Último tango en París

Widely denounced as obscene upon its release and unjustifiably notorious for two of its scenes, Bernardo Bertolucci's 'Last Tango in Paris' is a savage story of lust and sexual debasement.

Marlon Brando delivers a ferocious performance as Paul, a middle-aged American expatriate tormented by his wife, Rosa's recent suicide, her infidelities and his failure to understand their relationship. In meeting a 20 year old girl, Jeanne, played by Maria Schneider, in an empty apartment, Paul hopes to form a relationship purely on his own terms and at his own pace, i.e. one he can understand fully. He insists on a new form of relationship, so basic that even their names were kept secret from each other, where she submitted to his every desire, where he could punish himself and relieve his despair and anger towards his wife by punishing Jeanne. Paul's only other interest is in Marcel (Massimo Girotti), Rosa's lover, for whom he has a curious respect and maybe a desire to obtain through him a better understanding of his own wife.

Despite his overpowering talent, Marlon Brando has often shown poor judgement in his choice of projects and has frequently trudged through films with no apparent effort or interest. In 'Last Tango in Paris' he gives everything and produces a performance of unrivalled force. Unfortunately the obvious improvisation in the film prevents the character of Paul from staying within check as he gradually becomes too much like Marlon Brando in the second half of the film. Nonetheless, when Brando is off-screen the film becomes hollow in comparison and is replaced by Jeanne's relationship with her fiance, an annoyingly pretentious TV director (Jean-Pierre Leaud).

This is a truly unique film and Bertolucci successfully highlights the romance in an affair that is fundamentally destructive. Brando's performance is remarkably powerful and intense, eclipsing every other player and dominating the entire film.

Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris simultaneously mocks and mourns the human yearning for love and companionship. The movie is a requiem for unrequited love, and a testament to the proclivity of humans to surrogate love with lust when trapped in a maelstrom of despondence, chagrin, and compunction. Bertolucci's purpose is not to glorify carnality as a virtue or to scorn it as a vice, but is to use it as an instrument to authenticate the veritable existence of a dark, ugly, and bestial side of humanity, which is so often suppressed and hypocritically denied in similar works on the subject. Bertolucci's penchant for art is limitless and he uses it to full effect in order to give the movie an aesthetic feel while simultaneously catering to the movie's explorative, earthy, and unconventionally bold motifs. Bertolucci uses his characters uncannily as a medium to foray into unexplored realms of human psyche while unflinchingly projecting them as objects of desire, disgust and depravity. Bertolucci pushes Brando and Schneider to a limit where they are not only forced to compromise their egos but also relinquish their pride, and I say that not as an offence but as an appreciation for his talent as a movie-maker. Renowned film critic Pauline Kael bestowed the film with the most ecstatic endorsement of her career, writing, "Tango has altered the face of an art form. This is a movie people will be arguing about for as long as there are movies." American director Robert Altman expressed unqualified praise: "I walked out of the screening and said to myself, 'How dare I make another film?' My personal and artistic life will never be the same." Eminent critic Roger Ebert has added the film to his "Great Movies" collection.

The movie presents an episode in the lives of two loners residing in Paris: Paul, a recently widowed, middle-aged American businessman, and Jeanne, a young, voluptuous, soon-to-be-married Parisian girl. The two accidentally meet up in an empty apartment available for rent, and a steamy affair ensues between the two on strictly anonymous basis. Paul is very discreet about his identity and whereabouts and even cajoles Jeanne to religiously follow the protocol. Paul sees Jeanne as a carnal surrogate for his deceased wife, while Jeanne finds in Paul a lover which her fiancé could never become. The two continue to meet and serve each other at regular intervals while also going about their regular business. Their sexually charged up affair, despite a disconnect at the emotional level, satiates them both beyond expectations, and resonates to the viewer an ineffable sense of frenzy and euphoria that holds him in a vice-like grip for the entire length of the movie. The dramatically botched, anti-climactic ending of the movie, which has been snubbed by critics, still manages to testify the axiomatic consistency of change in packing a punch stronger than the modern-day gimmicks.

Marlon Brando gives an inciteful, poignant, tour de force performance as the reclusive widower. Many people called Brando a chameleon, but I would call him a chameleon who hated his camouflage; a prodigy who detested his talent; a narcissist who abhorred himself for being a mortal. Brando as Paul is a cross between a sadist and a masochist. He uses every ounce of his talent to conjure up his menacing alter-ego. Driven by guilt and chagrin, Paul's sociopathic self is a nightmare for those around him. Roger Ebert wrote about Brando's performance: "It's a movie that exists so resolutely on the level of emotion, indeed, that possibly only Marlon Brando, of all living actors, could have played its lead. Who else can act so brutally and imply such vulnerability and need?" The scene in which Paul confronts the dead body of his wife, who has committed suicide, is probably the most powerful scene ever filmed in cinema. It not only depicts the complexities associated with Paul's character but also highlights the dichotomy he suffered owing to his dual emotions of rage and grief.

Maria Schneider is innocent, charming, voluptuous and pitiful in her portrayal of Jeanne, a Parisian girl whose life is devoid of true love. Schneider, being fully aware of her limitations as an actor, incredibly manages to give a performance that is singular and effective enough not to be adumbrated by Brando's sublime, over-the-top portrayal.

The cinematography of the movie is vivid, elaborative, and expressive and is well complemented by the movie's sensuously evocative background score.

PS. Last Tango in Paris is a profoundly disturbing case-study of human emotions and is a must for cineastes worldwide, but can only be savoured by eschewing bigotry, prejudice, and conservatism. 9/10

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A tired middle aged American businessman encounters a young woman while flat hunting in Paris; and starts a torrid affair with her.

One of the those movies that more people have heard about than seen and probably works better that way. While certainly sexually frank, even today, it is far too European art house for most tastes.

The plot idles, stops and jerks like a country milk train, leaving so many questions unanswered that you have to write half the script in your own head to get through it.

Brando's portrait of a man that seems torn between falling in love and falling under a bus is certainly unique. Especially as most viewers and critics had concluded that he had already shown his full hand of cards. In contrast co-star Schnieder is amazing in being able to put together a performance from so little. Indeed she is just an inflated muse, who the film seems little interested in.

My problem with the film is that it is about emptiness, depression and alienation; but there is so much of it about anyway (and always has been, just turn on the news!) that going looking for in cinema seems pointless. The sex is not really sexy, merely people trying to enliven their dull lives not unlike people who take drugs to achieve the same. If there is romance here, it can only be seen as a sadomasochistic romance played out among damaged people.

LTIP is certainly a milestone picture, if only for Brando's totally open and no holds barred performance, but it leaves far too many question unanswered to be anything like a classic. Indeed this is merely an exercise in mood, tempo and design and was a box office hit because people had not seen frank sexuality on the screen like this before.

The world of sex-on-film has moved on so much since this was released that today's audience will not have a clue what caused the press headlines. Indeed many will be yawning through the famous scenes that once shocked a generation...

I'm thinking of "Last Tango in Paris" today because Neznaia, a kind IMDb user, asked me to write about it and I promised I would. Now a dilemma. Shall I write as I remember the experience or shall I watch it again? Well I'm already here so I seem to have taken a decision. Butter, that was the key word that pushed crowds to line up outside the theaters all over the world. Over the years the film has been vilified as utter euro trash or acclaimed as one of the best films ever made. I think that the truth falls somewhere in the middle. Bertolucci was coming out of at least two certified masterpieces of political, social and cinematic achievement "Before the Revolution" and "The Conformist". Tango is something else altogether, cinema veritè photographed by Vittorio Storaro, a revolutionary artistic genius, Gato Barbieri's music and Marlon Brando giving himself totally in one of the most brilliant pieces of self indulgence ever put on film. Within the intellectual coldness of its intentions breaths a stunning melodrama of operatic proportions. As a side note let me tell you that legend has it that in the original script, the Maria Schnaider's character, was a boy. At the time an idea of the sort was too outrageous to even consider. Everybody was very sophisticated but not that sophisticated. Apparently the movie went on with a girl in the part but not even a coma was changed from the original. Now, look at the film again with that in mind and you will notice that everything, as if by magic, makes perfect sense. We are ask to justify Brando's first wild approach to Schnaider was an irrational reaction to the pain, the anger and confusion by his wife death. Well yes, but he is a man, she is a woman, they may be braking a few rules but the basics remain intact, unless, of course she wasn't a she. If they are a man and a girl above the age of consent why the charade of secrecy? Why she's never really dressed like a girl, always jackets and open neck shirts and why they never make love like a man and a woman, usually, do? A lot of fingers and butter and,talk. When they get to the tango scene Brando dances with a real woman while Maria Schnaider monkeys around them. And finally look at the end and tell me if doesn't make much more sense if she was a he. She could have explained everything, embarrassing perhaps I don't know, but perfectly normal. If she was a he, the son of a military man, the thing had an entirely different color. Impossible to admit or to explain for a boy. Their affair is not between two gay man but between two heterosexuals. That's the key, that's at the center of it all. A breaking of rules in the most intimate way. To go against what you have come to accept as your own nature. I may be wrong of course, but I don't think so. I will see it again as soon as I can and if I feel that this memory of the film is merely a product of what I may have been smoking at the time I will let you know. But, somehow, I don't think I will have to.

Schneider's looks can dutifully encapsulate my true emotions to this film. Occasionally she looks sexy and encaptivating, other times she can look too pale and a little bland. That's exactly how Bertolucci's helping of sexual cravings had me feeling after this film.

Habitually, Bertolucci's work eclipses genius - he is one of the few directors in world cinema that has an eye for definitive detail. He can capture such beautiful images, with such great vision, emotion, colour and panache that the viewer's sentiments are guided like few others in film-making. Like aforementioned, Schneider's face would be the perfect simile for this particular film. One scene the viewer is startled by the raw depth of the film, although slightly troubled by the explicit sex, but then all the viewer is treated to in the next scene is a terse and awkward moment which seems to have no correlation with the one that preceded it.

Naturally Brando's performance did help boost this film greatly, but that seems the film's very weakness - whenever he is off-camera it seems to struggle too much, it loses its power and prestige and becomes a little incoherent. This film undoubtedly has some powerful and poignant scenes that really can convey genuine sentiment and exude a tangible originality too; but it never really seems to shake off the loss of Brando's presence altogether.

For admirers of Bertolucci its a must, but for more neutral cineastes it would be advisable to have a more cautious approach when watching this film - to enjoy it, it would be paramount to expect this film to be an edifying, not an entertaining experience; its not a frivolous subject matter in any sense