Stars: Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni
Director: Ettore Scola
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Actor-Marcello Mastroianni, Foreign Language Film-Italy)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars
Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol." This month, our focus is on Sophia Loren-click here to learn more about Ms. Loren (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.
By the end of the 1960's, Loren's career was still in pretty good shape, but the actress seemed intent on slowing down. Her second marriage (she was married twice to film producer Carlo Ponti) had resulted in the birth of her two sons, and Loren was content with making less movies as she raised them. However, public demand for Loren didn't dissipate, even after her longtime director Vittorio de Sica died in 1974 (Loren appeared in his last film, The Voyage, and would star in eight movies helmed by de Sica, and they would act together in several more). For our last film I wanted to pick what is critically the final really important film in Loren's career, at least as a leading woman, to date-A Special Day, an unusual movie from the late 1970's that while she received top billing, frequently is more associated with her costar Mastroianni due to his getting the Oscar nomination for playing opposite of her.
(Spoilers Ahead) The film takes place over the course of one day in May 1938, during which time Hitler made a state visit to Rome and appeared publicly with Mussolini. The event drew incredible crowds, but within the fictional confines of this movie, two people stay home: Antoinetta (Loren), a taken-for-granted mother whose husband treats her like garbage & whose six children dismiss her, and Gabriele (Mastroianni), a former radio announcer who has been fired because he is gay. The film unfolds with the two forming an unlikely bond (Antoinetta's myna bird has floated to his window, and they meet because she goes to his apartment to catch it), in the process discussing their lives, sexuality, and their divergent politics, which clearly shift over the film as Antoinetta, who makes scrapbooks devoted to Mussolini, starts questioning the indoctrination she's encountered during the fascist regime.
The film is my favorite "genre" (if that's the word for it) of movie, one where two strangers briefly meet, and though they are not together long (the police take away Gabriele toward the end of the picture to be imprisoned in Sardinia), they have a profound impact on each other's lives. For the most part, it sticks to the best parts of this genre-we see them slowly reveal things they've thought but never said (not just Gabriele's sexuality, but also Antoinetta's broken marriage & dreams), while also forming a bond that neither will be able to shake.
The problem for the film (and for me), is not Loren, who I think is great in this part, but instead Mastroianni. He's an actor that I richly admire, and thought totally should have won an Oscar nomination for 8 1/2 (and quite frankly, I haven't seen a performance better than his in 1963), but his performance as gay feels like it's being rewarded more for its "bravery" rather than its authenticity. I didn't like that the crux of the film is the two making love, and while critics have tried to salvage this by saying it was about more than sex (and instead about two people being together in an unforgiving time), it makes it feel like his sexuality, which his character is about to pay an ultimate price for (likely his life, certainly his freedom), is so fluid as to be dismissed. It's very much a "have your cake and eat it too" situation with the character's sexuality, and as Mastroianni doesn't bring any sort of dimension to his sexuality in the film, so I left kind of at odds with the character, and with the ending. There are great elements of the film, and Loren is really good (it's likely because 1977 was such a strange Best Actor year that he got in instead of her, as also Best Actress was crazy competitive), but the ending kind of took away some of my love for the picture.
Loren would continue working & being in the public eye, though not always for things she wanted to be there for. Five years after A Special Day she'd spend a brief stint in prison for tax evasion (charges that would eventually be cleared), and would turn down major TV roles, most notably the part of Alexis on Dynasty that would eventually revitalize Joan Collins' career. She'd become the first celebrity to launch their own fragrance line (something everyone from Elizabeth Taylor to Paris Hilton has done in the years since), and become an "ageless icon" of fashion with her eyewear line. She'd go on to the biggest hit of her career in Grumpier Old Men, get a Globe nod for Pret a Porter with Julia Roberts, costar in the all-star cast of Nine, win an Honorary Oscar, and have yet another potential comeback later this year with The Life Ahead. Unlike Jayne Mansfield & Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren is an actress whose career came with a lot of chapters. Next month, we're going to encounter the only possible person who could succeed Loren in our series, an actress whose career also had a lot of chapters, one of which involved Sophia.
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