Last Tango in Paris
by Bernardo Bertolucci
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DVD details
Actor: Giovanna Galletti, Gitt Magrini, Maria Michi, Maria Schneider, Marlon BrandoDirector: Bernardo Bertolucci
Brand: BRANDO,MARLON
Cinematographer: Vittorio Storaro
Writer: Bernardo Bertolucci
Editor: Franco Arcalli
Writer: Franco Arcalli
Editor: Roberto Perpignani
Producer: Alberto Grimaldi
Writer: Agn?s Varda
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.66:1
Running Time: 129 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-11-03
Audience Rating: NC-17
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of Last Tango in Paris
DVD Review: WHAT?!!!
Summary: 1 Stars
Okay, I love Marlon Brando.. Granted because of my age (I was born in 77) most of the stuff I've seen him do was when he was much older. But what was this crap that was made before I was even born? The way this film was reviewed it made it seem as though it was just awesome! U must see it! Marlon is so captivating!!!
This is one of those films where you either love it or hate it. Like the opera, you either love it or hate it. Unfortunately I hated this film. From the way they "hooked" up, to the way they told his story... and of course, the ending, what the hell was that?! The movie comes off as too scattered. Like they could not decide which road to take in telling his story to get you to care. So they just threw in a bunch of scenes. I did not feel sorry nor care for any of the main characters. The only reason why I sat and watched the whole movie, was because I bought it.. Highly, Highly disappointing... I can't believe my mother went to the theater to see this film when it came out. But it speaks volumes that my mom (Marlon Brando lover that she is) could not even remember that his wife killed herself and he is this "tortured" guy just trying to deal. All she remembered was that it was a racy film for 1972. But what are reviews anyway? Just someone elses opinion. Not your own. So if you wish to see this film watch it. If you like it, you like it. If you don't, you don't... The world makes sense again.
DVD Review: Overrated classic
Summary: 2 Stars
This is one of those movies where reading the negative reviews is far more interesting and even funnier than reading the positive ones. The positive ones usually gush about what a groundbreaking movie it was, and its unvarnished portrayal of a completely carnal relationship lacking any other redeeming qualities. Brando is usually thought to have done a remarkable job portraying a depressed man who is trying to lose himself in an orgy of erotic self-indulgence after the suicide of his wife. Another common complaint is that the movie, although perhaps great for its time, hasn't held up very well.
Amazingly, I had never seen the movie until a few days ago, and felt this was a huge lacunae in my cinematic education so I decided to watch it. While I'm not as negative as the other negative reviews, I have to admit that they have some validity. It was a ground and pathbreaking movie for its time, and it deserves some credit for that, which is why I give it at least two stars.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with many of the other negative reviews here that the movie just hasn't aged well. I also agree with many of the other comments that in ad libbing much of the dialog, the script, or lack of one, suffers and it just sounds like Brando on some analyst's couch engaging in sophomoric psycho-babble much of the time. But one must remember that this was the inner-space obsessed and psychedelic 60s and things like psychotherapy were all the rage, which is why the movie just sounds like Brando on the couch free-associating much of the time. It was also a time of supposed sexual liberation, and in that sense the movie accurately reflects its milieu but attempts to ratchet up the shock value on the carnal side, from which the movie's notorious and vaunted reputation mostly seems to stem.
While all of that is fine, and I'm certainly no prude, a movie whose main attraction is its portrayal of a steamy, nihilistic, and exploitative sexual relationship but which lacks any other redeeming qualities may be a good candidate for the most sexually and sensually daring and controversial movie of its time, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's a great movie, either. There is no character development, and no story arc beyond that of a dissipated, depressed, middle-aged man indulging his sexual fantasies with an ingenue. The dialog is mediocre at best, and except for the very emotional early scene by Brando, he spends most of the rest of the movie walking around like he's in a Quaalude-induced haze, although that drug was 15 years in the future. And by today's standards the movie wouldn't be considered sexually shocking at all. But then this was also the era of Leave it to Beaver which was considered a realistic portrayal of an American family. It's also one unremitting, humorless downer from beginning to end, as Brando wallows in his narcissistic world of grandiose and bottomless self-pity. This might have been okay for 15 minutes, but 2 hours of it is too much.
So while I'm not as negative as many of the reviewers here, I can give it only 2 or maybe 2.5 stars. It certainly deserves some credit for breaking new ground in its portrayal of a sexually explicit and kinky relationship, there are one or two scenes in which Brando truly is great, and as one negative reviewer here said, it's something of an achievement to manage to make Paris look ugly.
DVD Review: Watch those hemorrhoids, Marlon!
Summary: 1 Stars
You can yap all you want to about "wounded souls" and "terrific acting," but the only reason most people watch this Franco-Lasagna garbage is for the "butter scene." And I'm not talking about having dinner rolls either, unless you're referring to Maria Schneider's doughy seat cushion. Brando's raps about "renouncing God and the family" are just grad school nonsense designed to get his partner more down with the brown. An OK movie ... if you're too much of a coward to rent the latest prolapse video from Blockbuster's backroom. DVD Review: Lack of Sensitivity
Summary: 2 Stars
Some funny talk, yes. But this movie is the opposite of sensitivity, to say it politely. The film of cause has a bigger concept. If you want to be surprised, stop reading right now. Two strangers meet by looking at the same vacant apartment in Paris. Skipping the romance, he suddenly decides to get physical with her, and she goes along. At this point, I should have stopped the movie, which went downhill until the end, which was the most disturbing scene. All in all, one might ask the question if the fact that two famous actors are the lead characters, can justify the so-called critics praising this movie. They might have both done it only for the money, being ashamed for it later on. Let's hope so.DVD Review: Last Bogey in Burbank
Summary: 3 Stars
Magnificently acted tale of a tormented man and his child/woman victim.
Brando/Paul's soliloquy to the body of his wife dead by suicide is memorable, disturbing and informative all at the same time. He starts out by insulting her using the most degrading words possible. He displays his confusion, hopelessness and abandonment and ends with an outpouring of his own unspecified...guilt. There is a moment when we fear that Paul might attempt an act of necrophilia on the dead woman.
In his 'relationship' with Jeanne we perhaps learn something of the nature of Paul's guilt. He's a sado-masachist and, Jeanne, despite her beautiful body, is a child. Therefore, there is a strong pedophilic component of the diseased relationship. Jeanne reacts, not as an abused woman, but as an abused child.
Paul forces the girl to drink the deepest dregs of sexual humiliation, depravity and degradation. Sex is not for love but for hate....and the more hateful the better. Jeanne, reacting as a child, comes back for more and more and the ending is predictable. The very sick Paul is a sexual psychopath and Jeanne will die, either by her own hand, or by Paul's hand following or during an act of sexual perversion and torture.
If there is any question about it, there is the last tango. Jeanne tries to break free but, showing her conflict, performs an act of oral humiliation. She runs but Paul pursues like a cat toying with a helpless mouse. She runs, he runs. She slows, he slows. She flees up an elevator, he keeps pace on the stairs. She escapes into her mother's apartment and Paul breaks in.
Now all that is left is for the delicate, beautiful, completely confused Jeanne to die terribly. But noooooo....
After watching the film, and appreciating the fine acting, I searched for a redeeming feature of this excruciating and difficult film. I think it's there but am not sure whether the writers, directors and producers of this film realized it. For certain, none of the reviewers here--most of whom seem to have been dazed by Brando's fine acting and the girl, Jeanne's, perfect body--caught it.
This is the intimate portrait of a sexual psychopath. Had Paul survived and extracted the last iota of pleasure from Jeanne's degraded corpse, there would have been momentary relief before his next victim...
Ron Braithwaite, author of novels of Spanish Conquest of America--'Skull Rack' and 'Hummingbird God'
Description of Last Tango in Paris
Penetrate the moody, sensual world of Last Tango in Paris, and prepare yourself for "the most controversial film of its era" (Leonard Maltin). Nominated* for two Academy Awards(r)Director (Bernardo Bertolucci) and Actor (Marlon Brando)and exuding a sexual energy unlike any film before or after, this is the scintillating classic that shocked a nation...and "altered the face of an art form" (Pauline Kael). He (Brando) is a 45-year old American living in Paris, haunted by his wife's suicide. She (Maria Schneider, Jane Eyre) is a 20-year-old Parisian beauty engaged to a young filmmaker. Though nameless to each other, these tortured souls come together to satisfy their sexual cravings in an apartment as bare as their dark, tragic lives. Caught up in the frenzied beat of a carnal dance they cannot seem to stop, these unlikely lovers take their passion to erotic heightsand depthsbeyond anything they could ever have imagined.Bernardo Bertolucci's controversial 1973 film stars Marlon Brando as an expatriate American in Paris reeling from his wife's suicide and entering into a nihilistic sexual relationship with a young woman (Maria Schneider). The film is still shocking, not simply because of its (sometime unconventional) sexual sequences, but because Brando's protagonist needs his liaison with Schneider's character to remain anonymous, an experience not to be shared but indulged on either end. Bertolucci is also operating on subtext here: in a way, Brando's nonengaging engagement is a metaphor for a certain attitude toward directing movies. Jean-Pierre L?aud costars, but the film is more than anything a vehicle for a great performance by Brando. --Tom Keogh
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