Review #60 LAST TANGO IN PARIS (1972, Bernardo Bertolucci)

 

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When two strangers meet in Paris and become lovers, they try to keep things purely impersonal.

Starring  Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, Giovanna Galletti, Jean-Pierre Léaud

Written by  Bernardo Bertolucci, Franco Arcalli

Produced by  Alberto Grimaldi

Duration  129 minutes  

   

For Christmas when I was 12, I was given my own television, which I proudly set up on a shelf at the end of my bed. Oh, the late-night hours I was to spend glued to that little black 14-inch Panasonic, scouring the paltry four UK terrestrial channels.

I remember the first film I watched. As I lay in bed with Christmas Day about to turn into Boxing Day, PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM came on. Woody Allen portraying his usual nebbish unlucky-in-love intellectual, this time taking dating advice from a beyond-the-grave Humphrey Bogart.

I used to discover loads of films in this way. My love of David Cronenberg started by catching BBC 2 screenings of THE FLY and VIDEODROME. There I was, awake past midnight with school the next day, trying to wrap my head around James Woods misplacing a handgun inside his own abdomen.

And I can remember coming into class one morning and seeking out my best friend to confirm that – yes! He did also stumble last night upon a bizarre film where a guy puts on a pair of sunglasses that reveal the truths hitherto concealed by an invasion of capitalist aliens. It’s likely that we both missed the credits, so didn’t even yet know that film was called THEY LIVE or that it was directed by THE THING and HALLOWEEN’s John Carpenter.

These days, discovering random movies on late-night TV is next to impossible. It’s partly because although the number of channels has increased, the range is much narrower. If ITV4 decides to put something like HOT FUZZ on, then the channel will do so 10 times in the course of a fortnight. It’s partly because instead of filling the twilight hours with obscure filmic treats, often they put infomercials on repeat. And it’s partly because, in the streaming age, people just don’t tend to consume their media at home in the same channel-hopping way.

It’s also rare to stumble upon any surprise delights on streaming, due to poor navigation and a generally pretty vanilla line-up. Although Amazon Prime actually has some pretty great genre stuff, if you can find it.

All of which brings me to LAST TANGO IN PARIS. This feels like the kind of sordid, boundries-pushing thing that I used to come across and keep watching into the wee hours, not knowing how far it was going to go. Although, as it turns out, on that occasion it wouldn't have been worth staying awake for.

I had never seen the film until now, and by now of course I knew plenty about it. Its explicit content caused controversy when it was released in 1972, but the other reason I had no chance of watching LAST TANGO baggage-free was the same thing that delivers our Netflix, Prime, Paramount Plus, et al: the internet. Tales of what went on during filming are rife online – especially in recent years, with lead actress Maria Schneider revealing that the infamous rape scene ("Get the butter!") was improvised on set and left her feeling violated for real.

So was with a feeling of distaste that I fired up the movie. But wait. It starts with smooth jazz over shots of Francis Bacon paintings. The lush cinematography is by Vittorio Storaro (APOCALYPSE NOW, other Bertolucci joints like 1900 and THE LAST EMPEROR). It’s set in Goddamn Paris. Gosh, this is clearly going to be a real classy experience. Isn’t it?

Not really.

Marlon Brando is introduced, stumbling about in anguish by himself on the streets of the French capital. Disheveled, long coat flapping about, hair a mess. He spies a young woman (Schneider) and follows her. Turns out she is on her way to view a flat, so he gives it his appraisal at the same time.

Then, instead of going home to weigh up the location and per-calendar-month rent, old Marlon (and we are talking old: this is far from the hunk of THE WILD ONE or A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE) pounces on Maria and they roll around on the carpet having impromptu sex.

He rents the place and the two strangers embark upon a no-strings, no-names affair, never meeting outside the confines of the apartment.

Well, it’s an affair for her, at least – she has a fiancé, some kind of pretentious filmmaker (irony from Bertolucci?) who has cast her in his latest masterpiece. As for Brando, one of the few things we learn about him is that his wife has just committed suicide, so he’s definitely has his status set to available.

In between their romps, Marlon recounts long stories about his childhood, like an incident where he saw some sheep and milked a cow. He shouts at her sometimes during sudden bursts of anger. They make animal noises at each other. They spend a lot of time on the floor – there is a mattress, but it lacks a bedframe. Brando finds a dead rat and jokes about making Maria eat it. For some reason, this beautiful and intelligent young woman (Schneider looks a bit like Linda Blair, circa EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC) keeps coming back to one of the most unpleasant characters in the history of cinema.

"Your solitude weighs on me," she tells him at one point. And Brando does kill it in the role: crying a lot, wailing in agony, standing over his wife’s corpse and referring to her as a "pig-fucker" ... Come to think of it, there are a lot of references to animals in this movie. Is this because their purely sexual relationship has reduced our protagonists to the level of beasts? There’s probably a dissertation about that on a website somewhere, among the rest of the LAST TANGO discourse.

One thing I hadn’t read about it online was how terrible the sound mixing is. You know those films where you have to turn the volume down for the action scenes, then back up again when you can’t hear the conversational parts? This one does that with its music, an unsubtle score, presumably supposed to be stirring, that swells up seemingly at random to jolt you right out of the moment.

Overall, LAST TANGO IN PARIS is an historical curio rather than a film worth watching today. See it if you want to find out what controversy looked like 50 years ago. You’ll have to actively seek it out, of course, as well as dealing with all its baggage. But I wouldn’t go to the trouble.

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Spoiler alert: Marlon dies at the end. Double spoiler: it’s from a gunshot wound administered by Maria. Talk about getting a good banging ( … sorry.)

What would a movie called FIRST TANGO IN PARIS be about?  The ‘happy’ couple do actually dance a tango towards the end, but it’s as ill-conceived and haphazard as the rest of their ‘relationship’.

Previously:  TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT

Next time:  THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #59 TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (2017, Michael Bay)

 

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Fifth go around for the oft-disguised robots, this time with something about Arthurian legend mixed into the usual MacGuffin hunt.

Starring  Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel, Laura Haddock, Stanley Tucci, John Turturro, Anthony Hopkins  

Written by  Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, Ken Nolan   

Produced by  Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Tom DeSanto, Don Murphy, Ian Bryce   

Duration  153 minutes   

   

INT. BAY RESIDENCE, LOS ANGELES, CA. - DAY (CIRCA 2013)

A beautiful beachside Malibu property.

In the centre of the vast OPEN-PLAN LIVING ROOM sits 51-year-old MICHAEL BAY. He is surrounded by PILES OF TOYS: cars, robots, robots that can turn into cars.

Michael, wearing official TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION PYJAMAS, is engrossed in his play: BASHING TWO TOYS TOGETHER repeatedly.

MICHAEL

Pow! Smash! Take that!

As Michael carries on with his bashing, a FEMALE VOICE CALLS OUT to him from another room.

MRS. BAY (O/S)

Michael?

Michael DOESN'T LOOK UP from his game.

MRS. BAY (O/S)

Michael!

MICHEAL

Yeah?

He still doesn’t let himself be interrupted. We hear FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING.

MRS. BAY, Michael’s mother, enters the room. She is A VERY ELDERLY LADY, wearing an APRON.

MRS. BAY

Michael, guess who I just got off the phone with?

Michael just SHRUGS and continues BASHING AWAY.

MRS. BAY

Your friend Mark’s mother.

Michael BRIGHTENS UP, although he still DOESN'T STOP PLAYING.

MICHAEL

Marky Mark!

MRS. BAY

Yes, and can you guess what Mrs. Wahlberg told me?

Michael HESITATES, then resumes BASHING WITH ADDED VENOM.

MRS. BAY

Can you, Michael?

MICHAEL

No...

MRS. BAY

Mrs. Wahlberg told me that you’ve signed up for yet another TRANSFORMERS movie.

Michael ignores her, but his game INCREASES IN INTENSITY.

MRS. BAY (CONT'D)

And I told Mrs. Wahlberg that she must be mistaken, because my son, my Michael, he promised me that he was done with those awful films. That after I allowed him to make a fourth, he would never go back on his word and make a fifth!

SMASH! Michael's BROKEN A PIECE off of one of his toys.

MICHAEL

Aw, Mom! That was Starscream! Limited edition!

MRS. BAY

Micheal! Look at me when I'm talking to you.

Reluctantly, Michael puts down his toys and TURNS AROUND.

MRS. BAY (CONT'D)

I know you like to play with your toys. I know you like to play with Marky. But this has gone on far too long.

MICHAEL

But Mom ...

MRS. BAY

But what?

MICHAEL

But Mom!

MRS. BAY

Just give me one good reason I shouldn’t call up Paramount Pictures right now and tell them that you’re not doing the movie.

Michael SCOWLS at his mother. Then a SLY SMILE spreads across his face.

MICHAEL

One point one zero four billion dollars.

MRS. BAY

Excuse me?

MICHAEL

One point one zero four billion. Transformers: Age of Extinction's worldwide gross.

Mrs. Bay THINKS for a beat.

MRS. BAY

Fine. But this is the last time.

She storms out the room and Michael returns to his toys, SMILING ONCE AGAIN.

FADE OUT

Alright, look. I’m not going to bother being all snidey and supercilious here. These are movies about giant robot aliens that turn into vehicles clobbering the shit (oil?) out of each other. If that's what you want to watch, then fine – that’s what you get.

And when I saw the first TRANSFORMERS movie in the cinema during the summer of 2007, I enjoyed it! It was fast, it was entertaining, it was fine. I didn’t walk out eager to see more, but it had done its job. I haven’t been compelled to watch another one since, until now.

But whilst complaining about these stupid movies being stupid seems churlish, I do have a bone to pick with their excess. No, not the amount of CGI spectacle, or the noise, or the childish humour. And not the argument that Michael Bay should have quit long before he got as far as helming a quintology.

No, it’s a different kind of excess that I must bemoan here: not of content or quantity, but of length.

Why do these films always have to be so damned long? Do fixed release dates mean that there’s not enough time to whittle down the assembly cut? Is so much money spent on effects that there is a contractual obligation to show it all on screen? Or is it just ego on our director’s part, connecting length with quality, a variant on ‘bigger is better’?

It certainly seems counter-intuitive when cinema chains go on about wanting films shorter so they can cram in more screenings.

And nearly as long as the TRANSFORMERS movies' running times is the list of supporting roles they've given to respectable actors, slumming it for a paycheque. By this fifth film, we've had: John Turturro, Jon Voight, Kevin Dunn, Rainn Wilson, Patrick Dempsey, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Alan Tudyk, Kelsey Grammer, Jack Reynor, Stanley Tucci, Sophia Myles, and Anthony Hopkins.

And that's only the ones who appear in person – there are plenty more who have just lent their voices to the big hulking machines.

So, putting a lens on this fifth instalment, can stretching all this onscreen talent out to a bladder-testing duration help deliver anything worth all that time, money and gravitas?

Two hours and 34 minutes later, let me report back on the highlights:

– Tony Hopkins plays a tweed-wearing aristocrat, introduced in some fuck-off stately home with the informative title card "England, UK". I like how they couldn’t be bothered to glance at a map and come up with a location any more specific than that. Meanwhile, when John Turturro is shown in Havana, having a conversation about goat scrotums (don't ask), we're informed that it is Havana – not "Cuba, South America".

– Upon meeting Mark Wahlberg, Oscar-winner Hopkins addresses him with a drawn out "duuuuude", as if trying to emulate a DAZED AND CONFUSED-era Matthew McConaughey. Of this I heartily approve.

– Jim Carter, most famous as one of the ‘downstairs’ people in Downton Abbey, here plays a C-3PO-type robot who attacks Wahlberg with kung-fu moves in a glass lift after taking offence at being compared to a leprechaun.

– In the midst of an action scene, someone breathlessly says the line "This shouldn’t happen to a tax-paying American!" and then follows it up immediately with "… Well, not that I pay any taxes." This film has four credited writers.

– Composer Steve Jablonsky joins the ranks of musicians to have emerged from Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions with the intention of sounding exactly like der Master. In doing so, Jablonsky contributes to the illusion that Zimmer  has scored every major motion picture from the past 30 years – when in reality, it’s only been about half of them. 

(See also: Harry Gregson-Williams [DOMINO, THE MARTIAN], Nick Glennie-Smith [THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK, WE WERE SOLDIERS], Brian Tyler [THE EXPENDABLES, FAST FIVE], Trevor Rabin [ARMAGEDDON, BAD BOYS II], John Powell [FACE/OFF, PAYCHECK], etc.)

– Out of the blue, there’s a flashback to some of the transformers kicking Nazi ass in 1940's Germany, which is kind of like INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS meets … um, TRANSFORMERS.

– During a car chase where our heroes are hurtling through London’s square mile, they manage to make the streets look at least somewhat populated, which is more than I can say for some movies from this era.

– When Wahlberg is called upon to do some serious acting during the film’s melodramatic climax, I couldn’t help recalling the more intense moments of BOOGIE NIGHTS, when his Eddie Adams/Dirk Diggler is ranting away in a strung-out, coked-up state after getting involved in some fucked up scrapes during the comedown ’80s. The crossover possibilities don’t really bear thinking about …

So then, was it all worth it? Only to the tune of two stars. That means, in theory, that if the movie had been three fifths shorter, it would have been an acceptable drain on my time.

Unfortunately, I don't think a 61-minute truncated director’s cut of TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT will be coming anytime soon ...

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Try asking ex-cricketer Sir Alastair Cook, Formula 1 driver Sir Lewis Hamilton and director Sir Sam Mendes – all of whom have been knighted since this film came out.

What would a movie called TRANSFORMERS: THE FIRST KNIGHT be about?  Maybe it would be a movie where all the actors who only supplied their voices to instalments of this saga instead had parts in front of the camera. Hugo Weaving, Tony Todd, Leonard Nimoy, James Remar, John Goodman, Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe, Steve Buscemi ... I could go on. But I won't.

Previously:  THE LAST EXORCISM

Next time:  LAST TANGO IN PARIS

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #58 THE LAST EXORCISM (2010, Daniel Stamm)

 

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A phony exorcist is out of his depth when he takes on a case that may be the real deal.

Starring  Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Iris Bahr, Louis Herthum, Caleb Landry Jones

Written by  Huck Botko, Andrew Gurland   

Produced by  Eric Newman, Eli Roth, Marc Abraham, Thomas A Bliss   

Duration  87 minutes   

There are certain types of movie which have that one shining example that’s just so definitive, so representative, so brilliant, that filmmakers are on a hiding to nothing if they try to take a fresh stab at it.

Disaster movies, for instance. No one’s ever really topped THE POSIDON ADVENTURE (1972). THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974) came close, and from the ’90s resurgence, INDEPENDENCE DAY will always be up there. But you can’t beat the rugged reliability of ’70s Gene Hackman and the smirk of Ernest Borgnine, backed up by Shelley Winter’s hysteria and Roddy McDowall's preening.

Forbidden love? It’s never been depicted more heartbreakingly than in BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945). Especially Celia Johnson's voiceover, where she confides to us that her husband would actually get along with the man who is tempting her – while knowing that the three of them all becoming friends is impossible.

Gangster rise and fall? The 1982 SCARFACE is the final word. How do you match the definitive over-the-top Pacino performance in a career defined by them? Or Oliver Stone’s highly quotable script, set to Georgio Moroder's moody synth-dread score?

And here’s one more for ya: THE EXORCIST.

There have already been various poor sequels to cinema’s seminal work about possession (although number three wasn’t bad) and, recently, David Gordon Green’s reboot (which I’m yet to see, but is supposed to be awful). The exorcism sub-genre has been dragged through the mud somewhat, the nadir being 1990 satire REPOSSESSED, which brought back original demon host Linda Blair and paired her with spoof king Leslie Nielsen.

Nonetheless, the makers of THE LAST EXORCISM decided to give it a go – possibly emboldened by a turn in the fortunes of exorcism movies in more recent years. THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE was a success five years before, and similar efforts like THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT (2009) had also done well.

But while I don't personally love the original EXORCIST as much as some people do (notably critic Mark Kermode), the cultural impact of that 1973 hit is such that no number of similarly-themed efforts will ever be able to swerve the comparison.

Nevertheless, I myself will conduct this review with complete objectivity and not mention THE EXORCIST again. So, alright then: is THE LAST EXORCISM any cop?

At first, when a pre-BETTER CALL SAUL Patrick Fabian (AKA Howard Hamlin) is being videotaped at home, the movie appears to be found footage. OK, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's definitely a choice that elicits caution in the viewer.

But wait! An establishing shot? Title cards? It’s not found footage at all, it’s a mockumentary! In the great tradition of THIS IS SPINAL TAP, the BORAT movies, and the first part of DISTRICT 9, before they gave up on the idea. Plus, in 2010 the US Office was still on and Parks and Recreation had just started, so I guess mockumentaries were currently in vogue.

This aesthetic decision is especially interesting when you consider that the director of THE EXORCIST himself, William Friedkin, started out making actual documentaries – including THE PEOPLE VS PAUL CRUMP (1962), about a death row convict who Friedkin believes is innocent. Obviously, THE EXORCIST is not a docu or a mocku, but nevertheless the clinical, unfussy style Friedkin developed from his days with non-fiction helped give that classic its raw power.

Shit. Three paragraphs later and already I'm back making comparisons to THE EXORCIST.

Well, anyway, in LAST EXORCISM, your man Fabian plays our documentary subject, a flamboyant preacher who comea from a long line of them. And it turns out his is also a family of exorcists, with demon-extraction being something else he has followed ‘Daddy’ (this is Louisiana) into, as he tells us while proudly showing off the clipping "Aged 10, local boy delivers first exorcism". And LAST EXORCISM not only uses the ‘E’ word in its title, but even positions itself in a world where that famous film exists. "It's not just the Catholics who perform them," Fabian explains, "but, you know, they got the movie, so ..."

And soon, we get the revelation that our so-called man of God doesn’t even believe in the spirit world; that he has gone through with however many so-called exorcisms without seeing any actual evidence. Thus, the point of him partaking in this documentary: he's heading out to families who've written to him about ghosts they need busted, the idea being he'll show the docu filmmakers how truly bollocks the whole thing is.

So on the road we go, to rural Texas, where a farmer claims that his daughter has been romping around at night and slaughtering the cattle, in a state of not being all herself. And would you believe it? Cocky old Fabian’s charlatan antics end up colliding with his first ever genuine paranormal incident!

(Beyond plot predictability, casting the creepy Caleb Landry Jones as the girl’s brother is an immediate red flag. See also ANTIVIRAL, HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT, GET OUT ...)

But flippancy aside, it’s not a criticism to call the direction the story takes unsurprising – that would be like chastising an action movie for having fights and car chases and explosions. The skill is in the execution.

And it’s pretty good! There are creepy performances and startling images; Fabian gets increasingly out of his depth as the family’s unseemly past comes to light; the documentary crew come out from behind the camera and get involved; and it all reaches a suitably bonkers climax, reminiscent of the brilliant KILL LIST, released the year after.

So, I ended up being glad that director Daniel Stamm refused to be over-awed by history and gave his own vision a go. Watch this space to see whether the confusingly titled sequel, THE LAST EXORCISM: PART II, warrants the same praise ...   

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  If anything, discovering a real case of possession will mean that the exorcisms are gonna just keep on coming.

What would a movie called THE FIRST EXORCISM be about?  Friedkin passed away in 2023, so that’s a good excuse to check out the original movie. And might I also suggest THE GUARDIAN (1990), his return to horror and a masterpiece of so-bad-it’s-goodness?  

Three stars out of five.

Previously:  LAST RIDE 

Next time:  TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com