A Special Day (1977)

Marcello Mastroianni: Gabriele

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Gabriele : As they say, "Tidiness is the virtue of a mediocre mind."

  Antonietta : Then I'm a genius.

• Gabriele : We always end up conforming to what others think, even when they're wrong.

• Gabriele : I don't think I'm an antifascist. If anything, fascism is anti-me.

• Gabriele : Meeting you, getting to know you, talking with you, spending the whole day with you - - today of all days - - has been very important to me.

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

• Gabriele : That's the worst part. You try to seem different from what you really are. They force you to feel ashamed of yourself. To hide.

• Antonietta : Why are you laughing?

  Gabriele : Just because - life is made up of so many different moments, and sometimes I get this urge to laugh - just like that, like a sneeze.

• Gabriele : [after looking at a photo album of Mussolini]  They say he rides a horse to exhaustion every morning and a woman every night. Poor horses. Poor women!

  Antonietta : They say a lot of things about him.

• Gabriele : [reading a Mussolini quote]  "Genius is incompatible with the physiology and psyche of the female and is always strictly masculine." You agree?

  Antonietta : Of course I agree. Why? Aren't the history books always full of men?

  Gabriele : Sure. Maybe too full. There's no room for anyone else. Least of all women.

  Antonietta : You know, you're a tough one to figure out.

  Gabriele : My mother, for example, wasn't male, but she was a genius. She wrote. She painted. She worked as a bookkeeper and supported the family, not my father. She made all the decisions. The only decision my father ever made was to walk out on us. She was a great woman, but she couldn't hold on to her husband. Or maybe she just didn't want to.

• Gabriele : What were you hoping for? What were you hoping for? Kisses? Love bites? My hands up your dress? Is that what you've been waiting for? Is that what a man does when he's alone with a woman? All men are the same, right?

• Gabriele : What do you know about anything? You're just an ignorant little housewife in heat, but, oh so very proper! One of those who say, "It was a moment of weakness. What must you think of me?" Prepared to fornicate on the roof, but ready to judge and condemn.

• Antonietta : There are lots of times when I feel humiliated too. Treated like a nobody. My husband doesn't talk to me. He orders me around, day - and night. We haven't laughed together since we were engaged. He does his laughing elsewhere now, with other women.

  Gabriele : You mean he's unfaithful? You seemed so secure and happy.

  Antonietta : "Faithful" - to the fatherland. You know those places where men go and pay for women? They know him better there than in his own office.

• Gabriele : Today's a very particular day for me, you know. It's like a dream where you want to scream but nothing comes out.

• Gabriele : I'm a bachelor.

  Antonietta : Ah, a bachelor.

  Gabriele : Yes.

  Antonietta : Then, you pay the bachelor tax.

  Gabriele : That's right. You'd think loneliness was some kind of luxury.

• Antonietta : You know, I crossed paths with him once, four years ago, face to face.

  Gabriele : Really? Where?

  Antonietta : Villa Borghese. He was on horseback. I stopped and he glanced my way as he galloped by. It was like a fire flared up inside me. Mind you, my arms were full of groceries. My legs turned to jelly, everything started spinning around me, and I fell to the ground in a faint.

  Gabriele : From one glance as he galloped by?

  Antonietta : Yeah. Some passers-by helped me up and I managed to get on the streetcar.

• Gabriele : Sorry, but you got me wrong, sweetheart. I'm not the virile stud you were hoping for. I'm a faggot. A faggot! That's what they call us.

• Gabriele : Hey, concierge! Concierge! That way everyone will finally know for sure that the tenant on the sixth floor is a queer, a pansy, a homosexual! A faggot.

• Gabriele : What did she say about me?

  Antonietta : About you? Nothing. Why? What do you think she said?

  Gabriele : I'm generally her favorite topic - - after her late husband, that is. In his death throes he refused last rites and asked to be buried in his fascist black shirt.

  Antonietta : He was a great man, a true fascist. He wasn't a naysayer or one of those - subversives.

  Gabriele : Like me, right? So she did tell you.

• Gabriele : So I tried to bluff by showing them a medical certificate stating I wasn't a homosexual, that I was a normal man.

  Antonietta : Did they believe you?

  Gabriele : Are you kidding? It only made things worse. That was a bad move. If you're not a homosexual, you don't walk around with a certificate to that effect.

• Antonietta : It's funny, I don't feel guilty at all. Just the opposite. It was never like that with him. I never thought it could be like that. What about you?

  Gabriele : The way I am doesn't mean I can't make love to a woman. It's different. It was very nice... but it doesn't change anything.