Product: Last Tango in Paris (1973)
Rating: 5.0
Mad Genius in Paris
I'm giving this film five stars but I know I couldn't recommend it to everyone I know (especially from the reactions of friends I did encourage to see it!). I found it erotic, unique, personal, and powerful when I saw it in college: two desperate souls trying to appease their inner torment with sexuality and failing miserably.What's really stuck with me is Marlon Brando's performance. I thought to myself back then, "That didn't look like acting." I read his bio and found out that he WASN'T acting. What you're seeing is an emotional breakdown on film: his weeping is just too raw and severe; he broke his hand when he punched a door during the mother-in-law scene (an action not in the script); the farm tales he tells were from his own childhood; and, perhaps most devastating of all, he rages at his dead wife's body in the film--but he's really dredging up his real-life anger for his alcoholic mother.Afterward, he was quoted as saying, "I'll never act like that again." And then went on to do THE GODFATHER.(Another weird detail: Maria Schneider, the young French girl in the film, is the daughter of a former roommate of Brando's.)It may feel "foreign" in places to an American audience, but this film's scenes of desire, desperation and despair are universal.