José Sacristán, a New Model of Masculinity in Spanish Cinema during the Transition

This video essay examines the representation of masculinity through the characters played by the actor José Sacristán (Madrid, 1937) during the period spanning 1975 and 1982. This timeframe is one of several possible frameworks for analyzing the Spanish Transition. Our goal is to observe how the image of the Spanish male evolves in relation to issues such as politics, the relationship with women and homosexuality in a context of profound political, cultural and social changes. The Transition as a historical period is significant in cinematographic terms. From a quantitative perspective, it is one of the most prolific in the history of Spanish cinema. From the perspective of creation, it is characterized by a liberation of codes and an assumption of new values (Hernández Ruiz and Pérez Rubio, 2004; Castro de Paz et al., 2005). The cinema of the Transition strove to align itself with the prevailing atmosphere of liberty that was emerging within Spanish society following decades of repression under Franco (Palacio, 2011; Ibáñez Fernández, 2017). José Sacristán is one of the most prominent actors associated with the “Third Way”, a crucial phenomenon in the development of the film industry during the 1970s “which advocated a cinema halfway between the commercial, vulgar consumer cinema, and the intellectual and art cinema” (Asión Suñer, 2019, p. 533). This trend was, moreover, characteristic in the way it represented gender relations, so that “its social component stands out and becomes a reflection of the transformation (…) experienced above all by the new middle class” (ibidem, p. 532). In these films, Sacristán played characters who confront “strong” or “modern” women that threaten the male’s social and psychological stability. 

The characters played by Sacristán during the Transition are representative of a new model of masculinity, especially regarding the heterosexual characters, who are identified as disenchanted adult urbanites. Faced with the fear of being deprived of the symbols of patriarchal power, such as job -women gain access to professional positions- and the family -divorce law was passed- he tries to reclaim the role that traditionally belonged to him (Martínez Pérez, 2011). This new man feels victimized by women, by the public and by the repressive past. Sacristán himself points out that the public identified with his Third Way characters: “[…] We were a transmission belt, accessible, recognisable men and women who, apart from our talent as actors, perhaps had a personality that invited people to believe in what we were trying” (Ortega, 2024). 

During these years, two other characters stand out in the actor’s filmography. “He was the gay star of the Transition with A Man Called Autumn Flower and, above all, Confessions of a Congressman, two outstanding roles that are and will remain the highlights of his career” (Melero, 2010, p. 196). Both share parallels of political militancy, in line with a “Spanish cinema that, for the first time, projects an explicit view of homosexuality” (Alfeo, 2003, p. 35). A Man Called Autumn Flower, like Change of Sex and Ocaña, an Intermittent Portrait, deals with forbidden topics such as transsexuality and transvestism as spaces of transgression destined to face resistance from different sectors (Quílez Esteve, 2013). Sacristán then moves away from the Third Way, performing committed characters with greater psychological depth. In this sense, Eloy de la Iglesia’s films had a clear purpose: “to awaken the political conscience of homosexuals, starting with their consciousness as a collective” (Martínez Expósito, 2015, p. 171). Thus, in Confessions of a Congressman, “the climax of the narrative is the coming out of a deputy, a political intervention that brings homosexuality into the public arena” (Mira, 2004, p. 509). More precisely, the gay cinema of this period was constituted not only as a privileged tool to document realities, but also to implement political strategies (Berzosa, 2014). 

José Sacristán turned into a paradigmatic example of male characters in this period, drifting away from the characteristics of landismo. Sacristán, who began as a supporting actor in these films, is aware of his evolution: “[…] he was the average Spaniard of the transition. A different profile” (Vallejo, 2012). This new model of masculinity will be intellectual, “progressive”, actively political, atheist and will cultivate refined tastes. The unease of these characters stems from the loss of youth associated with a hostile political past and the fear of the new attitude of independence in all areas of women’s lives, as well as the appearance in the public sphere of previously silenced groups such as homosexuals. This apparent victimhood of Sacristán’s characters should be understood as a mechanism to protect the patriarchal status quo, which seemed to be unraveling with the new airs of freedom.

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