Product: Last Tango in Paris (1973)
Rating: 5.0
One-of-a-kind film with a one-of-a-kind actor
I first saw this film in a college cinema class. After we watched it, a long discussion ensued, led largely by the feminist-minded females (and males, for that matter), about the number of scenes where Brando was shirtless vs. the number of times Maria Schneider was (mercifully, Brandon kept his Haines on at all times). We talked about how this is a "male-eyed" film, about how Schneider's character is never as fully developed, etc., etc. (Frankly, I think a character who can utter the lines "You treat me like a woahr," is pretty well-developed.)Almost 20 years later, I realize there's no way a class of 20-somethings could have appreciated what we were seeing, and thus the true greatness of the film eluded young, high-minded college students more interested in Maria's nipples than in Brando's angst. For not once did any of us talk about the shattering scene where Brando confronts his dead wife. If there's anything from Last Tango In Paris I took with me, it's that, and the amazing acting therein. I really don't care about Schneider's boobs, which honestly aren't all that great anyhow.What makes this film great for me is the structure of an old(er), beaten down cynical man going through grief, who bumps into a young, fresh woman who doesn't really know who she is or why she wants what she wants. Schneider has said that Bertolucci kept her in the dark during much of the filming. One hopes it was to evoke this pure, almost wide-eyed performance from her and not out of any disrespect or cruelty, although Schneider late said she'd never work with him again. Her performance here is effortless. More importantly, there's a chemistry between her and Brando that works. It may seem strange to talk about chemistry in a movie where the male lead rapes and bullies the female lead, but it's there. Watch the scene in the bathroom, where he's shaving, and marvel at the spontaneous-sounding dialogue and the feeling that a real relationship is there.Brando is perfect for his role. The story unfolds slowly (they'd never make a film with this kind of pacing today), and Brando becomes at least somewhat more sympathetic (and complex) as it goes on. This isn't brute Brando but rather complex, deeply wounded Brando who brings out the brute in him only to keep the world at bay. After his catharsis he shows another side of himself, probably a more typical side, to Schneider and she just can't cope--it's hard for me to tell, even after repeated viewings, if it's because she's getting married to someone else (how happy she'll be remains in serious doubt to me), because she's afraid of a three-dimensional Brando who really seems now to want her for more than casual sex, or what. In some ways the ending was arbitrary, but it still struck me as more plausible and organic than similar sudden endings in The Night Porter and The Marriage of Maria Braun.Throughout, Bertolucci shoots most of the interior scenes between Schneider and Brando at sunset. Bathed in orange, they have a stillness and yet an intensity the other scenes lack. It seems orange is the color Bertolucci set aside for deep revelations and realizations. The film is distrubing, but somehow also cathartic. The feeling of wanting to say "F--- the world" is one many of us can relate to, something Brando himself did many times in his career.The print is scratched and the soundtrack somewhat tinny. There are numerous times where dirt or fuzz in the gate can be seen on the top or bottom edge of the frame for whole scenes. This is a film that cries out for a full-blown restoration. The DVD contains nothing else but the trailer, and a strange trailer it is. You'd think a DVD of a movie this famous would feature commentaries, documentaries, where-they-are-now type of featurettes, etc. This classic has been short-changed.But *do* many people today see Last Tango In Paris as a classic? This is somehthing I wondered as I read reviews online after seeing the DVD. Heralded as a masterpiece and a turning point in cinema when it was released, it is now clear that it was anything but. Rather than continue with personal films that sometimes disturbed the psyche and questioned the soul of the moviegoer, Hollywood and then other filmmakers turned to empty spectacle as the 70s waned, trading boobs for lightsabers. Last Tango was hailed in 1972 as a beginning of a new cinema, but it was also the end of it. With a few exceptions (The Unbearable Lightness of Being comes quickest to mind) this sort of film would never be made again, and Last Tango has become in some ways anachronistic. Just reading the online reviews, most of them probably written by people in their 20s for whom Terminator 2 is an ancient movie, it becomes clear that we don't really understand this sort of picture anymore, and are made uncomfortable by it. There's no simple line of action. There's no "plot." There are long stretches with no dialogue, or at least where the characters don't tell you in dialogue what they are doing. As television and movies have merged in style, technique and subject matter, Last Tango and other films from the period become more like museum relics than living, breathing cinema.Perhaps that's one reason why we haven't seen a restoration. Unless Criterion gets its hands on this film, I don't have much hopes. Too bad, because Last Tango represents a whole type of filmmaking that's largely unknown today, even to film "students," and if it is known it's becoming more of a curiosity than, as I said, living, breathing cinema. All the more reason to rent this, then, and witness a whole approach to movie-making that no longer exists--certainly not in the USA.