Pain pain go away - Last Tango in Paris revisited

I spent half of last night
casually watching again
"Last Tango in Paris".

Only to be caused with more insomnia
by this mesmerizing painful story...

Paul is a lonely American businessman in Paris,
struggling to make sense of things
after the death of his wife.

Jeanne is a boiling French young woman,
drifting through life,
caught up in a romance with a young filmmaker
whom she doesn't know if she loves.


When they meet in a deserted Paris apartment,
it is lust at first sight.

But the affair which begins there
refuses to obey
to the restraints
they try to place on it.

It is so bizarre to see Marlon Brando
as he was in 1972,
already ageing badly...

...and yet still filled of the vitality
and edginess
that made him one
of all times greatest actors!

Now it is 2016 and Brando is dead.

So Brando's most powerful scene
resonates for me
in an unexpected way.

The scene where he confronts the body of his wife,

who had committed suicide.

He mourns her
in an avalanche of rage and grief.

"I may be able to comprehend the universe, but I'll never understand the truth about you," he says.

He calls her vile names.
Then is taken by sobs.

He tries to wipe off her cosmetic death mask

("Look at you! You're a monument to your mother! You never wore makeup, never wore false eyelashes.").

He doesn't understand why she killed herself...

...why she abandoned him...

...why she never really loved him in the first place...

...why he was always
more of a guest in her hotel,

than a husband in her bed...

But such a narcissistic actor as Brando

never held more love
and grief
for anybody else,

than for himself.

And here lays his power!

Here, in perhaps his best performance ever,

he is sorry for himself.

Yes, at the end he was fat.

A lot of people get fat.

But what a thing to happen to Marlon Brando!

How better way to destroy
an actor's vanity?

How more to force us to admire him
for himself ,

and not because Stanley Kowalski
looked sexy
in that famous white T-shirt?

Did he eat as he did, out of self pity?

Or because he felt he deserved to?

Or  because he felt deprived?

The great director Bertolucci is at play in this film.

The long,  slow movements
build dazzling images.


He works almost entirely in shades of brown,

bringing out the textures
of wood and flesh...


He makes the lovers seem
like part of the furniture,
in those dusty rooms
with a history of their own.


He focuses on surfaces
- bare skin, bare floors, the slow-flowing Seine .
When in fact he hints at what runs deeper...

The tango scene is so gorgeously artificial.
The dancers
turn their heads in odd angles.
Paul advises Jeanne to watch their legs.
The two attempt to keep everything formal,
but there's no sense in it,  
without that boiling passion.

Last Tango In Paris is a big, slow film.

Many viewers will find it too slow.


 Paul's cynicism
can become frustrating to watch.


Just as can Jeanne's furious attempts
to redefine the world to suit her needs.


But  the sheer visual beauty of Bertolucci's work
keeps the viewer hooked.

Few serious films challenged actors

to explore the human dimensions of sex.

Isn't it stunning that no film, since 1972,

has been more sexually intimate,

more revealing, honest and transgressive

than "Last Tango in Paris"?

When the two meet,  

Paul forces sex upon her.

It would be rape,

but  Jeanne does not object or resist,

makes her body available

almost with detachment.

It is rape in Paul's mind,

Paul's sexual release seems real,

here and throughout the film.

But we are never sure

what Jeanne feels

during their sex.

Paul insists on "no names,"

no personal histories.

Their meetings in the apartment are not dates,

 but occasions for sex,

which he defines,

and she accepts.

The pair of the 20-year old girl,

and the floppy 50-year-old man

seems unlikely.

But Bertolucci enriches it 

with extraordinary dialogue.

Brando and Schneider

seem natural and spontaneous.

Their conversations are rare

as they do not point to a purpose

or conclusion.

These are

the sorts of things

these people might really say.

And it's fabulous how relaxed,

how playful and sweet

Paul can be with her.

Schneider  plays much of the film

completely nude.

She is held in closeup

during long scenes,

when at 22 she had hardly acted before.

But she shares the film

with Brando

and meets him in the middle.

What Hollywood actress of the time

could have played Brando

on his own field?

Paul does not objectify her.

And neither does the movie.

He keeps his secrets,

he refuses intimacy,

he treats her roughly.

But all this is explained

by the scene with the body of his wife,

and perhaps by his own experience of sex.

Some viewers will see this film

because of its legendary sex scenes.

Unfortunately,

the chances are

that they'll be disappointed.

As they contain more implication,

than direct action....

...And it is really quite soft

by today's standards.

In a film on two characters remaining strangers,

Bertolucci and his actors

achieve a kind of intimacy

other movies rarely approached.

It's not so much about sex,

as about the behaviour

that surrounds it. 

About  the sense of obligation

to make small talk,

the awkward silences,

the shared fantasies

and childish games

far from the real world...

But these are the intimacies

which tie people to one another.

This is the spell

which Paul and Jeanne

both become desperate to break ...

...as we watch them dance

toward destruction.

The film is not perfect.

The character of Tom is a caricature .

Jean-Pierre Leaud behaves not

as if he is a movie director,

but as if he's playing one.

The dialogue between Tom and Jeanne

seems unnatural and forced.

We don't believe it, and we don't care.

What happens in the apartment

between Paul and Jeanne

is what the movie is about.

It is about how sex fulfills

two completely different

needs.

Paul needs

to lose himself

in mourning and in anger.

He needs

to force his manhood

on this stranger

because he failed with his wife.

Jeanne responds

to a man who,

despite his apparent detachment,

is focused on her.

Who desperately needs her .

 He is the opposite of Tom,

who says he wants to film every moment of her life,

but is thinking of his film,

not of her.

Jeanne senses that Paul needs her

as she may never

be needed again

in all her life...

Her despair at the end

is not because of lost romance,

but because

Paul no longer seems to need her.

Then there is the closing sequence,

in which Paul

abandons the behavior of the empty room.

He reveals his name,

tells her about his life,

seems to desire her

in the banal way a middle-age man

desires a young woman.

That changes everything.

Is it plausible,

what she does to him

when he follows her

into her mother's apartment?

I don't know.

But I know

the movie could not end

with both of them alive.

Much has been said

about Brando's death scene

in "The Godfather" ...

...But what other actor

would have thought

to park his chewing gum,

 before

the most important

moment of his life?

By Giulia Ghica Dobre