppela’s “Godfather” series.)

There is also the cameo appearance in “White Sheik” of Giulietta Masina as the streetwalker Cabiria who would later appear as the main character in “Nights of Cabiria.”

It is also the convergence of two of Italy’s greatest directors. A convergence similar in some ways to Fellini co-writing Roberto Rossilini’s “Open City.” Rossilini is the best-known director of the post-war Italian realism school. I’m not concerned with this school and that movement and their neo and post relatives. My interest is finding whether these films remain vibrant as films. “Open City” was a groundbreaking and important film in the history of cinema. It is also a movie that remains of its time and will never be as powerful to the casual film viewer as it is to cineastes and film historians. After working with Rossilini, Federico Fellini pursed his own course.

The idea of spoofing the fumetti, a comic book of sorts using still photographs, for “White Sheik” and the scriptwriter – along with Fellini and two others – was Michelangelo Antonioni.

If two contemporary directors ever took divergent roads it is Fellini and Antonioni. For “Love in the City” (1953), a compilation of five directors dealing with women and love in post-war Rome, Fellini made a short film about a man who approaches a marriage broker to find a mate for his friend who happens to be very rich and a werewolf. It’s nascent Fellini in how it bounces back and forth between frivolity and sadness but it really never goes anywhere.

For his contribution to the film, Antonioni rounded up women who had attempted suicide after tragic affairs and let them tell their stories. It’s a bold and riveting approach to a subject rarely dealt with even now. Antonioni doesn’t have time for clowns and sentiment and he’s the perfect counterpoint to Fellini.

(There is a clear vision of this divergence in films that would make the reputations of each filmmaker. For Fellini it would be “La Dolce Vita” (1960) and for Antonioni it would be “La Notte” (1961). (Some might say Antonioni’s “L’Avventura” (1960) except “La Dolce Vita” and “La Notte” both star Marcello Mastroianni and the films contain similar themes and utterly different approaches.) It would be a very interesting double feature.)

It is in the next three films that Federico Fellini became Fellini. Whether they were planned as a trilogy or not, they certainly can viewed as one.

“La Strada” (1954) was a major success for Fellini and it established Giulietta Masina as a screen presence. And it certainly didn’t hurt Anthony Quinn’s career. Quinn plays Zampano, a brutish, insensitive, egomaniacal performer who stages feats of strength as a carnival strongman. He literally buys Gelsomina (Giuletta Masina), a young and insecure girl, from her poor and hopeless family. Zampano abuses, brutalizes and uses Gelsomina for whatever he needs her for as they travel along the road putting on shows. If “White Sheik” and “Il Vitelloni” were forays into comedic narratives then “La Strada” and his next film “Il Bedone” were explorations of tragedy and failure.

“Il Bedone” (1955) is the story of a con man making his living and plying his trade preying on the poor, greedy and gullible. It’s Fellini’s darkest film and the only time his main character is subjected to such banal brutality. It’s a depressing movie about a complex and conflicted criminal and it’s a place to which Fellini will never return. “La Strada” did have its comedic moments. “Il Bedone” does not. Richard Basehart is in both films. In “La Strada” he plays the comic foil to Zampano. In “Il Bedone” he’s just another desperate loser trying to hustle a lira here and there. This is a very interesting film if you’ve only seen Fellini’s major flicks. Somewhere between this film and the next, Federico became Fellini. While he wanted to stay where he was in terms of characters – the poor and struggling or what we now call, in Cabiria’s case, a marginalized sex worker – he didn’t want to take the road that leads to despair and depression and a sense of hopelessness. He had been down that road and now needed a different destination, a different resolution.

Somewhere between the death of a con man and the birth of a prostitute, Fellini seemed to realize that tragedy isn’t an ending, it’s merely another phase of the human condition. What he created – almost two years later – was “Nights of Cabiria” with Giulietta Masina expanding her cameo role as the streetwalker in “White Sheik.” For my money, “Cabiria” is the quintessential Fellini flick. As much as I admire “8-1/2” and “La Dolce Vita,” my heart belongs to Cabiria. This is where Fellini taps the vein that will influence every subsequent major and successful film (with the possible exception of the beautiful but empty “Satyricon”) and still stays true to his postwar roots. Granted, these are the kinds of films that pull me close and involve me rather than just entertain while I rummage around in the popcorn tub.

There is another divergence here and it involves the European and American sensibilities. Federico Fellini’s “Nights of Cabiria” was remade in the US as Bob Fosse’s “Sweet Charity” (1969) with Neil Simon writing the script. The musical provided some classics of the American musical theatre ("Hey, Big Spender" and "If My Friends Could See Me Now") when it opened on Broadway in 1966 with Gwen Verdon originating the role that Shirley MacLaine would play in the flick.

Neil Simon is everything that’s wrong with the American theatre as far as I’m concerned but, damn, Bob Fosse knows what he’s doing. It’s a real razzle-dazzle show but I’m at a total loss to see why they needed the Fellini script or what Charity Hope Valentine (no joke, that’s the character’s name) has to do with Cabiria. It’s not that I abhor “Sweet Charity” (I once worked on a production during my time in the theatre). It’s entertaining as far as musicals go. (I’ve got a rambling essay on musicals in progress.) But other than taking superficial situations out of “Cabiria” – the If My Friends Could See Me Now scene is a perfect example – I’m lost as to why they dismissed the humanity and power of the Fellini flick for some good tunes and some fine choreography.

It would be tempting to rant on the pathetic hole that the American theatre has dug for itself but I’ll pass on that for now. As for “Sweet Charity,” it’s just another example of how differently some American and some Italian filmmakers deal with character and circumstance. Bob Fosse may have been hindered by the Hays Production Code – that was then beginning to lose its sway on American moviemakers – or he was bound by the Broadway script that played to the supposed sensibilities of Peoria. Either way, it never did justice to the original work but remakes rarely do.

“Nights of Cabiria” is one of those early films in the development of a director that gets lost after subsequent successes overshadow them. When I talk to people who talk about films, it is “La Strada” and “La Dolce Vita” and “8-1/2” that they talk about. “Cabiria” – and “I Vitelloni” – as well as the other early films mentioned here, should be seen as much as “La Dolce Vita” or “8-1/2.”