A review of Last Tango in Paris requires, in a way, a parallel discussion of modern cinema history, and of the participants in the movie itself - which, when released, was promptly banned in several countries, and made as much commotion as profit. The famous review of Pauline Kael in The New Yorker announced to the world the dawn of a new era in cinema. However, after all these years, what we have come upon instead is a landscape that has, cleverly and in a mocking way, evaded the prophecies of such clairvoyants.
Not much can be added, I think, to what has been said by Kael, by Roger Ebert, or in the article published in Time magazine. To that solid body of analysis, I only wish to append a few personal observations.
The opening credits juxtapose two paintings by Francis Bacon, representing a man and a woman. Put together with Gato Barbieri's saxophone, they provide us the perfect synopsis of what awaits us, both stylistically and thematically. The plot revolves around Paul (Marlon Brandon), a middle-aged American that has made Paris his home, and his relationship with Jeanne (Maria Schneider), a young parisienne. They meet in a vacant apartment right at the beginning of the film, without knowing each other.
This random encounter results in a spontaneous and fierce sex scene. Re-watching the film, we cannot help but notice the seed of fatalism planted deep in its foundations, a seed from which nothing good could grow. There is a certain moment, latter on, when the chance of a normal romantic relationship for them is presented. Or even, on another time, another place (we inevitably think), maybe under another set of circumstances, they could've been happy. But Bertolucci doesn't believe in that. When Paul and Jeanne cross paths, there is a bitter irony in the timing of it all. Their relationship reminds me of another work that struggles with the same tragic intransigence that fate shows regarding wasted opportunities, Summer and Smoke, adapted from the play by Tennessee Williams.
Last Tango in Paris exists inside a deterministic and foreordained universe. Bertolucci's talent allowed that, inside this sealed labyrinth, human beings behave exactly as they are: machines controlled by iron laws, chained to the past, but still creatures of whim. He wisely lets the prisoner act inside its prison cell as if he were free. That illusion of freedom is carried by both protagonists, even the pessimistic and world-weary Paul. Jeanne decides to stay near this unbalanced man, following her hedonistic curiosity without pondering the consequences. Paul demands that they meet only in that apartment, without sharing details of their outside life. Not even names will be allowed; language itself is, initially, looked upon as a bothersome burden. He believes that they can, in this way, create their own world, from nothing but their own bodies. Then, they'll be able to free themselves from the chains of memory and knowledge.
This is, of course, a fallacy: the truth is, no man is given the power to create his own prison. He can occupy his cell, or try to escape it, that is all. At most, he can build a prison inside a prison, a simulacrum to fool himself, like the hero of Leonid Andreyev's The Man Who Found the Truth. Later on, we realize what took Paul to such extremes: the suicide of his wife, and a life of wasting. It doesn't seem so at first sight: we're looking at Marlon Brando, after all. His first scenes make him appear more of a tormented artist type, a tragic romantic hero. Paul himself is, on paper, a traveled and well-rounded man. Well, in truth, he is that romantic figure: Brando and Bertolucci make him a realistic romantic, that is, one that has taken enough beatings from life, and now limps in the shadows, like an old dog, licking his wounds.
Jeanne is the opposite of Paul in almost everything, except in the fundamental character of her existence. It could suffice to say that Paul is possessed by the powers of death, while Jeanne represents life. But, in my view, they are both sterile creatures. A typical daughter of the bourgeoisie, she is simultaneously innocent and decadent. As a product of a loving childhood, marked by the presence of an heroic paternal figure, she blossoms into an educated, emancipated, lively being; but also frivolous, hollow. Paul's childhood, on the other hand, was not so bright: his description of it is Faulknerian, and we find in it the same suffocating misery and sadness of Light in August.
Given what we see in the film, the abuse that she willingly suffers, many have wondered about Jeanne's passivity. Most will prefix their explanations with the stigma of male sexism. Sexism, because misogyny would be a term too strong and ridiculous in the case of Bertolucci, who even seems to display a special interest for young and beautiful women (who doesn't?), as we can see in Stealing Beauty with Liv Tyler, and The Dreamers with Eva Green. But let us take a look at Jeanne's behavior with her boyfriend, an inept but enthusiastic director: she is assertive, responds with pride and tift to the cinematic exploration of her image, and even with aggression, at one point. The follow-up to that aggression may seem typical, it's true, but let us not be so cynical: above all, it is human. Jeanne is an individual filled with life, but bored as well, and carrying within her all the character flaws of the higher classes. From that she cannot escape, as Paul cannot escape the ghosts of his past. Inside the apartment, through their sordid relationship, they try to fight the existential emptiness that drags them through life by their ears, in jest.
Paul seems fixated on attaining a primeval state, extinguishing the rational bit in the "rational animal" that is Man. Looking at it through a more positive light, we could say that Paul intends to return to a state of existence similar to that of a child, a tabula rasa of sorts, an in-life reincarnation that allows him to start everything afresh. But his child is nothing like the final metamorphosis of Man that Nietzsche imagined; this is not a sage-child (like the Starchild in 2001: A Space Odissey). It is not a progression, but a regression. An escape from pain. As such, the exorcism of that pain cannot consist merely in the degradation of oneself: one must also degrade the Other, through cruelty. And that cruelty is, precisely, like that of animals and children. It is not the primordial that he attains, only the primitive. Paul wants to establish a kingdom of equality between those four walls, but that equality must start at the lowest point.
However, little by little, the dynamics of power inherent to all human relationships resume their normal course. Both the protagonists produce displays of passivity and assertiveness: it is only momentarily that the internal and external forces require that Paul be the active element, and Jeanne the passive one. On the third act, those demands are transmuted into their opposites, and then return again to their previous form: now, it is Paul who seeks Jeanne, who offers her his sincere love. But Jeanne, ironically, is through with Paul. Paul then chases her, and Jeanne takes flight. Finally, Jeanne reacts, and Paul in turn welcomes his fate with meekness. The threads of power move tirelessly on the loom of destiny.
The degradation inside the apartment doesn't save Paul from despair; but, outside of it, love doesn't redeem him as well. It is instead an unforgivable weakness, before the cold eyes of the world. The romantic ideal ends outside the fictitious space of the apartment, in contact with the artificial space of society. Between four walls, Paul dresses up as the archetype of the middle-aged macho tough guy, part philosopher, part gangster, at the apex of his powers over the opposite sex. Outside, he's just an old man, that in ten years time will "be in a wheelchair", displaying a prostate "like an Idaho potato". In the same way, Jeanne, the free and agile spirit, ends up content with a convenience marriage, exchanging passionate love for an innocuous security. When she and her boyfriend visit the apartment, near the end, the latter denies and crushes the idea of behaving like children inside it, as Paul had suggested. Thus dies any hope for Jeanne of being able to have peace and passion living under the same roof.
Both Paul and Jeanne follow the course that nature has irrevocably plotted for them. Jeanne will eventually lose her marvelous body, her childish beauty. Paul is on the brink of crossing the line into old age. Their age separates them, but their gender puts them at the same crossing, staring blankly into their biological fears, their genetic imperatives, their emotional needs. However, when we add everything up, it is Paul who's clearly on the losing side. In the apartment, he's a magnificent tyrant: outside he's a nobody, a deadbeat, a loser. Jeanne, beautiful, pockets filled with money, has the world at her feet. As Kael mentions, "Brando’s Paul, the essentially naive outsider, the romantic, is no match for a French bourgeois girl." Jeanne may someday turn into a bitter and sad creature, but what matters here is that Paul has already lost that race.
Even so, in the tango scene, we still see her wavering before Paul's schemes and desperate charm; what saves her then is not the the strength of her will, but rather the retreat of it. When Paul talks about the pension he inherited from his wife, we can see in Jeanne's mocking the seeds of disdain. She wavers, yes, but is suddenly rescued by the power of repulsion and boredom, vastly greater than the power of love. A few minutes later, the abyss of contrasts grows bigger: Paul chases her, with a joyous smile on his lips, mad but in love, a desperate man that has rediscovered life; she, on the other hand, becomes the terrified and irritated prey.
Ironically, both were searching for the same thing: a happy normality. Jeanne, with her marriage, tries to retreat into it, while Paul, having found love again, runs amok in its direction. The two advance towards the same goal, but their ways are incompatible. It is then that we must realize as well that their relationship inside the apartment wasn't a simple metaphor, or a localized event: its violence becomes real, in the sense that it is now absolute, definitive: it is both tangible and enlightening. Paul had a difficult childhood; Paul was never happy; Paul is a man of intelligence and taste, immersed in pain. But looking behind all that, we run out of excuses for him: Paul is, despite everything, a dangerous and intractable man. When Jeanne shoots him, it is the instinctive reflex of a young woman. Paul's wife, older and more sophisticated, had tried to recreate Paul through her lover, and failing that, resigned herself to a cheap suicide. In Jeanne, life's protest is more vigorous, although it ends up being the same ambiguous and mysterious force that makes her choose a sterile marriage. Jeanne shoots Paul so that she does not end up like his wife: but the path that she chose in life will probably result in the same unhappiness.
If there is one thing that this film tries to substantiate, is that nothing is given to us without a price. Such an old lesson, but unavoidable as well. Jeanne seems to be the one who suffers the least at the end of the ordeal, despite everything that she is put through; however, her way of loving seems superficial. Paul is capable of profound love, but the price he pays for that privilege is despair and disillusion, ending in ridicule. They both are capable of love - what they lack is wisdom. Like everyone, they love, but don't know how to love.
Marlon Brando gives us what is probably the best performance of his career. Yes, it is indulgent - but without being pretentious, for it delivers what it promises. Brando was dyslexic, and hated to memorize scripts: during his brief apparition in Superman, it is said he had some of his lines written in Superman's diapers. The same thing happened in The Godfather and Apocalypse Now: the filming of Kurtz's monologue must've driven Coppola crazy. Knowing this, Brando's acting in this film becomes even more fascinating, not only an object of mesmerization, but also of appraisal. The same can be said of Bertolucci, who, like a magician, was able to extract exactly what he wanted from Brando, even without knowing what he would put forth. This is art. He didn't direct Brando; he conjured him up from the depths of himself. Brando would, in fact, accuse him a posteriori, saying he felt used by Bertolucci. Perhaps this is true: but the results speak for themselves. We have, for instance, the soliloquy in the apartment, where he reminisces about his own childhood, merging completely with Paul, and his declamation before the body of his wife, one of the greatest cries of love ever put to film. And what can we possibly say about that dialogue with the mother-in-law, where he shows fragments of the Stanley Kowalski from A Streetcar Named Desire, of that latent animality, that could only be matched by another "egomaniac, indulgent, formidable" actor, appearing in that same year in Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes?
This film also marks the genuine end of Brando's career. After the success obtained in that same year with The Godfather, in a performance that was the polar opposite of Paul (and which granted him an Oscar he scandalously refused), he expresses the resolute desire to 'retire'. His wish would not come completely true, however: despite long breaks from acting, he would return to the big screen now and then, mainly for financial reasons (Superman, Apocalypse Now, and everything made from there on, except for A Dry White Season.)
1972 is a paradoxical landmark for him. Having regained the stature he had somewhat lost in the sixties, he is also tired and worn out by the grotesque dimensions of his own notoriety, and criticizes the trade of the actor and the idolatry paid to it. He chooses to praise, instead, "men of action" like Gandhi and Martin Luther King. In this attitude, we find a strange resemblance with Yukio Mishima, who also professed, from a certain moment in his life onwards, a kind of spite towards his own art, the very instrument of his greatness, saying that words had "poisoned" him from a young age, and that only much later had he found the "way of action". As Wagner had speculated, both men seem to have discerned that art is nothing but a declaration of impotence before life itself. From this common opinion, however, both followed markedly different paths: Mishima trained his body hard, preparing it for a glorious public death, before physical decay could consume him. Brando preferred to immerse himself in isolation, destroying his body little by little, in the least dignified way possible. Mishima longed to become an idol; Brando hated being one.
Maria Schneider also deserves mention; more than that, she deserves praise. Resplendent, but always earthly, her comfortable demeanor, specially in the bathroom scenes, provides the perfect counterpoint to Brando's morose disposition; and many of his improvisations feed on her spontaneity. A lot has been said about the destructive influence Last Tango in Paris had on her life. Schneider always blamed Bertolucci; the latter always washed his hands from the affair, until recently, when he received the news of her death; then, something akin to remorse surfaced, but without the implicit admission of guilt. Anyway, Schneider's self-destruction only assumed a systematic form during and after her participation in Antonioni's The Passenger. Bertolucci was merely a speck of dust in the ugliness of the world. It is also interesting to note that the tragic paths of both Schneider and Brando shared similarities: a childhood absent of stable parental figures, and fame that came too soon.
Last Tango in Paris is the child of an Italian movie industry entering the last stretch of its golden age, and of a young director with a bull-like enthusiasm, already a master of his craft. However, Kael's prophecy did not come to pass: as Ebert wisely said, "It was not the beginning of something new, but the triumph of something old -- the "art film," which was soon to be replaced by the complete victory of mass-marketed "event films." In 1975, the world meets Jaws; in 1977, it's the turn of Star Wars.
Drawing the family tree of this film, we realize that Ebert was right on the mark. Last Tango in Paris opens up the gates of cinema to the realm of explicit nudity and sex, but doesn't establish a direct lineage, a dynasty of royal blood, if you will. Instead, it perpetuated itself through sparse influences (found in places like Monster's Ball), while direct descendants, like Naked, Irréversible, Antichrist and 9 Songs are even fewer and far between. It created a new school of cinema, but didn't leave a mark (much like Pasolini's last film, Salò). On a more subterranean level, it is joined at the hip to its more mundane twin brother, but of equal importance in the birth of the porno chic, neo and post-exploitation, and softcore erotica: Deep Throat, released in that same year. This claim is not as ridiculous as it may seem: in fact, the influential Emmanuelle owes its birth to Bertolucci's film.
At the end of the day, the sexual lode of Last Tango in Paris branches out into ludic eroticism (in innocuous inversions like we see in Bolero), now extinct, into the 'decoy' eroticism of modern independent cinema, or into contemporary pornography, mechanized, categorized, functional. These works, currents and tendencies, did not descend from Bertolucci's film: instead, they took advantage of it. The artist smashes the gates, pierces through walls; but those who follow behind are always the greedy and stupefying masses, ready to loot and burn.
There is one final aspect I wish to elaborate upon. In its original form, the film was supposed to feature an homosexual relationship between the protagonists. The French actor who was to take the lead role backed out at the last minute. As for Brando, given his public remarks (which may or may not be false) about homosexuality, and the scene where Paul subjects himself to 'light' sodomy, it would not be too far-fetched to seem him play such a character. In fact, as Ingmar Bergman pointed out, the film makes more sense if framed in that context: the infamous "butter scene", the "pig killing" dialogue, the secrecy of the apartment, the mystifying relationship of Paul with his wife's lover, and even the suicide of said wife.
Perhaps Bertolucci wasn't too infatuated with the idea of homosexuality itself: when he adapted Gilbert Adair's The Holy Innocents, the incestuous brother lost his bisexual facet, thus reducing the complexity of the love triangle between the main characters. Does he lack the boldness to struggle with such themes? It may seem ludicrous to pose such a question about the director of one of the most polemic films of all time. But, as with everything in life, it is a matter of how we look at it.
Bertolucci started his career under the protection of Pasolini, who knew his father. Pasolini himself would release his own controversial film, Salò, in 1975. And, if Bertolucci almost faced prison for its creation, Pasolini paid for his art with his own life. Bertolucci was a scale behind Pasolini, as Pasolini remained a scale behind Sade. There is even something of the sadean methodology in Paul's actions. But in Sade the external factors of Bertolucci's film are inverted: its protagonists enjoy the benefits of Jeanne's social class, and are at the same time the dominant, active force. There is no dynamic of power with them: only the application of power, in a one-way horizontal pyramid of hierarchy. Theirs is a dominance of means and of gender: they are all members of the male sex, and the fate of their victims, both male and female, is sealed, absolute. The protagonists of 120 Days of Sodom have all the cards in their hands, it is a static and insurmountable situation. They succeed thus where Paul fails, in creating an almost perfect deterministic prison: their impregnable castle dwarfs the small (and easily broken into) apartment of Bertolucci, from which the interior life escapes, and the exterior life seeps in. Their cruelty is entertainment, as opposed to Paul's shock therapy for existential emptiness. Fatalism works in their favor, hanging solely over the heads of their victims.
I must, then, repeat that a man cannot choose nor build his own prison: but adding that he can choose and build prisons for others. That is what the castles of Pasolini and Sade, and the apartment of Bertolucci, are: a retreat for those for whom the world is a prison, where they may in turn imprison those for whom the world is a retreat.
If the daring of Last Tango in Paris seems to have lost its edge over the years, its artistic merit is still sharp as ever. Through the many subterranean iterations that proceeded from it, and other foundational works of modern 'shock' cinema, such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre, we seem to have lost the ability to be 'scandalized' by the original piece: it is understandable, in the aftermath of a whole generation of products like Saw, Hostel, Guinea Pig, and easily accessible pornography that caters to the most extreme fetishes. The butter scene nowadays will elicit, at most, a yawn from the average young male who knows his way around the Internet. However, Last Tango in Paris remains, and will remain, relevant, not as a shock film, but as a work of art - for it is doubtlessly an art film, like Ebert said. As for daring, presently only A Serbian Film seems to hold the kind of power that is able to awaken us from our Pyrrhic slumber, and bring forth some vestige of moral panic. But that is a story for another time.
Fact Sheet: Last Tango in Paris / Ultimo Tango a Parigi at IMDB.
