In the many years since I first saw LAST TANGO IN PARIS, Bernardo Bertolucci’s controversial film about a middle-aged American (Marlon Brando) who, mourning his wife’s death, takes up a wild sexual relationship with a free-spirited Parisian girl (Maria Schneider) in an empty flat, I remembered only random scenes: Brando weeping on a Paris street corner, Brando cursing his wife's corpse, and of course, Brando using butter in a way Julia Childs never imagined. In the U.S., TANGO was X-rated and branded pornographic, and to see it was to brave picket lines and police wrath, which I did. I didn’t get much of the story at the time, but I loved Brando speaking French, the music (Gato Barbieri), and the painfully realistic acting and dialogue, much of it either improvised or, to accommodate Brando’s inability (or unwillingness) to memorize lines, scribbled on bits of paper stuck outside camera range. Watching and understanding more now, I am in awe of the power of the Bertolucci’s masterpiece. Brando, perhaps the most inventive of all American actors and one my idols, makes even the tiniest bit of business (like unraveling a paper lampshade) fascinating to watch, and Schneider, then a newcomer, more than holds her own (especially in the nude!). Do the TANGO if you haven’t seen it; see it again if it’s been a long time since you did. The music, photography, and Brando dancing dead-drunk will blow you away.
LAST TANGO IN PARIS (1973)
Bertolucci. Brando. Butter.
In the many years since I first saw LAST TANGO IN PARIS, Bernardo Bertolucci’s controversial film about a middle-aged American (Marlon Brando) who, mourning his wife’s death, takes up a wild sexual relationship with a free-spirited Parisian girl (Maria Schneider) in an empty flat, I remembered only random scenes: Brando weeping on a Paris street corner, Brando cursing his wife's corpse, and of course, Brando using butter in a way Julia Childs never imagined. In the U.S., TANGO was X-rated and branded pornographic, and to see it was to brave picket lines and police wrath, which I did. I didn’t get much of the story at the time, but I loved Brando speaking French, the music (Gato Barbieri), and the painfully realistic acting and dialogue, much of it either improvised or, to accommodate Brando’s inability (or unwillingness) to memorize lines, scribbled on bits of paper stuck outside camera range. Watching and understanding more now, I am in awe of the power of the Bertolucci’s masterpiece. Brando, perhaps the most inventive of all American actors and one my idols, makes even the tiniest bit of business (like unraveling a paper lampshade) fascinating to watch, and Schneider, then a newcomer, more than holds her own (especially in the nude!). Do the TANGO if you haven’t seen it; see it again if it’s been a long time since you did. The music, photography, and Brando dancing dead-drunk will blow you away.
