* *
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
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