Bernardo Bertolucci, Last Tango in Paris (Ultimo tango a Parigi): Old School Reviews

Last Tango in Paris (1972)

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci

Stars: Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider

Release Company: MGM Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: NC-17

Bernardo Bertolucci: Last Tango in Paris

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"This must be the most powerfully erotic movie ever made, and it may turn out to be the most liberating movie ever made, and so it's probably only natural that an audience, anticipating a voluptuous feast from the man who made The Conformist, and confronted with this unexpected sexuality, and the new realism it requires of the actors, should go into shock. Bertolucci and Brando have altered the face of an art form. Who was prepared for that?"
Pauline Kael

Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (Ultimo tango a Parigi) never became as influential as Kael predicted (she compared its premiere to the 1913 opening performance of Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps"). It neither inspired riots nor started a whole new genre of filmmaking, but it certainly caused controversy and shocked audiences in 1972-3. Mainstream theaters refused to book it, and many arthouse theaters were wary of its explicit sexuality—a few booked it for a limited one-week run. In some cities the only theaters that would book screenings were lowbrow porn houses, so arthouse lovers would don sunglasses and hope to avoid recognition as they checked out the film that Kael had so eloquently championed. I was one of those people, attracted by the publicity and controversy, but left the theater back then wondering what the big deal was—and don't remember much more from that first screening than Brando's powerful performance.

Seeing the film nearly thirty years later on the big screen is eerie. Full frontal female nudity hardly seems such a big deal anymore, and the explicit sexual encounters seem relatively tame by modern standards, but increased sexual content is hardly the art form revolution that Kael envisioned. She expected increased rawness from actors willing to risk exposing their emotional cores nakedly in New Wave style, supplying an honesty often lacking in cinema.

Certainly Marlon Brando lets it all hang out, using his patented Method acting to the extreme. Aimlessly wandering the streets of Paris, his Paul cries, slumping despondently in a rat infested apartment, finding himself unable to talk on the telephone. He can only bring himself out of his depression through animalistic passion and desperately clings to young Jeanne (Maria Schneider), demanding that they meet in the sordid apartment without knowing each other's names or anything about each other. It's a place to forget about the bullshit of the outside world, and escape in sexual ecstasy. He talks about "starting over" and every scene includes multiple doors to symbolically underscore the point.

Paul's unfaithful wife has just committed suicide, and he's deeply grieved, finding little worthwhile in his life and in the real world. Engaged to Tom (played by Truffaut's alter ego, Jean-Pierre Leaud) Jeanne still feels unfulfilled, suspicious that Tom's love is all for show—the motif of the film crew recording all their encounters expresses this concretely. Even though Paul is old enough to be Jeanne's father, he meets needs that Tom doesn't reach. She says that Tom knows how to love a woman, but all her physical reactions demonstrate that she's obsessed with Paul's sexual powers.

Not plot driven, the strengths of Last Tango in Paris lie with its memorable characters desperately seeking human contact—Brando's in particular. Although Bertolucci and Franco Arcalli have screenwriting credits, most of Brando's lines are improvised. Bertolucci encouraged Brando to make up his own lines, so at times his narrative will sound vaguely similar to dialogue you've heard the bloated Brando version speak in Apocalypse Now! or The Score. Brando may have put too much of himself into the role—this will be the last time he'll ever do so, making Paul the last truly great role that Brando will play. After this film, Brando made a practice of never preparing for roles and only taking on parts to collect a fat paycheck. As he states in his autobiography:

"Last Tango left me depleted and exhausted. Some of the pain I was experiencing was my very own. Thereafter I decided to make my living in a way that was less devastating emotionally."

Brando dominates the movie as much as he dominates the young Jeanne in the film, though she also invests herself emotionally and performs admirably with her more limited role. The memorable moments are all Brando—the soliloquy with his dead wife, the outrageous natural drunken dance among the zombie-like professional tango dancers, the final placement of the chewing gum on the railing, the creative use of butter.

Although Brando gets all the rave notices, Vittorio Storaro's cinematography deserves notice as well, making excellent use of the shadows and light in side the apartment and isolating the characters within the frame. No character study as intense as this would work without the details of the photography. One brief moment in the shower comes across like a Monet painting as Storaro shoots through the opaque glass beautifully. Like the impressionist painters of the previous century, the film strives for the essential core of its characters and their emotional content, all enhanced by Storaro's camera. Contrasting with the wonderful visuals, is an often grating musical score with unnecessary flourishes that inappropriately overwhelm the scene.

Surprisingly the original X-rating has held up over the years. Re-rated X again in 1981, a supplemental R-rated version got some play, and when submitted for re-rating again in 1997, it received the "kiss of death" NC-17 rating. Banned the first two years in Portugal, Bertolucci's film was initially permanently banned in Italy, where all people associated with the film were subject to arrest (Restrictions that are now ignored and forgotten). Perhaps it's just as well. Last Tango in Paris won't appeal to everyone; most audience members walk out wondering what the hell happened, but that in itself is one of its strengths.

It's Brando's least conventional film, and the intended audience is decidedly non-mainstream. With Brando rambling all over the place within Bertolucci's structured setting, many ambiguities remain that continue to spark discussion. Even if you don't "get it" or don't particularly enjoy the film, it's an experience that film lovers simply must take on. No longer as shocking as it was upon release, arthouse lovers view it more favorably than they did when Kael was championing it. The film didn't spark the kind of movement that Kael envisioned, but who knows—in a hundred years we may look back and note this as a landmark film that really did influence other filmmakers to take more chances and liberate themselves from previous constraints. And Pauline Kael will again be vindicated.