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Although it's infamous for its utterly butterly sex scene, there's more to Last Tango In Paris than just steamy eroticism. Bernardo Bertolucci's controversial drama is actually a dark, torrid masterpiece about love and grief. Marlon Brando plays Paul, an American in Paris, who deals with his wife's suicide by shacking up with Jeanne (Marie Schneider) in an empty apartment. Like the dance it's named after, it's a film of passion and violence as Brando's character pirouettes towards self-destruction.
An affront to censors when it first appeared in October 1972, Last Tango made headlines with its pioneering use of on-screen sex. Even today, the brutal, animalistic love-making is shocking, as Brando's aging ladykiller forces Schneider into anonymous sex in a crumbling apartment: no names, no chatter, no life stories. She's trying to escape her prattling film director boyfriend (Jean-Pierre Leaud; whose insipid scenes are the film's only flaw). He's trying to deal with soul-destroying grief.
"ONE OF THE GREATEST SCREEN PERFORMANCES EVER"
Released after the The Godfather, Last Tango gives Brando his last great role. His performance is both terrific and terrifying. Schneider's chubby faced pixie can't compete, but that's the point: this is a film about a misogynist, maybe even a misanthropist. Paul's all-consuming hatred builds until it explodes in the scene in which he confronts his dead wife. As he rants and raves at the impassive corpse ("I'll never discover the truth about you, who the hell were you?") Brando stares into Paul's black heart and delivers one of the greatest screen performances ever committed to celluloid. It validates the rest of the movie brilliantly: Maria Schneider may wander around in her birthday suit, but it's Brando's character who's ultimately stripped naked.
Last Tango in Paris is out in the UK on 13th July 2007.
