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Marlon Brando,
Marlon Brando,
Maria Schneider,
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Bernardo Bertolucci,
Bernardo Bertolucci
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: 
: MGM
: Drama, Foreign, France, Erotica
: 129 min.
: English
: English, French
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In Bernardo Bertolucci's art-house classic, Marlon Brando delivers one of his characteristically idiosyncratic performances as Paul, a middle-aged American in "emotional exile" who comes to Paris when his estranged wife commits suicide. Chancing to meet young Frenchwoman Jeanne (Maria Schneider), Paul enters into a sadomasochistic, carnal relationship with her, indirectly attacking the hypocrisy all around him through his raw, outrageous sexual behavior. Paul also hopes to purge himself of his own feelings of guilt, brilliantly (and profanely) articulated in a largely ad-libbed monologue at his wife's coffin. If the sexual content in Last Tango is uncomfortably explicit (once seen, the infamous "butter scene" is never forgotten), the combination of Brando's acting, Bertolucci's direction, Vittorio Storaro's cinematography, and Gato Barbieri's music is unbeatable, creating one of the classic European art movies of the 1970s, albeit one that is not for all viewers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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| 1972 feels like a long time ago
by SBarnett
August 31, 2006 - 1:47 PM PDT
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6 out of 6 members found this review helpful
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When this film came out I thought it was the greatest film ever made, that Brando and Bertolucci were ushering in a golden age of cinema, that the US was on the verge of a cultural revolution, if not a political one, that anything was possible now that real sex and real emotion--real art--was available to everyone on the big screen. I came out of the theater that night with a group of exhilarated friends, and we stayed that way for days talking nonstop about the film and everything else. Seeing it now, alone in front of my TV set, I came away from it devastated, not nostalgic but aware of everything we've lost since then--and what we've gained. As Roger Ebert said in his excellent 2004 review after Brando's death, time has shown that this film marked the end of something, not the beginning. Now I can appreciate its overwhelming loneliness, the superhuman effort Brando/Paul makes to try to be human again, the innocence and confusion and willfulness of Maria Schneider/Jeanne, the terror and the abyss on the tango floor, the dismal future created in the final scene. This time Brando's magnificent soliloquy beside his wife's corpse (probably his best moment as an actor) brought me tears, not liberation. The film isn't what changed during all those years...and my reaction to it now is a tribute to its bravery and skill and power.
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 6.44)
308 Votes
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