Freytag's pyramid of plot development shows plot to be a sequence of events that follow this path: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. At first glance, Nights of Cabiria seems to follow this path.
The film starts with an emotional punch as Cabiria is betrayed and almost killed. The beginning serves as the "exposition," because it establishes that Cabiria is searching for happiness through love, a happiness that she has been denied.
The "rising action" encompasses most of the film. It includes her encounter with the movie star, her visit to the cathedral, and her encounters with Oscar (as well as other incidents). The important theme in the rising action is the pilgrimage that Cabiria embarks on. She wants to find fulfillment in love and companionship. The physical center of her pilgrimage is the church service she attends for the Madonna, praying that she will find love. She also experiences communitas at the cathedral. She finds herself among dozens--perhaps hundreds--of others who are all searching for something with the help of the Madonna. This spirit of informal community contributes to her later dissatisfaction that nothing has yet changed, either for her or any of her brethren. In addition, though the physical center of her pilgrimage is the church, her emotional center through her journey is Oscar. When she discovers that Oscar wants to marry her, she is ecstatic. Through Oscar, she believes that her pilgrimage for love has been fulfilled and her journey can come to an end.
However, it is at this point that Freytag's pyramid of plot development is confounded. There is a clear "climax"to the movie--but this climax is a mirror to the exposition, and it does not lead to falling action or denouement. When Cabiria is robbed by Oscar and once again left alone, it becomes the exposition to a new journey, a new pilgrimage, for Cabiria to discover what she really needs. Her story has become a circle. She is at another beginning--not an end, not a denouement. The joyful music that surrounds her at the finale suggests that this new pilgrimage will be more successful.
The emotional impact of Cabiria's failure to find fulfillment is exacerbated by the circular plot structure. When she is betrayed again, the viewers feel shocked that her journey was all for naught. The viewers have seen the effect of the betrayal the first time: sadness, humiliation, bitterness. The second time it happens, Cabiria at first can't cope. She screams, "Kill me!"repeatedly and wishes for death. The viewers can empathize with her, instead of dismissing her as overreacting, because they saw it happen already, at the very beginning of the movie.
I like that you talk about the cyclical nature of Cabiria's dilemma in this film, because I too think that it is an important element of the journey she takes. One of the really great elements of this movie is that the end of the movie does not signify the end of Cabiria's journey, it signifies a new beginning for her. While the film is left quite open ended, we are left with the sense that Cabiria's new journey will be one in which she finds success instead of heartbreak. There is no set resolution to the film, just a change in tone--which I believe gives the film a very realistic, very human feel to it.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that the movie has a circular nature. I too found that the ending of the movie was strikingly similar to the beginning. However, I wonder about whether this has any deeper significance. In the ending, I didn't really find that the joyful music was really promising greater things in the future, but perhaps was serving to "uplift" Cabiria in the sense that she should become more optimistic and perhaps prepare to deal with similar occurrences in the future. I agree that not really much was accomplished in terms of resolution, but I would venture to say that Cabiria has indeed changed. Her reaction to the rejection at the end of the movie is far different from the reaction at the beginning. Do you think that the circular plot could be emphasizing the differences in Cabiria's behavior to two very similar situations?
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