Una giornata particolare (1977)

Director:

Ettore Scola

Writers:

Maurizio Costanzo (writer)
Ruggero Maccari (writer)

Release Date:

October 1977 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance | War

Plot:

The film is set during the late 1930s: the occasion is the first meeting between Mussolini and Hitler...

Plot Keywords:

Friendship | Homosexual | Mussolini | 1930s | Neighbor

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 7 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Sophia Loren	...	Antonietta
Marcello Mastroianni	...	Gabriele
John Vernon	...	Emanuele, the husband of Antonietta
Françoise Berd	...	Caretaker
Patrizia Basso	...	Romana
Tiziano De Persio	...	Arnaldo
Maurizio Di Paolantonio	...	Fabio
Antonio Garibaldi	...	Littorio
Vittorio Guerrieri	...	Umberto
Alessandra Mussolini	...	Maria Luisa
Nicole Magny	...	Officer's Daughter

Also Known As:

A Special Day (International: English title) (USA) (dubbed version)

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

Italy | Canada

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:18 | Chile:18 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:11

Filming Locations:

Orvieto, Terni, Umbria, Italy

Company:

Canafox

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Hitler's address, heard in the background, is not from his visit to Rome but from the 1934 Nuremberg Party Meeting, more particularly from his address to the German Youth on the third day. He's heard summoning them to be "strong and peaceful", "courageous and peace-loving".

Quotes:

Gabriele: So why aren't you laughing? You should have everything you want? A home, a husband, six children. Why aren't you laughing?

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 35th Annual Golden Globe Awards (1978) (TV)

Reading History through individual destinies.

The first thing you meet when you study fascism is ostracism:because this" philosophy " is a fake one,there's a need to use scapegoats to assess the "thought".Ettore Scola's movie,probably his masterpiece, focuses on the outcasts,the scapegoats of the regime.

Of the historical event (Hitler and Mussolini's alliance),we will see almost nothing:some military march,some garlands,some scattered voices ..Our two heroes are not invited for the feast of virility. "Genius is essentially masculine" :this is the golden rule Antonietta (a never better Sophia Loren)embroidered on her cushion;Antonietta ,whose world amounts to her kitchen,whose pride is her offsprings .At the beginning of the movie,she's a victim of this hypermacho world,but she does not realize it.She thinks she should be happy.Gabriel,on the contrary ,is politically aware,he knows about the cancer that is destroying inexorably his country.But as a gay man,he is no longer part of it,he's about to be arrested.

Forgetting everything that comes between them,they realize what they have in common and they make love.This is an act of rebellion,particularly for Antonietta ,whose ethic should forbid such a thing.Becoming an adulteress in a land where politics and religion combine to repress women as ever leads her to some kind of political awareness.One of the last shots shows her listening to the news on the radio.

Expect the unexpected and maybe a doctrine which denies the human being his intimate personality will see that its days are numbered.