Details
Movie Description
Originally famed for its sexual frankness, Bernardo Bertolucci's LAST TANGO IN PARIS has managed to endure due to its sophisticated storytelling and brave lead performances. Marlon Brando incorporated details from his own life into the character of Paul, the globetrotting American who finally settled into a marriage and proprietorship of a fleabag hotel in Paris. But when his wife commits suicide, Paul goes into an existential tailspin. One day, while wandering through an apartment that is available for rent, he encounters Jeanne (Maria Schneider), a lovely Parisian girl (she's 20 to Paul's 45) who is also viewing the apartment. The two become intimate and have a heated affair, carried on without names, in the apartment where they first met. While Paul clearly hopes to forget about his wife, Jeanne is simply overwhelmed by her fiancé (Jean-Pierre Leaud, in a somewhat Bertolucci-satirizing role), a filmmaker who wants her to be his subject and inspiration. Nothing is taboo in their relationship, but confrontation comes when Paul breaks the spell of impersonality. Brando's monologue beside his dead wife has sent many a film student into a paroxysm of pleasure in this groundbreaking erotic drama from acclaimed director Bertolucci (THE CONFORMIST, THE LAST EMPEROR).
Synopsis
Marlon Brando plays Paul, an American expatriate whose wife has recently committed suicide. Maria Schneider is Jeanne, a young Frenchwoman engaged to be married to an earnest young filmmaker. When they meet by chance in an empty Paris apartment, Paul and Jeanne embark on an intense sexual relationship that obliterates the outside world each is hiding from. Bertolucci and Brando created controversy with their poignant vision of desire inflamed by grief.
Film Notes
DVD Features:
Region 1
Keep Case
Audio:
Dolby Digital Mono - English
Subtitles - English, French - Optional
Closed Captioned
8-Page Booklet
Theatrical Trailer
Theatrical release: October 14, 1972
The original MPAA rating (in 1973) was X; the film was resubmitted for an R rating in 1981 and rerated again as an X in 1982.
The film was named to the Japanese Kinema Jumpo list of 1973's Ten Best Films.
Bernardo Bertolucci received Italy's Silver Ribbon as the Best Director of 1972-1973.
Marlon Brando was named Best Actor of 1973 by the New York Film Critics and by the National Society of Film Critics.
Maria Schneider received Italy's David di Donatello Award for Best Actress of 1972-1973 for her work in LAST TANGO and DEAR PARENTS.
The paintings used in the opening credit sequence are by 20th-century British master Francis Bacon.
Screened at the 1972 New York Film Festival.
"I have a prostate like an Idaho potato."--Paul (Marlon Brando) to Jeanne (Maria Schneider)
"Get the butter."--Paul (Marlon Brando) to Jeanne (Maria Schneider)
Industry Reviews
"...The look, feel and sound of the film are evocative..."
Chicago Sun-Times - Roger Ebert (08/11/1995)
"[Brando gives] one of his most ferocious and feeling performances."
Rolling Stone - Peter Travers (02/19/2004)
"Brando communicates a great sense of erotic abandon..."
Entertainment Weekly - Entertainment Weekly Staff (07/16/2004)
"Brando is astonishing."
Premiere - Premiere Staff (10/01/2004)
Quotations
"I have a prostate like an Idaho potato." -- "Get the butter." -- Paul (Marlon Brando) to Jeanne (Maria Schneider)
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