Bertolucci, having made The Conformist and The Spider's Strategy in 1970, had a simple fantasy from which he was to make The Last Tango in Paris. He was now deep into his Freudian view of existence being fundamentally a phenomenon of sexually driven events. Last Tango was a simple story of a man who meets a woman completely by chance, and then has anonymous sex with her over a short period {three days} in which time, he makes personal explorations that eventually coalesce into a realization of the emotional heart of his existential dilemma.
As with his previous movies, the Roman goddess Fortuna, {that is human fate or destiny}, was of paramount interest to Bertolucci. Marlon Brando had recently completed The Godfather, {not yet released}, and was told of Bertolucci's project by friends. He met with Bertolucci in Paris, viewed The Conformist, {which he had not yet seen}, discussed their common interest in Freud's theories, and agreed to take the main role in Last Tango, infusing the movie with improvisations and autobiographical memories. Destiny had delivered the contemporary world's preeminent movie actor, and Bertlucci proceeded to realize his fantasy.
Brando, now a man in early middle age, {45} opens the movie with a close up of his majestic features in anguish, haranguing God for his, yet to be revealed, predicament. The same train that ends The Conformist passes overhead in this opening sequence. He looks visibly unhappy, but still handsome enough to catch the eye of a passing young Parisian "hippie chick", {the period being the 60's}. The camera then follows her trajectory past a beautiful old apartment, where her eye is arrested by a poster offering an apartment to rent and a telephone number. She rushes to the nearest Bistro and once again encounters the gaunt, disheveled, handsome figure of Brando coming out of the phone booth. Later, in the apartment, to her surprise and amazement, she once again encounters Brando, who had completely by fate seen the same poster advertisement. She is young, sexually active, and a believer in allowing one's sexual impulses freedom of expression {a part of the fashionable 60's revolution}. They find their attraction to have sexual irresistibility. They copulate ferociously. She is simultaneously, having another relationship with her fiancée, a film director, making a cinema verite portrait of his wordy, and frivolously romantic but unconsummated quest for her sexuality {a subtext and contrast to her more compelling and physical intercourse with Brando}. Afterwords, when she voices some curiosity about his identity Brando makes it clear, that he desires total anonymity. No language or dishonesty - a relationship of essential sexuality
We do, in the unraveling of the plot, find out more about Brando's life in Paris. He was married to a woman with whom he had a relationship, of great intimacy, {they told each other everything}. Their bohemian marriage was centered around her small hotel with it residents drawn from the underclass of prostitutes, musicians and drug addicts. Previously he had been an adventurer traveling the world and like Gauguin, {and Brando himself}, sojourned in Tahiti. His wife had inexplicably committed suicide, leaving him bereft and confused vacillating between anger and sorrow as he tried to make sense of the aftermath and pick up the pieces.
The girl who returns regularly to the apartment, which Brando rents and she has the key for, is fascinated by her mysterious lover, with a scatological bent, and a personal taste for bawdy Elizabethan comedic language, {Brando is very funny!!}. After much sex, including heterosexual anal sex, {which certainly had a huge influence on the sexual habits and practices of the world's heterosexual population}, Brando vanishes from the apartment leaving her distraught. This allows her to finally commit to marriage to her enthusiastic, film director boyfriend.
Then the climax, Brando the man with no name, reappears. He has decided that he has an emotional life after all. He pursues her. There is a great Tango scene where he drunkenly capitulates to her, begging her to start a life with him as a couple. She has had enough of his craziness and constant vacillation between tenderness and brutality. Her equilibrium is totally out of kilter. She does not want to continue with this labyrinthine path of insane desire and hopeless insecurity ..........................
A great partnership between Brando, the genius and Bertolucci, the genius. adds up to a genius of a movie
As with his previous movies, the Roman goddess Fortuna, {that is human fate or destiny}, was of paramount interest to Bertolucci. Marlon Brando had recently completed The Godfather, {not yet released}, and was told of Bertolucci's project by friends. He met with Bertolucci in Paris, viewed The Conformist, {which he had not yet seen}, discussed their common interest in Freud's theories, and agreed to take the main role in Last Tango, infusing the movie with improvisations and autobiographical memories. Destiny had delivered the contemporary world's preeminent movie actor, and Bertlucci proceeded to realize his fantasy.
Brando, now a man in early middle age, {45} opens the movie with a close up of his majestic features in anguish, haranguing God for his, yet to be revealed, predicament. The same train that ends The Conformist passes overhead in this opening sequence. He looks visibly unhappy, but still handsome enough to catch the eye of a passing young Parisian "hippie chick", {the period being the 60's}. The camera then follows her trajectory past a beautiful old apartment, where her eye is arrested by a poster offering an apartment to rent and a telephone number. She rushes to the nearest Bistro and once again encounters the gaunt, disheveled, handsome figure of Brando coming out of the phone booth. Later, in the apartment, to her surprise and amazement, she once again encounters Brando, who had completely by fate seen the same poster advertisement. She is young, sexually active, and a believer in allowing one's sexual impulses freedom of expression {a part of the fashionable 60's revolution}. They find their attraction to have sexual irresistibility. They copulate ferociously. She is simultaneously, having another relationship with her fiancée, a film director, making a cinema verite portrait of his wordy, and frivolously romantic but unconsummated quest for her sexuality {a subtext and contrast to her more compelling and physical intercourse with Brando}. Afterwords, when she voices some curiosity about his identity Brando makes it clear, that he desires total anonymity. No language or dishonesty - a relationship of essential sexuality
We do, in the unraveling of the plot, find out more about Brando's life in Paris. He was married to a woman with whom he had a relationship, of great intimacy, {they told each other everything}. Their bohemian marriage was centered around her small hotel with it residents drawn from the underclass of prostitutes, musicians and drug addicts. Previously he had been an adventurer traveling the world and like Gauguin, {and Brando himself}, sojourned in Tahiti. His wife had inexplicably committed suicide, leaving him bereft and confused vacillating between anger and sorrow as he tried to make sense of the aftermath and pick up the pieces.
The girl who returns regularly to the apartment, which Brando rents and she has the key for, is fascinated by her mysterious lover, with a scatological bent, and a personal taste for bawdy Elizabethan comedic language, {Brando is very funny!!}. After much sex, including heterosexual anal sex, {which certainly had a huge influence on the sexual habits and practices of the world's heterosexual population}, Brando vanishes from the apartment leaving her distraught. This allows her to finally commit to marriage to her enthusiastic, film director boyfriend.
Then the climax, Brando the man with no name, reappears. He has decided that he has an emotional life after all. He pursues her. There is a great Tango scene where he drunkenly capitulates to her, begging her to start a life with him as a couple. She has had enough of his craziness and constant vacillation between tenderness and brutality. Her equilibrium is totally out of kilter. She does not want to continue with this labyrinthine path of insane desire and hopeless insecurity ..........................
A great partnership between Brando, the genius and Bertolucci, the genius. adds up to a genius of a movie