Sorry I'm not Italian/from Rome or the area... so geographic or neighborhood clues don't give me any hints. It wasn't until coming here did I understand that's what Cabiria did for a living! WHAT THE HECK.
sharestanding idle on a street corner in sexy clothing, at night, didn't suggest street walker to you? it's pretty obvious.
shareNot to mention having to scatter and hide when the cops show up...
share"Sexy clothing" is subjective, especially when she's standing next to that scary painted clown faced tranny that stole away Giorgio.
And hanging out standing idle on a street corner at night, dancing, listening to music out of a car with a group of your friends = pretty standard teenage behavior these days. And sadly their outfits are much more risque.
So what? Do you understand any historical context? This is post-war Italy, specifically the area of Rome, and the people as well as the city are still reeling from being bombed half way to the stone age. People were living in caves and under bridges. Victorias Secret and Fredricks of Hollywood hadn't re-opened yet. There was nothing ambiguous or unclear about her line of work. it was quite plain to see.
The thorn defends the rose, yet it is peaceful and does not seek conflict.
Calm your tits. I understand historical context, but they don't really focus on people other than generals/important entrepreneurs/innovators/nobility when teaching this stuff in school. And clearly production codes would've tamed or censored anything REMOTELY resembling from Vicky Secret's or Frederick's... so who's to say this is even an accurate portrayal of reality at the time? Granted, I realize this is a neo-realistic film, but for someone not "there at the time" and who really has nothing to compare it to, a few more clues would've been helpful.
That being said, my lack of understanding the first time around did not hinder me from enjoying and appreciating this truly one of a kind film!
Wait.... NOC was made less than ten years after the end of WWII, and we today are 55 years from when NOC was made. Fellini should have put in clues for people 55 years down the road? Exactly how does that work? Tell me again how you have historical perspective...
I am glad you liked the film though...
The thorn defends the rose, yet it is peaceful and does not seek conflict.
12 years after the war.
shareNo need to be a smartass. Not everybody has historical context for every country. I didn't know she was a prostitute. Is there any reason for the movie deliberately never uttering the word?
share... calling to men in cars as they go by. What do you need, a big sign that says "Love for sale"?
shareI didn't realize that she was a prostitute til about three quarters of the way through the movie. I think for someone who is unfamiliar with Italy and the historical context of the film--like i am--it isn't obvious right away, but i think if you watch it again, you'll see there are some definitive clues. I'll bet the reason it is so unclear is due to content regulations--censorship from the Italian government or the people who produced and financed the film. Fellini likely would have made her occupation more explicit if he could have.
shareOne of the huge giveaways is the hotel. They all know who she is and don't want her there...
The thorn defends the rose, yet it is peaceful and does not seek conflict.
I completely agree. Even some situational dialogue thrown in would've been helpful... for god sakes La Dolce Vita was made only 3 years later and you can obviously see who is a whore and who isn't.
shareWas the night streetwalking scene when they ran from the cops that hard to understand? You can see that today on COPS...
The thorn defends the rose, yet it is peaceful and does not seek conflict.
i thought the most obvious clue was in the very first scene when they dragged her out of the river. she was kicking at the guys who were trying to get the water out of her and telling them to let her go. as she stomped away, a boy on a bicycle rode up and called her by name. the men asked him if he knew her and he said, "yes, that's Cabiria, she lives on St. Cecelia street. she lives the life..." what boy would say something like that about a woman unless he knew something about her that was common knowledge?
shareSee, you're just delving deep into how people would say what. Sorry, it's not clear. Not everybody analyzes the very style and tone of every line spoken...
shareROLFMAO...."she lives the life..." Please explain for the people who didn't know she was a prostitute, how the incomplete line "she lives the life...." would help them decipher her profession in any way, shape, or form.
shareIn Italian "fa la vita" (literally "she lives the life") means definitely "She is a prostitute".
I guess the ambiguity comes with the subtitles.
early on in the movie, one of the boys (when she's pulled out of the river, i believe) states that "she lives the life," or something similar, indicating she is a prostitute.
shareHow spoon-fed do people today want to be?
I want to shake every limb in the Garden of Eden
and make every lover the love of my life
Cradle to grave, freddy, cradle to grave.
The thorn defends the rose, yet it is peaceful and does not seek conflict.
[deleted]
Indeed. I thought it was plenty clear from the top, when, in the opening scene - after Cabiria is revived from her near-drowning - one of the men asks a boy if he knows her, to which the boy responds: "That's Cabiria. She lives the life."
Whether that's the direct translation from the Italian, I don't know - but it's a fairly common euphemism in English. The kid wasn't making an existential statement about her.
If I may interject here. The boy in the opening scene who says "That's Cabiria-she lives the life".... was indeed an immediate giveaway regarding Cabiria's profession. However, in all fairness, being a perfect bilingual English-Italian, the translation of that Italian line as "she lives the life" is not really all that correct, or rather, English-speaking countries might not readily get it as a reference to someone living as a prostitute. They made a very literal translation of "lei fa la vita" which is exactly how they say it in Italy (which is the NICE reserved way of saying that about someone....). In my book, a more clear translation, even if figurative, would have been "she turns tricks for a living", or simply "she turns tricks", or something like that anyway. Most of the time they do a great job with subtitles, but some rare times I catch some things that could have been expressed better, or that are even completely wrong. So I'm not surprised at some people on this post who took awhile to understand Cabiria's profession.
Exactly!
I thought this was obvious, but I'm amazed by how many people just don't get it, and then they argue about it.
"For dark is the suede that mows like a harvest"
Oh right, the movie is sooo smart for not spelling it out. You know what, I want to see how it'll turn out if I wrote a screenplay and assumed everyone knew what I was talking about...
shareSo you are saying everything needs to be explained to you? You can't figure things out by yourself?
shareI can only imagine the OP doesn't speak Italian, and there were no subtitles. There was nothing subtle about what she did for a living. It just took a little while for the visuals to catch up with the dialog. This was the first time I ever saw this movie, and as soon as my husband and I saw her start to warm up to 'Oscar', we both said, together..."UH-OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" It was just a matter of time until the inevitable would happen. :(
And when she showed Oscar the fist-full of Lira she said do you know what I had to do to earn this money?
Was that a clue for you?
No, every body works hard too ... like climbing into a truck and getting dropped off later, somewhere else.
*fighting other skanky looking women over 'spots'? Check
*men stopping where she's standing on sidewalks and telling her to come here? Check
*bragging to other skanky women about 'being with' an important person (of whom you just met and went in his car)? Check
No expectations, no disappointments.
They could not be too explicit. Fellini had a add tine getting anyone to finance this film because of the dodgy Way she made a living (not a profession).. I don't know the areas in Rome either. Everyone laughed to hear where she lived so it must have been a dump.
shareI don't want to bash you like everyone else is doing, but honestly it's difficult to understand how you missed it.
Think about when she goes home with the actor and ends up spending the night alone in his bathroom. In the morning he hustles her out the door and gives her a wad of money. She sort of half-heartedly tries to refuse (since she would be getting paid for services NOT rendered) but then takes the money.
In other scenes she's spending the evenings and the "morning after" wandering around in high heels and a cheap-looking bolero jacket - every day. You never see her "working" at any kind of traditional job. Other replies have mentioned the more obvious scenes like when the prosties all scatter when the police come. Teenagers might hang around street corners in trashy clothes, but middle-aged women don't - unless they're working "ladies of the night."
Watch the movie again and now that you know, you'll realize how obvious it all is.
I thought it's obvious the OP is trolling? This is the first time I haven't seen anyone call it out. People are actually taking the trolling seriously and writing thoughtful responses. So strange.
Someone in another thread called this a "French" film. Such a wonderful film. I wonder why it's attracted so many trolls.
I do agree that it is a little difficult to gather that she is a prostitute. I think part of it is cultural, and part is linguistic. As someone noted also, perhaps the director could not be very direct about the point. The boy says that she lives "the life," but it takes a small leap to infer what that means. The relationship she had with the guy (Giorgio) at the beginning of the movie appeared to be a genuine romantic relationship (at least from her perspective), which isn't generally associated with a prostitute. We don't ever see her engaging in this actual prostitution. Certainly in the later scenes with her fiance she makes more clear allusions to it (although even then she refers to "beatings"). The scene where she was standing in the rain with the umbrella, and she refused to go to the man in the car, was a good signal, and of course when she runs from the police later that too is a good sign. But e.g. merely being shooed away by the guy at the hotel and going back to the actor's house are not strong clues. I think the question is not a bad one.
shareOK, I concede that maybe some people really didn't get the explicit evidence that Cabiria was a prostitute.
On the other hand, it seemed to me that Fellini was trying to capture the child-like essence of Cabiria. While she was portraying a prostitute, Fellini wanted to portray the girly innocence and idealism that has been buried deep inside. Giulietta Massina conveyed this paradox brilliantly.