Best Actor 1977

[Damien]

I do wish that Richard Burton had won an Oscar, but certaibly not for this Sidney Lumet thing, with a dreadful play being turned into an even more dreadful movie.

Other than in American Graffitt, I found the young Richard Dreyfuss unbearably obnoxious and smug, and The Goodbye Girl (and to a lesser extent, Close Encounters) brought out these two characteristics in spades. (He's much more palatable since he became a character sctor but I can't get my mind around the fact that he now plays old men).

John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Lousy movie, uninteresting character and the performance didn't seem much different than Vinnie Barbarino.

Woody Allen is perfect in Annie Hall, but he's really no different than he was in any of his other pictures

So Marcello Mastroinanni is an easy choice here, and not just because the competition is so weak. It's a beautiful fully realized performance in a lovely film, perhaps even his best performance.

My Own Top 5:
1. Gerard Depardiue in The Wonderful Crook
2. Marcello Mastroianni in A Special Day
3. Yves Beneyton in The Lacemaker
4. Gregory Peck in MacArthur
5. Dirk Bogarde in Providence

[Mister Tee]

Yes, it was an earlier time in gay rights history. But that very year there was talk of Paul Newman doing a film version of The Front Runner, a mediocre novel about a high school coach having a gay affair with a runner, and the universal feeling around the project was

Harlan is a college track and field coach in The Front Runner, not high school.

Ah -- making it even more mainsteam-friendly.

My recollection is of most Scola movies between We All Loved each Other So Much and Macaroni getting U.S. releases ( well, at least NY/LA); the subsequent titles are less familiar to me.

[ITALIANO]

My parents came to NY around the early 80s and fondly recalled Passione d'Amore as one of their favorite films they saw upon coming to the states from India, in 1982 I believe (they love Scola). I was able to track down a very grainy, very old subtitled version of the film on VHS and was totally mesmerized. I know d'Obici won a few prizes for the film in Italy, though I unfortunately haven't seen her in anything else. I'm not sure how big an actress she is in Italy – I can imagine that she didn't really become a big star, especially after playing such a grotesque (but also beautifully, painfully tragic) character – but, again, I have no idea.

Yes, she won the David, the Italian equivalent of the Oscar (in a tie with Mariangela Melato), and yes, she's never become a big star. She's often complained in interviews that her role as Fosca in Scola's movie later limited and typecast her (she has actually played a succession of spinsters and later mothers or mother-in-laws after Passione d'Amore, always in supporting roles), but at the same time she admits that she could have never refused such a unique, complex role.

[mayukh]

My parents came to NY around the early 80s and fondly recalled Passione d'Amore as one of their favorite films they saw upon coming to the states from India, in 1982 I believe (they love Scola). I was able to track down a very grainy, very old subtitled version of the film on VHS and was totally mesmerized. I know d'Obici won a few prizes for the film in Italy, though I unfortunately haven't seen her in anything else. I'm not sure how big an actress she is in Italy – I can imagine that she didn't really become a big star, especially after playing such a grotesque (but also beautifully, painfully tragic) character – but, again, I have no idea.

[ITALIANO]

Scola's films aren't very widely available in the States for some reason. Not sure exactly why, although I'm sure it probably has to do with legalities--who distributed them initially, and who owns the rights now. Even Passion D'Amore, which was later adapted into a musical by Steven Sondheim, I've never run across on video or TV.

It's either that or the fact that Scola's movies are more bitter than they seem at first sight - his characters often social or, as in Passione d'Amore, physical outcasts, and usually with no happy ending in sight. And he's not only much loved in Italy, but also very popular for example in France. He's a great "director of actors" (maybe only De Sica got a better performance from Sophia Loren), and his loving care for details - for example in casting believable actors as family members - is typical of his approach to filmmaking. The Academy, by the way, nominated three of his movies for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, though admittedly one of these movies was only co-directed by him (another wasn't submitted by Italy but by Algeria which had co-produced it).

I know for sure that Passione d'Amore was shown in the US because Damien saw it (where is he? I can only hope for him that he has got married and he's doing his honeymoon). It's certainly one of the most fascinating portrayal of ugliness in the history of movies, and for once the ugly character (a Nosferatu-looking woman) isn't just your cliched victim. She loves a man - a handsome guy -, she wants him, she stubbornly pursues him. The psychological interplay between the Quasimodo woman and the Esmeralda man, and its surprising outcome, are both fascinating to watch.

[dws1982]

Scola's films aren't very widely available in the States for some reason. Not sure exactly why, although I'm sure it probably has to do with legalities--who distributed them initially, and who owns the rights now. Even Passion D'Amore, which was later adapted into a musical by Steven Sondheim, I've never run across on video or TV.

[flipp525]

Yes, it was an earlier time in gay rights history. But that very year there was talk of Paul Newman doing a film version of The Front Runner, a mediocre novel about a high school coach having a gay affair with a runner, and the universal feeling around the project was

Harlan is a college track and field coach in The Front Runner, not high school.

[ITALIANO]

Valeria d'Obici should have received a nomination a few years later for Passione d'Amore, one of my favorite films ever.

Nice that you remember her and her movie. Passione d'Amore is just another gem in Ettore Scola's career - a minor director he certainly isn't. D'Obici's is a unique performance and, of course, a unique screen presence. Not the kind of foreign actress who gets Oscar nominated though.

[mayukh]

Mastroianni's really nuanced, sensitive but still affecting, certainly honest performance is such a beautiful piece of acting that I can't really think of voting for anyone else. (Also, I don't really give a shit about other "gay performances" I've seen – should I judge Jane Fonda for not giving as good a "prostitute performance" as, I don't know, Anna Magnani in Mamma Roma?) And, plus, his performance is in an Ettore Scola film – Valeria d'Obici should have received a nomination a few years later for Passione d'Amore, one of my favorite films ever. I think Travolta also radiates quiet charisma in his role, but Mastroianni should win here. Absolutely.

Surprised as hell to see Allen getting so many votes.

[ksrymy]

I agree with everyone here: this was probably the weakest Best Actor lineup of the '70s.

I normally love Burton but I feel that he didn't do his best in Equus. I've seen him do so much better in so many other things. But the fact that I voted for him for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? doesn't factor in. I don't understand why people account for their previous votes in deciding the best performance of the year.

I was a bit shocked to see that John Travolta won the National Board's prize for his work in Saturday Night Fever and I'm equally shocked to see that a bunch of cinema snobs like ourselves haven't completely rejected his nomination due to the rest of his career. I didn't find his performance to be anything too special but I'd definitely say it's his best work behind Pulp Fiction.

As good as Marcello Mastroianni is and as good as he is in A Special Day, there are so many other gay performances that I think far outrank his. I want to vote for him but at the same time I can't pull myself to do so.

Dreyfuss was superb in The Goodbye Girl. He was the real heart of the movie. His extremely-flamboyant Richard III scenes were a riot and I feel that the only reason I enjoyed the movie was because of Dreyfuss. Marsha Mason just sat and cried and whined and bitched and nagged throughout the entire movie. And, unless Neil Simon wanted to make her completely unsympathetic, I do not think she did too well on making us feel for her.

But this year belongs to Woody Allen. I know most of you have stated that you liked him better in Manhattan because he's essentially playing the same character in that movie as he is in Annie Hall but, keeping in mind, this movie came out first and by the time I saw Manhattan a few months after I saw Annie Hall the Allen character in Manhattan, although fantastic, I did not find nearly as good as his Alvy Singer. He is witty, he is a nervous wreck, he is lovable. I'll give this to Allen hands down.

[mlrg]

Marcello Mastroianni - A Special Day

[Reza]

My picks for 1977:

Richard Dreyfuss, The Goodbye Girl
John Gielgud, Providence
John Travolta, Saturday Night Fever
Richard Burton, Equus
Woody Allen, Annie Hall

The 6th Spot: Marcello Mastroianni, A Special Day

[Uri]

[quote="Mister Tee"]I couldn't disagree more. I think the idea of using a throughly masculine actor like Mastroianni -- /quote]

Mastroianni's persona was never a simple, straight forward (no pan intended) alpha male type. What made him great was his ability to convey ambiguity – not necessarily sexual, but there was always a suggestion of vulnerability, of inner struggle and emotional access. As I said earlier, at times I found him to be over selling these qualities, stretching them to such a degree he seemed to be dwelling in self pity, milking our sympathy (Dark Eyes was this kind of performance). But at his best, like in the (mostly earlier) Fellinies and certainly in here, he was brilliant.

[Greg]

I have not seen A Special Day. The one gay-themed movie I have seen from that era is The Boys In The Band, which I saw on TV. I remember being turned off by what I thought was too much histrionics by people in misery.

[ITALIANO]

Those who are "obviously", clearly "different" are always more reassuring - because they can't even vaguely be mistaken for "one of us". Especially considering that A Special Day was a mainstream movie, it felt much more threatening because the gay guy was an "ordinary" man.