Sunday
Jun252023
Queering the Oscars: Best Actor "A Special Day"
Sunday, June 25, 2023 at 12:00PM by Eric Blume
Marcello Mastroianni’s 1977 Best Actor Oscar nomination for Ettore Scola’s film A Special Day was one of the first examples of a straight actors being recognized for playing a gay role. Prior to that, we’d only had Peter Finch in Sunday Bloody Sunday and Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon, and neither of those actors had such an entrenched persona of the “macho lover” as did Mastroianni.
A Special Day gives us not just one Italian cinema icon playing against type, but two...