Ultimo tango a Parigi

Plot synopsis:
Jeanne (Maria Schneider) is a 20-year-old Parisian woman wondering the streets looking for an apartment to live for herself and her fiancée. She goes alone to look at an apartment in a region of the Left Bank. There, she runs into a middle-aged, obviously depressed man (Marlon Brando) who is also looking at it. Jeanne quickly identifies him as an American because of his thick accent while they are communicating in French. After a few minutes of silence and some quiet dialogue, he picks her up, backs her against a wall, rips off her panties and has sex with her in the deserted apartment. They are very passionate yet never introduce themselves. When it is over, they each go their separate ways.Jeanne goes to the Paris Metro train station to meet her fiancée Tom (Jean-Pierre Leaud), a young television documentarian who has just returned to Paris following an assignment. They walk back to Jeanne's apartment where she currently lives with her mother having taken care of her since her father, a soldier in the French Foreign Legion, was killed in action in 1958 in Algeria. Despite their genuine loving engagement to be married, Jeanne is unhappy and annoyed that Tom insists on doing a cinéma vérité documentary all about her life and of her father, who is a well-known war hero. He films everything she does.Meanwhile, the middle-aged American man, who is named Paul, returns to a flophouse hotel in a run-down part of the city where he ventures to his apartment and watches a maid wash blood off the bathtub and surrounding walls. The maid speaks to Paul about the fact his French wife, Rose, two days earlier committed suicide in the bathtub by slashing her wrists. Paul doesn't say much and goes to his room to be by himself.The next day, Paul and Jeanne rendezvous back at the vacant apartment. Paul lays out ground rules that they are never to reveal their names to each other and never to discuss the outside world or to talk about their pasts. They are to meet there twice a week only for sex and tell no one about each other. But Jeanne (who has some knowledge of English after overhearing Paul talking to himself about his miserable life) keeps trying to find out who the strange American man is. Paul is adamant and refuses to talk about anything for he only wants to have sex with her and nothing else. Jeanne, unhappy with her own personal life, agrees to their arrangement. They lease several items of furniture (couch, chairs, table, bed, etc.) and bring it to the apartment which Paul signs a lease under a false name.The following day, Paul meets with Rose's mother (Maria Michi) to talk about the funeral arrangements. Paul soon becomes furious with her, screaming and cursing at her in a mixture of English and French, after she tells him she wants Rose to have absolution from a priest. Paul does not think that a person who committed suicide should receive absolution because (in his mind) killing oneself is a mortal sin.Meanwhile, Jeanne takes Tom and his camera crew on a tour of her former childhood house and shows him all her antiques. She will not tell him about her very first love who was her cousin. Ironically, Jeanne's cousin was also named Paul (not the same man.)Back in the apartment, Jeanne and Paul meet again where Jeanne wants to talk about her cousin, but Paul angrily stops her, reminding Jeanne of their agreement not to reveal anything, not even about what she did during the day. However, Paul soon relents and agrees to let her briefly talk about her cousin on the condition that no names are to be used. Jeanne talks about her cousin being the first man that she ever had sex with and that it was awkward, but nice. Paul then talks about his youth in the American Midwest and his unhappy childhood. Jeanne is proud she got some information about him, but Paul hints that he wasn't telling the truth. Jeanne becomes angry and asserts that Paul is an egoist and correctly assumes that something terrible happened in his life to explain his need to vent his anger and rage by having a meaningless sexual relationship with her. Paul will neither deny nor admit that Jeanne is right about him. Fed up with his arrogance and egotism, Jeanne masturbates.Another day or so later, Paul visits Marcel (Massimo Girotti), a tenant who lives in the hotel/flophouse that he and Rose managed and operated. It turns out that Marcel was Rose's secret lover. Paul doesn't know what she saw in Marcel or why she killed herself.Jeanne continues to get angry with Tom over filming her wherever she goes. After another argument with Tom, she returns to the vacant apartment to meet with Paul again, wanting to have sex wit him. She is shocked when Paul sodomizes her with a stick of butter, and forces her to renounce the Holy family, the Catholic Church, and all that broke her will as a child. It is painful for her, but she obeys.Another day later, Jeanne is in her wedding dress with her mother and various relatives and guests at the wedding rehearsal. Jeanne becomes more frustrated and insecure with everything happening around her and she leaves the rehearsal and returns to the vacant apartment, still wearing her wedding dress to meet with Paul again. She tells him that she couldn't leave him; although she is engaged to be married to someone she insists she loves while she does not love Paul. After helping her change out of her dress and bathing her, Paul tells Jeanne that true love in this world doesn't exist. To find her true love, Paul says, she "must go up into the ass of death". He orders her to snip off her fingernails on two of her fingers and put the fingers "up my ass". She obeys. They are both delirious with passion.A little later, Rose's funeral and wake are held at the flophouse. Afterwords, Paul sits alone by Rose's coffin. He insults her dead body terribly over why she committed suicide and left him all alone. He then realizes that he never really did know her or the person that she really was. He cries. He calls her "sweetheart". He wished he knew why she killed herself and left behind no note or reason for the act. He wishes he could do the same. He pauses when a prostitute arrives at the flophouse with a client, but Paul chases them away. He follows the prostitute's client a short distance and assaults him before fleeing.A few days later, Jeanne arrives at the apartment only to find it deserted. The "mysterious American" (Paul) is gone. It would appear that he has left her for good. Tearfully, she goes back to Tom and asks him to come look at the apartment. After visiting the flat and looking around, Jeanne asks Tom if it would be a good place for both of them to live after they get married. He doesn't like it and thinks it smells due to a musky odor as if someone had recently had sex in the apartment. He insists that the two of them live somewhere else as adults and not as overgrown, oversexed children. Tom walks out, leaving Jeanne all by herself.A little later, while Jeanne is walking on a boulevard, Paul comes up to her. Jeanne insists that their relationship is over for she has decided to get married to Tom. (She defiantly tells Paul her fiancée's name after he angrily tells her "I said no names!"). Being the egoist that he is, Paul won't accept her decision to break up with him, and he finally begins to tell her all about himself and about how his wife committed suicide weeks earlier (without revealing his name or wife's name). Paul wants to continue their secret relationship of sex to purge his painful feelings about his wife's suicide. All he wants is meaningless sex because he does not want to feel anything at all.Paul and Jeanne spend the rest of the day getting drunk in a cafe where a tango dance contest is taking place. After Paul pesters her, Jeanne alternately tells him that she does love him, but that their relationship is over for she has still decided to marry Tom. They then join the rest of the tango dancers on the dance floor, where she masturbates him, but then runs off, telling Paul "it's finished!" Paul chases after her through the streets, telling her that it will never end.Jeanne runs back to her mother's apartment where Paul forces himself inside and tells her that he will never let her go. Paul tells Jeanne that he needs her in order to continue not to feel anything. It is here that Paul finally asks Jeanne to tell him her name. Just after Jeanne tells Paul her name, he lunges at her and she pulls out a pistol from a desk drawer (her father's military service revolver) and fatally shoots Paul once in the chest. Paul stumbles out to the balcony to view the sights of Paris one last time before he collapses to the floor of the balcony, dead. The final shot shows a shaken Jeanne rehearsing with herself over what to tell the police, as she prepares to call them, telling them that she does not know the man who assaulted her, or his name.

Tags: tragedy, romantic, murder

Review:
Okay, so I am not supposed to say anything about other user's comments, but I should mention that reading those comments is what lead me to write this...I don't know if this is an enjoyable movie experience, but it is nonetheless a triumph of cinema.This film has very little to do with sex.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The scene where Paul lets out his anger and frustration out on his dead wife is a prime example of why Marlon Brando is a great actor.
The genius is that we'll never know if it was Marlon Brando exposing his own vulnerability or the greatest trick Houdini never pulled.The plot is so simple it borders on preposterous: haunted American widower Paul meets young Parisian Jeanne by chance and together they rent an apartment where they engage in anonymous sex.
Only inside is where Paul and Jeanne can begin to comprehend the lonely places of their hearts.So much praise has been lavished on Brando it seems unfair to exclude Maria Schneider, whose life was haunted after doing this movie.
Bernardo Bertoluci's "Last Tango in Paris" is a beautiful art-house movie that features one of Marlon Brando's finest performances.
Their anonymity with each other only makes it all the more difficult.Brando delivers a stunning performance and Maria Schneider is quite convincing in what must have been a very demanding role.This isn't a flawless film but it is very good and offers more than just the average "t&a" the genre has come to be known for."Last Tango in Paris" has been copied a few times over the years - most noticeably with films such as "9 1/2 Weeks" and "Intimacy." However, this is still one of the best "erotic" dramas out there..
They're not scenes to make people watch the movie and just wait for the part in which Brando and Schneider have sex.
The two meet by chance in an empty apartment--and immediately embark upon an anonymous affair in which Brando seeks to both purge and renew himself through Schneider.Both stars offer intense performances, and director Bertolucci invests the film with numerous poetic and symbolic flourishes.
I first saw the film in a drive-in and it's effect was life changing.Vittorio Storaro's stark use of light and images; mixed with the bare-but- meaningful dialogue (much of Brando's lines were brilliantly improvised and often spellbindlingly meandering; and Gato Barbieri's hauntingly unforgettable sax-driven score; Brando's legendary performance matched beautifully with Maria Schneider's combined under Bernardo Bertolucci's magical directing spell to create a mammoth 129 minutes (in America) of cinema for the ages.It must be noted separately that Brando's improvised soliloquy next to his wife's body as it lies in its coffin after her unexpected suicide is one of the greatest single moments in the history of film acting."Last Tango In Paris" is essential viewing..
The idea of making a movie about two lonely people who connect for sex at a neutral locale and deny themselves the faintest pleasure in terms of knowing who they are screwing looks like something Bernardo came up with while sitting in a 42nd Street grindhouse.
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.
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.
(spare me) As you can well-imagine, this cue card business of Brando's literally drove director Bernardo Bertolucci crazy, trying as he could to make sure that none of these stupid, little cards (sticking out everywhere) remained visible in his film's final product.2 - Years after LTIP's release, actress Maria Schneider came out of the closet, or wherever, to say that playing "Jeanne" was the absolute, most humiliating experience, as an actress, that she had ever had to endure.Maria claimed that certain sex scenes, particularly the simulated anal-rape scene, were not in the script and that it was Brando and Bertolucci who plainly coerced her into doing these scenes, with Brando repeatedly reassuring her - "Maria.
That's the scenario in Bertolucci's self-fulfilling, exotic and provocative LAST TANGO IN Paris, telling based on his own sexual fantasies, a privilege which has been a substantial stimulus to encourage generations of youngsters to become a filmmaker, but only those very few in the top tier can achieve that gratification with momentum and flourishes, even Bertolucci couldn't get away with lambaste and the film has been perpetually on the list of films that shock the world!Jeanne (Schneider), a 20-year-old parisienne, comes across a near-rape sexual intercourse with a middle-aged American expatriate Paul (Brando) in an empty apartment which is available for rent.
"Everything outside this apartment means nothing to us" So, who is Paul outside that apartment?We see a grief-ridden man, wanders around in bereavement after his wife committed suicide, which hits him like a severe jolt, therefore, he is in the limbo of mourning, questioning, self- doubting and resentment, he and her wife run a low-rent hotel in Paris, they had been married for 5 years, and in the end of the day, he has to face the music that he has never been able to understand her, he can even host a pleasant conversation on the face value with her wife's lover Marcel (a down-to-earth Girotti and still gets his appeal in his 50s), a lodger in their hotel.
Let's take a step back from a feminist POV, and perceive the film in a plain angle of egalitarianism, the lascivious fetish of Schneider's sultry body presented in constant nakedness has never been balanced out by Brando's (supposedly) unsightly figure in all his frankness (maybe, Bertolucci simply cannot pay the sum to convince Brando to reveal some of his sagging skin), not to mention the unsolicited sodomy scene (which has forever ruined butter for me), Schneider was completely taken by surprise, on that front, Bertolucci is exploitative, sinister, sadistic and misogynist.However, simply disregarding all the behind-the-camera trivia (which is not an easy task and sometimes involuntarily infuses some preconceived sentiment into one's subjective judgement), and taking a forensic look into the film per se, in its claustrophobic, ill-lit interior shots, what Bertolucci achieves with the sinuously fluid movement of his camera is something masterfully seductive, voyeuristic, intimate and thought-provoking, two total strangers, unburdened from formality and luxuriate in their primal libido and form a rather wholesome rapport devoid of any negativity associated with reality - that's everyone's unsaid fantasy, but in sheer perception, Bertolucci also shows that such purity can be fragilely sullied by the world outside, literally outside that apartment, where, in the third act, when Paul moves out, and then flippantly courts Jeanne on the street, in the tango bar, how foolish he is when he becomes love-struck, the magical potion doesn't work in broad daylight, where Jeanne will ultimately realise Paul is no more than another nettlesome suitor, only much older, and at her age, he is far from a premium worth her time and effort while the world is her oyster, something menacing looms in the offing in the hard-pressed eagerness, there will be no happy ending out of it.
A listless, pretentious film that meanders on for way too long and is redeemed only by Marlon Brando's tremendous lead performance, perhaps the best he's ever given on screen.Maria Schneider is a blank slate at best, both the actress and the character she plays.
It really is astounding that such a pointless movie could have such a wonderful performance in it, and for Brando alone this film is worth watching.
But as for the rest, consider yourself warned.Movies like "Last Tango in Paris" are the reason why so many people hate international cinema.Grade: D.
Brando dominates the movie so much it is easy to overlook Maria Schneider, who I think gives an excellent performance.
That's how crude the dialog is in here, and that's hard to do considering what has been heard on film the past 30-plus years.Some of the things that Marlon Brando says to Maria Schneider are downright disgusting.
When Paul and Jeanne discuss their "rules" is another scene that shows how great this movie could have been.But there are too many scenes where I feel that Brando and his improvised dialog should have been reeled in (I would hate to see the takes that weren't used in the film).
By the time they end up in the dance hall, I just wanted the movie to be over.If someone could enlighten me and give me a better understanding of what was going on, without sounding like you've just stepped out of Film Appreciation 101, I'd welcome a discussion.5 out of 10.
After Brando's Paul and Maria Schneider's character Jeanne have sex for the first time, they detach themselves as soon as possible to lie apart on the floor.
So Marlon takes up with young Maris Schneider and makes it clear all he wants is good sex and completely at his whim.This dopey girl actually goes for that even though she's engaged to young film maker Jean Pierre Leaud.
I rented this movie because I had heard a lot about Marlon Brando's performance and the beauty of Maria Schneider.
Superficially about a stormy affair between a young French woman (Schneider) and a middle-aged American widower (Marlon Brando), it seems to me that the movie depicts a clash between 1960s idealism and 1970s cynicism.
Marlon Brando plays Paul, an American whose wife has committed suicide.Maria Schneider plays a French girl called Jeanne.They both want an apartment and they meet in an empty room.Without a word they have sex.That begins a relationship that is based on sex.The man doesn't want to know anything about the woman, not even her name and he doesn't want to reveal his.Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris(1972) is a movie that caused a lot of controversy back then.Maria Schneider's full frontal nudity was one reason for the controversy.Schneider is brilliant in this film.She works great with Marlon Brando, the big Hollywood star.This is a brave film but never pornographic.There is one scene that caused big controversy, I'm talking about the anal intercourse where butter is used as a lubricant.It's not a pornographic scene and we don't see any pleasure there but rather pain that it causes to the woman.Last Tango in Paris is not the most pleasant movie experience but it's something you will remember..
(At times it looks dated due to the film reel, but that's forgivable since the movie's over 45 years old!)Last Tango is a very moving movie, it excited my soul(for lack of a better phrase) and it's simply astounding to watch.I do have one tiny negative, the size of a dot on a sheet of paper: The actors speak very softly so you may need subtitles to watch it, but something like 90% of the movie is in French anyways, so I didn't see that as a huge deal this time.Other than that, I have nothing less than praise fro this beautifully made movie!I should address the elephant in the room that this movie has a WELL EARNED NC-17 rating for it's explicit sexuality.
He is played by Jean-Pierre Leaud, he star of many New Wave films, particularly for Godard and Truffault and it would seem that Bertolucci is having a little fun here pitting the pretty boy of trendy 60s cinema against the old brawler Brando (I understand though that Leaud was so intimidated by the American giant that he could not work alongside him).
Last Tango was a simple story of a man who meets a woman completely by chance, and then has anonymous sex with her over a short period {three days} in which time, he makes personal explorations that eventually coalesce into a realization of the emotional heart of his existential dilemma.As with his previous movies, the Roman goddess Fortuna, {that is human fate or destiny}, was of paramount interest to Bertolucci.
What I think happened is Bertolucci wanted to live out as a director one of his youthful fantasies (raw, anonymous sex with a young beauty) and Brando, with his ultra sophistication about such matters, played his part with a brutal satirical edge, perhaps making fun of Bertolucci's fantasy, turning it into an unpleasant, hard reality.But the "reality" was a bit over the top for everybody.
The infamous "Get the butter" scene, which was improvised by Brando and Bertolucci (to Schneider's dismay), made it clear that Paul considered Jeanne an animal that you used and nothing more.
I rate this film very highly because it was innovative (rather shocking for its time), with a fine jazz score, but mostly because of Brando's stellar performance and the sensual beauty of a 20-year-old Maria Schneider.
It lags a bit into pretentiousness when the movie focuses on the female lead and her relationship with her boyfriend but it is pure gold most of the time as it deals with the emotional complexities of Brando's character and a bizarre and destructive affair with a young woman..
Brando was still pretty then, and Bertolucci spends a lot of time just letting the light fall onto his face in different ways, a technique revisited by Coppola in 'Apocalypse Now'.But for all this, I am not so sure that this is a good film.
The sex scenes may be a little much but the carnal desire of the sexual revolution between Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider are nothing short of amazing!
Yes , Marlon Brando has a great performance but I believe that the movie is great because of the feeling that the characters give you not cause of the characters themselves.The scene from the end when Maria Schneider says after she shoots Brando: "I didn't even know his name!" points out Bertolucci's solution for the ending: nothing happened in the end, nobody remembers nobody!!!
The movie is about an American played by Marlon Brando who finds himself in Paris after the death of his wife.
I liked the erotic tension between the protagonists and I think that it was filmed very well.On the other side, Marlon Brando's acting is second-rate and Schneider's is almost decent.
It is a movie where even if you might know some of the cliches invented in the film (get the butter, for example), it is still thought provoking.Marlon Brando, who is undoubtedly an excellent actor, shows off his stuff here and is so good it can be argued if he deserved the Oscar for the Godfather or this because both performances are extraordinary.
This isn't a major problem as Paul's character is big enough to carry the film.This is mainly due to a tremendous performance by Brando.
Though time has blunted it's controversy, and the film is best know for its sexual excess (the butter scene) this remains a powerful viewing experience almost 30 years later.
Last Tango in Paris is blessed with some top acting, particularly from Marlon Brando who does a great job as the lead character, playing a complete scumbag.
But on the whole Last Tango in Paris is a film that does not offer much in themes despite the pretences to be art house, having very long and drawn dialogue scenes and during the course of the film I was wondering why was a young woman like Jeanette (Maria Schneider) was drawn to a middle aged man like Paul (Brando) at all.
Although prurient viewers have since picked up on the film's more sensational aspects, "Tango" is a serious movie about sex and subservience that features one of Marlon Brando's finest performances.
The scene in which Marlon Brando's character has rough anal sex with the young, wide-eyed Maria Schneider is all that seems to be discussed about the film, even by people who have yet to see it.