Product: Last Tango in Paris (1973)
Rating: 3.0
Beautiful but Damned
Heavy going. There's something sadly similar about the careers of Marlon, Elvis and Orson. Too gifted, too successful, too soon; not quite enough struggle in the early years, I guess. All downhill, really, from the beginning, and a slide, finally, into endings as colossal flesh-mountains. Disintegration from self-indulgence. This is a difficult film to sit through, and, frankly, I admit to fast-forwarding it frequently. I've tried to watch it non-stop all the way, two or three times, but I don't think I've succeeded, although I've picked up most of the material by piecing it together in retrospect. It must be almost universally true that untouched improvisation properly never works. Art MUST consider the spectator. Actors, performers, are in the entertainment business: they that live to please should please to live. But, fairly early in their lives, Orson, Elvis and Marlon didn't care enough about the audience --- although Elvis did what he was told, of course. This film is a kind of monument to Marlon's love of seeing himself suffer, and seeking an identity for himself. Other people don't matter that much.