The last tango in Paris

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Movie
German title The last tango in Paris
Original title Ultimo tango a Parigi
Country of production Italy , France
original language French , English
Publishing year 1972
length 129 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Bernardo Bertolucci
script Bernardo Bertolucci
production Alberto Grimaldi
music Gato Barbieri
camera Vittorio Storaro
cut Franco Arcalli ,
Roberto Perpignani
occupation
synchronization

The Last Tango in Paris (original title: Ultimo tango a Parigi) is the sixth feature film by the Italian film author Bernardo Bertolucci from 1972. The film tells of an American and a young French woman who meet in a Paris apartment for talks and sex. The work polarized the criticism, some sex scenes were perceived as unacceptable and degrading. The ratings ranged from recognition as a masterpiece to appalling rejection.

Temporarily affected by censorship measures, the film turned into a box office scandal, which helped to polish up the somewhat faded fame of the main actor Marlon Brando . Bertolucci allowed Brando to improvise in some scenes and to incorporate experiences from his wealth of experience. Thematically, the film revolves around the pain of existence and the oppression of the individual by social institutions and expectations.

action

The 45-year-old American Paul has been living in Paris for some time. His French wife Rosa just killed herself. He meets Jeanne, a 20-year-old French woman who lives like that. When viewing an apartment, they suddenly have violent sexual intercourse between them without their acquaintance. You leave the apartment without a word. When Jeanne comes back the next day, Paul insists that they don't tell each other about their lives and that they should only meet in this apartment in future to sleep together.

Their meetings are limited to the apartment. Jeanne meets her fiancé Tom, a young filmmaker who is starting to shoot a pseudo- cinéma-vérité- strip about her for television . At first outraged that he did not ask for her consent, she tells the camera about her family and childhood. Meanwhile, Paul has to deal with the death of his wife Rosa. In the hotel she ran, a run-down dump, he goes to the bathroom where she killed herself; a maid imitates her procedure. After that he argues with his mother-in-law; she wants a church funeral with a priest, flowers and cards, but he angrily forbids her to have a priest.

The next time Paul and Jeanne meet, they sit naked, intertwined, are affectionate and imitate animal sounds. They respect the prohibition to talk about their lives for their present living conditions. But Paul tells of his parents and his youth in rural America; Jeanne talks about her previous sexual experiences and masturbates. Paul discovers that one of the residents in the hotel, Marcel, was his wife Rosa 's lover. Paul and Marcel have a long conversation, but at the end Paul says he still doesn't understand what Rosa saw in Marcel. At another meeting, Paul raped Jeanne and forced anal intercourse using butter. She reciprocates by electrocuting him with a record player.

Jeanne meets Tom again, who suggests - in front of the camera, of course - to get married in a week. Tom would like to shape their future as a "pop marriage". After trying on the wedding dress, she runs away to Paul. She explains to him that she has found the man for life in him. He then tells her to cut her fingernails and stick her fingers up his butt. He goes into the room where his wife is laid out and gives an accusing monologue. Weeping, he explains that he found no affection in her marriage, that she lied to and betrayed him.

Jeanne goes to the apartment, but Paul has moved out. So she brings Tom to take a look at the apartment. But Tom doesn't like them. Jeanne leaves the apartment after Tom. Paul runs after her on the street, spreads his life in front of her and proposes to her to marry. In a bar where Parisians take part in a staid tango competition, he tries in vain to change their minds. With their dance they disturb the couples on the dance floor and Paul shows the competition management the bare bottom. Finally they retreat to a corner, where she tells him it's over, and meanwhile, under the table, pleases him one last time with her hand.

She leaves the place, but he follows her through the city, she escapes into her apartment and takes her father's pistol from a drawer. He asks for her name, and while she says "Jeanne" she fires a shot at him. When he lies dead on the balcony, she mumbles sentences to herself that she will later testify to the police: that she doesn't know him, that he was a madman who followed her and tried to rape her. "I don't know what his name is."

Emergence

Pre-production

Bernardo Bertolucci showed his script to producer Alberto Grimaldi , who liked it and decided to produce it. First Bertolucci wanted to cast the roles with the actors from his last work The Big Mistake , Dominique Sanda and Jean-Louis Trintignant . But Sanda canceled because she was expecting a child, and Trintignant didn't want to undress in front of the camera. So Bertolucci asked other actors. He adored Jean-Paul Belmondo for his appearances in Godard's films and sent him the script. But the latter didn't even want to meet him; he doesn't shoot porn. Alain Delon , valued by Bertolucci for his roles in Visconti's films , showed interest but insisted on being the producer himself and was thus disregarded.

Bertolucci hadn't thought of Brando at all until someone brought the name into play. Grimaldi was the producer of the colonial drama Queimada (1970), with Brando in the lead role. Brando's stubborn behavior while filming Queimada led to cost and deadlines being missed, for which Grimaldi sued him for damages. In June 1971, Grimaldi got a court to freeze Brando's fortune. Brando's situation worsened; he needed money for the expansion of his domicile in Tahiti and for legal quarrels over custody and alimony. The looming box-office success of the film The Godfather , which premiered in March 1972, meant an artistic return for him, but it was not a solution to his financial squeeze, since he had waived a profit sharing with the godfather in favor of a small but quickly available payment. Grimaldi was convinced that Brando would be a good cast and promised to drop his lawsuit if Brando appeared in the Last Tango . He offered him a $ 250,000 salary and a ten percent share of the profits.

Bertolucci and Brando first met in Paris. Bertolucci had admired him from early childhood and met him with the greatest respect and nervous tremors. He briefly related the subject of the planned film and the character he was envisioning. Brando had the Big Error demonstrated and accepted without having read the script. To get to know each other better, he invited the director to Los Angeles. Bertolucci arrived in November 1971, three months before filming began. He explained to Brando that the script was a starting point and that he wanted to develop the character with the actor through improvisation. Because he judged Brando to be very instinctive, he tried to build a "prerational relationship" with him. His visit turned into something of a two-week psychoanalytic session, during which Bertolucci questioned the actor about his childhood, his parents and his sexual ideas. Brando wavered between fascinated openness and concern for his privacy. Both got along well.

After Brando's acceptance, Grimaldi encountered considerable difficulties in securing the financing and distribution for the film; the companies asked initially refused. MGM couldn't do anything with the project because of the erotic content. Paramount , who had bestowed the Great Error in the United States, feared a repetition of the anger with Brando as with Queimada . Finally, United Artists agreed to contribute with $ 800,000; the total cost, however, was 1.4 million.

When the cast with Brando was established, Bertolucci had around a hundred actresses line up for rehearsal scenes in Paris; they all had to bare their torsos. Maria Schneider , after graduating from school at the age of 15, a lover with no set goals, was 19 and had been able to show three small supporting roles. Bertolucci was immediately convinced of its naturalness. His employees were skeptical about his choice, nobody but him had seen her potential: "There was something wild and shy about her."

Turn

Walk under the Métroviaduct of the Bir-Hakeim Bridge , where the film begins

The shooting lasted from February to April 1972. The opening scene was shot on the Bir-Hakeim Bridge in the western Paris district of Passy . There is also the apartment on rue Alboni, which the film claims to be rue Jules Verne. The real rue Jules Verne, however, is far away in the eastern XI. Arrondissement . Most of the cast spoke their role in French and Brando in English, except for the dialogue with Marcel in which he speaks French. In the English-speaking area, the film was released in the original language with subtitles for the French dialogues, which were penned by Agnès Varda .

Brando was unionized and unwilling to work on Saturdays. That is why Bertolucci shot the scenes with Léaud on this weekday, so that Léaud and Brando - as in the film Tom and Paul - never met. The contributors worked up to 14 hours a day. The days seemed endless and merged. Maria Schneider was completely exhausted from the missions until ten or even midnight and sometimes cried. Brando would stop at six every day and leave.

At the beginning of their collaboration, Brando took Schneider to a nearby bistro and they looked each other in the eye for 30 minutes in order to get to know each other better. Bertolucci claimed that Schneider soon became Oedipal fixated on Brando. There were rumors and contradicting statements as to whether Schneider and Brando were having an affair. Schneider later said that Brando had tried to teach her verbatim, but she had made him laugh; she denied a father-daughter relationship.

The staff knew that Brando had often made it difficult for those involved in earlier productions with diva-like airs. During the shooting of the Last Tango , however, he was constructive and had a good relationship with the director. Bertolucci and Brando withdrew for several hours a day in order to find out in a kind of mutual psychoanalysis which emotional expressions would work in which scene. They inspired one another, and their willingness to take risks rocked. They formed a sworn unit, from which Maria Schneider and the staff were excluded, and left the others in the dark about surprising changes to the book. The director granted Brando the freedom that taking himself out of it had brought him so much trouble with other directors.

Bertolucci wanted to treat both characters equally and therefore show them both naked. The director insisted on real and not just hinted at nude scenes. “I was faced with the choice of either showing the sex directly or through hints. The second solution would have been pornographic, because hypocrisy is really pornographic. ”Brando had a big problem with these scenes. Because of him, they had to be postponed by several weeks so that he could lose a few pounds.

subjects

The Last Tango is only about sex when viewed superficially. In the discussion of the film, the topic of sex is often overestimated and obscures the actual themes of the work. Rather, it is a means of expressing modern problems of identity and communication. The main theme is the existential pain within the barriers of contemporary civilization, which decomposes and leaves people in despair. There are different readings of the work, which are used as evidence of its complexity. Bertolucci deliberately leaves some things in the dark, so that you can never fully understand the film. It was Bertolucci's stated intention that the film should ultimately mean something different to everyone. The decisive importance of a work always depends on the viewer.

Withdrawal from the world into a space of eros

Bertolucci originally considered setting the action in Milan or Rome, but when the title Ultimo tango a Parigi came to mind, he liked it very much. “That had something. Paris is like the Forbidden City, it seems to have been specially built for filming. ”One inspiration was Georges Bataille's novel Das Blau des Himmels (1937), in which the main character sleeps with a stranger. Bertolucci had the “obsession” of meeting and loving an unknown woman in an anonymous apartment, which provided the basic idea for the script that he wrote together with Franco Arcalli . He explained that only a well-thought-out script as a starting point would allow him to really improvise.

Paul set up the apartment on the invented rue Jules Verne, the “street of fantasies”, as a “holy place” for his sexuality. For Bertolucci, it is a “privileged space”. The room in which the mattress lies on the floor is, with its round shape and warm orange tones, a maternal lap in which Paul and Jeanne can regress , a kind of children's playground. In the apartment, a camera obscura , there is a strange structure covered by white cloths. It is reminiscent of a modern work of art and expresses loneliness and spiritual emptiness. The house concierge doesn't seem to care about the identity of the people who come and go. Paul wants to ban the social definition of human beings from the home by banning them from naming each other or telling them about life. He also keeps culture and civilization, regulations and repressive taboos outside. “The language of the body, gestures and facial expressions, are more immediate, existential.” Bertolucci himself sees sexual contact as a new form of language that enables them to communicate free of the restraint of the unconscious. Psychological regression can be understood as a protest against the inadequacies of civilization, as a progressive backward movement. A “lively, not socialized eroticism” was found. Sex is not a sequence of familiar steps like in tango, but rather an exploration of the most secret corners of body and mind.

When Bertolucci wrote the script, he said the apartment was an island on which one can escape from the world. He later realized that Paul and Jeanne are "participants in the story". They could not escape their own social situation, because even the attempt to escape is part of this situation. “You can't hide in a room; reality will seep in through the window. ”He realized that the film is not really about a couple, but about loneliness. Jeanne complains that Paul doesn't listen to her. Some reviews recognize the movie's message as saying that sex cannot be a refuge from or an alternative to deepened relationships and responsibility for one another. Paul and Jeanne failed in their attempt to escape because they were incapable of a real partnership. After every encounter, loneliness reappears, her eroticism lacks a spiritual dimension. Sex without tenderness, used as a means of power, leads to chaos and despair. Bertolucci thinks that relationships are only erotic at the beginning; with increasing duration they lose their animal purity. Jeanne and Paul try in vain to maintain this purity.

Ideological background: pleasure principle and oppression

The staunch Marxist Bertolucci dealt directly with political issues in all four films from Before the Revolution (1964) to the Great Error (1970). In the Last Tango in Paris they only work underground; he turns to the individualistic, subjective side of revolutionary thinking. Nevertheless, some rate it as the director's most political film to date because it visualizes these questions in the struggle between sexual freedom and psychological repression.

His worldview is influenced by the philosopher Herbert Marcuse . Marcuse was convinced that one can reduce the alienated work to a vital minimum in industrial society and ban the performance principle. By going back, with the regression behind the achieved level of civilizational rationality, to a non-suppressive, instinctive order, one could free the suppressed pleasure principle. The bourgeois family form, however, suppresses feelings and physical needs, civilizes the savage in man. Frenzied sex is only possible through isolation from society, and the apartment is a utopian space in which the performance principle does not apply. In a dialogue, Jeanne mentions workers who come into the apartment and take off their work clothes to make love. Paul's arrangement with Jeanne is a “spontaneous attempt to escape from the competitive society.” In addition to the inability to relate, there is another reason for the failure of Paul's sexual utopia: Bertolucci wanted to show that redemption and freedom in the present, outside of historical social change, are before the Revolution, are impossible.

The writer Alberto Moravia , who was friends with Bertolucci, saw two opposing forces at work in the Last Tango , namely Eros , which embodies the pleasure principle, and Thanatos , the principle of death. The apartment is the privileged seat of Eros, while Thanatos rules over everything else, over the outside world. Eros remains as the only perfect possibility of articulation in civilization, which means Bertolucci's clear criticism of Western culture. “Sex is alive. All the rest is dead: the bourgeoisie, honor, medals, family, marriage and even love itself. ”Western bourgeois society has no other living truth than sex, but the film Tom made outside is false. Society has suppressed sex in order to harness human strength for work. Bertolucci explained that in Western, bourgeois society, the couple relationship is characterized by loneliness and death. In his film, the characters experienced sex as a new language. The use of tango is corresponding. It originated in the brothels of Buenos Aires at the beginning of the 20th century and, as an import, enjoyed a touch of wickedness and eroticism in Europe. The bourgeois dance couples who practice tango with Bertolucci perform it ritualized and lifeless. Was the Tango in Big mistake still hot-blooded, he is a cold caricature here.

In the infamous “Scene with the Butter” Paul says, “I'll tell you something about the family. This sacred institution, destined to make virtuous people out of savages. […] The Holy Family, Church of the Good Citizens. The children are tortured until they tell the first lie. Until the will is broken through violence. Until freedom is murdered by selfishness. Fucking family, fucking fucking family. Oh, God! ”With this, Paul Jeanne warns of the patriarchal, phallic order. His approach is seen as an attempt to exceed the norms of decency of society, to rebel against them with the desecration not only of Jeanne, but also of propriety. With the same drive, he later demands that Jeanne stick her fingers up his bum. His physical and verbal transgressions deliberately desecrate the sacred. Paul's behavior towards Jeanne is double-edged, it shows that the characters are trapped in their origins, are plagued by the prevailing values ​​and have internalized the rules of family, church and state. It makes him an oppressor himself, despite rebellious rhetoric he exercises phallic authority. Paul's monologue was in the script, but not the act of violence. After the film came out, Bertolucci said that Paul's words would become clearer when he inflicts pain on Jeanne at the same time, in “a kind of didactic wilderness”. He later stated that Paul's self-destruction should be expressed in an act of violence against the girl.

The background to this rape scene is still a topic of conversation decades later. Bertolucci's statements on this from 2013 are often interpreted in such a way that Schneider was not informed about the later course of the scene. He and Brando remembered the scene while they were eating baguettes with butter. “I had decided that Maria shouldn't know, that she should experience it directly while we were filming. [...] When she noticed what was going on, she was blown away. [...] Of course, Marlon didn't really penetrate her. But since we hadn't told her what was coming, it was like real rape. [...] I don't know if I would do it the same way today. "Maria Schneider was upset after playing this scene:" It was an unbelievable humiliation. [...] These are real tears. "

In 2016 Bertolucci commented again and spoke of a “misunderstanding”: “Maria knew about it, because she had read the script in which everything was described. The only innovation was the idea with the butter. "

An interview with Schneider, published in 2007 by the Daily Mail , also shows that she was not surprised by the fake rape while it was being recorded, but learned of a change in the script shortly before filming, although it is not clear whether that change was portrayal of rape or the use of butter: “They didn't tell me about it until just before we started shooting, and I was so mad. [...] I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you can't force someone to do something that wasn't on the script, but I didn't know at the time. "

The circumstances surrounding the shooting resulted in renewed broad media coverage in 2016 with headlines such as “The film scene shows real sexual abuse” ( n-tv ) or “The abuse was real” ( Die Presse ).

Characters and performers

Paul and Marlon Brando

Paul's marriage and despair

Paul desperately longs to be loved. His married life with Rosa must have been a terrible one, a series of verbose arguments and tense silences. He never understood Rosa and doesn't understand her suicide. Bertolucci described Paul's relationship with Rosa as oedipal . Rosa was not only a wife for Paul, she also looked after him for years and was thus a mother figure. One interpretation of Paul's condition is: "His tirades are obsessive monologues that do not call for a dissenting voice or an answer." Conversely, it sees a psychoanalytic approach that assumes that a child develops his identity by looking at himself Mother tries to recognize that serves as a mirror. Paul's desperation comes from his inability to read Rosa's face. Rigid in a mask, she lies laid out and causes him to become aggressive. He behaves accordingly towards the chambermaid Catherine, who recreates the death of Rosa and thus slips into her role. But Paul is also constantly looking for humiliation, has a longing for death and shows Jeanne a dead rat found with morbid pleasure.

Rosa entertained her lover Marcel in her hotel, from whom she made a copy of Paul in order to receive from him the love that Paul was unable to give her. In conventional narrative films, they are rivals of opposing characters and fight each other. But Rosa has matched Paul and Marcel outwardly and dressed them in the same bathrobes. The two men chat about weight gain and hair care over a bottle of bourbon that was still given by Rosa. When Paul leaves Marcel, all he says to him is: "I never understood what she saw in you."

Paul's relationship with Jeanne

The relationship between Paul and Jeanne is optionally referred to as an "affair", "sexual relationship", "intense relationship" or amour fou . Paul shifts his anger and desperation from Rosa to Jeanne in the form of aggressive sexual behavior. Possible motives include revenge on Jeanne for his oedipal love for his mother, self-contempt or an attempt to forget his grief during sex. Without feelings, a sexual relationship cannot be intense and enduring at the same time. Since there is no love between them, he tries to maintain the intensity in the first two thirds of the film by humiliating Jeanne. He does not manage to meet Jeanne without macho and brutality. Every time Jeanne shows real feelings, he develops new ways to humiliate her. He does not want any other relationship besides sexual and denies the possibility of love.

In the last third of the film, however, he made a change of heart and declares love to be achievable, provided that one has previously gone through extreme, terrible experiences. He appears before Jeanne as an admirer, well-groomed in a suit, and he has suppressed his previous violent attacks on romantic love and marriage. But by trying to transform their relationship into a socially legitimate form and into everyday life, he violates his own principles, gives his dream the fatal blow, and that is his downfall. Jeanne then recognizes in him the pathetic failure with chewing gum, the burned-out, pitiful old man who loses his energy outside the special room of the apartment. If he was brutal at the beginning of the narrative, he is emasculated in the course of the film. Towards the end, Paul regresses into a flail who shows the bum to high society, and into a child who sticks the chewing gum under the balustrade before it lies dead in the fetal position in the lap of Paris.

A modern Orpheus

In the Last Tango in Paris one finds allusions to the old Greek legend of Orpheus . Inconsolable about the death of his wife Eurydice , he was able to convince the gods through the art of singing to allow him access to Hades in order to bring her back. However, the gods imposed the condition on him not to turn around and look at her when he rose from Hades. He didn't stick to it and lost her forever.

The Orpheus legend is not easily recognizable because Bertolucci divided the figure of the woman into two figures. Paul tries to win back his deceased wife in the form of Jeanne. The law he established not to name any names and not to tell one another about their previous life corresponds to the command to Orpheus not to look back. When Paul Jeanne offers civil love and spreads his life before her, he breaks the law and ushers in his tragic end. Some staging details also point to Orpheus. Paul's and Jeanne's paths cross for the first time on a bridge; in the Orpheus legend the river Styx had to be crossed. There they pass a collection of police officers who correspond to the mythological guards. Similarly uniformed police could already be found in Cocteau's film adaptation Orphée (1950). The concierge harassing Jeanne is some kind of Erinye . The street name "rue Jules Verne" is also a reference to Orpheus, as the eponymous writer in his story The Carpathian Castle (1892) put the legend into his age.

Brando's improvising performance

From the beginning of the 1950s, Brando developed into an electrifying, rebellious star, the guiding star of a rebellious youth. His acting style was also a rebellion against the style of Hollywood. He behaved as a difficult outsider whom the studios repeatedly prosecuted for failure to comply with agreements. After a series of failures, Brando's career hit rock bottom in the 1960s; the studios were reluctant to finance projects with him. In the early 1970s, there was an assessment that the star Brando was a relic from a bygone era, when the old conventions were still strong enough to be able to rebel against them. It was only his role in The Godfather (1972) that suddenly brought him back his lost stardom. Brando's acceptance of the Last Tango and the start of shooting took place before the godfather's premiere .

It would not have been possible to ignore the experiences that the audience had had with Brando for two decades for the role conception. Paul's biography is Brando's filmography. The chambermaid lists stages in Paul's life: he was a boxer, a revolutionary in South America, traveled to Japan and was a seaman in Tahiti before he married a rich woman in Paris. This corresponds to Brando's important roles in Die Faust im Nacken , Viva Zapata , Sayonara and Meuterei auf der Bounty . In every gesture Brando makes, an earlier role reverberates. He wears an undershirt and hits the door with his fist like in the role of Kowalski in Endstation Sehnsucht . The identity of the star and the character portrayed was only intended for comic roles in classic cinema and if it did occur it was of secondary importance. The star's mythology unfolded outside of the script. Here it is already laid out in the book and found even stronger acceptance through improvisation. Nevertheless, Paul and Brando are not the same. It is of course not possible to determine to what extent Brando will play Paul or himself. At the beginning of the film, the lack of evidence of Paul's social identity leads to the figure being filled with “Brando”.

Jeanne refuses Tom's request to prepare a scene for his film: “Tonight we will improvise!” Bertolucci did not provide any finished roles; he gave the actors room to improvise so that they could bring a lot of themselves to the role. In the context of the narrative, he conducted almost psychoanalytic conversations with them in order to evoke certain moods and to exacerbate tensions and uneasiness. “The relationship with them was very intense; I managed to get rid of my restraint and helped them do the same. […] In this sense, it's a liberated film. ”When he talks about the characters, it's not about Paul and Jeanne, but about Marlon and Maria. He asked Brando to just be himself, to play as if the character was Marlon Brando himself and not Paul. According to his impression, Brando enjoyed this work a lot. Brando could, contrary to his training in method acting , not have to become someone else, but adapt the role to his own character. Bertolucci assessed the contribution of Brando and Schneider as immeasurable, because Brando played the same scene differently in every shot: “It's the most fantastic gift an actor can give.” Brando does not follow his reason, he follows his intuition and his own Instincts, like a hunter, with the wisdom of an ancient Indian. Bertolucci was so impressed by his portrayal that he feared he would not be up to him as a director.

A single recording was sufficient for many of Brando's performances, including memories of his youth. Brando's family lived on a farm near Chicago when he was young. The father was virile and disappointed in his son, the mother was attached to nature and theater. Both drank; their marriage was also fraught with affairs. Brando brought this background into the improvised scene with milking the cow and showed real tears. Bertolucci was aware that he had penetrated Brando's intimacy and believed that Brando had endured it with a mixture of horror and fascination. After the shoot, Brando is said to have furiously accused him of having been violated and torn from his insides. After the film was released, Brando tried to downplay the personal, authentic content of the given character; too much is being interpreted into it. From himself there was “only a certain desperate melancholy in Paul. A dark grief. Hate of myself. All men, when they reach my age and are not complete idiots, must feel an emptiness, a feeling of fear and uselessness. ”Some critics rated the scene as Brando's best and most touching. The cow dung represented the inevitable pain of human existence.

Jeanne and Maria Schneider

Jeanne's relationship with Paul

Jeanne's father died in the Algerian war. She found him gorgeous in his uniform. One can assume that she hopes to find her father in Paul. Bertolucci also described their relationship as Oedipal. Jeanne is passive, can only be excited through brutality, submits to Paul and is fascinated by him because he gives her the experience of complete surrender. Paul's hermit, his mystery and authenticity make her encounters with him something higher than her everyday life, convey an experience of adventure and freedom. Paul doesn't want to age, Jeanne doesn't want to grow up. Occasionally it is claimed that Jeanne wanted to free herself from her bourgeois way of life. She masochistically endures the rape by Paul out of guilt about her class.

Jeanne's fascination for Paul only lasts as long as he is the powerful, brutal man. When he asks her to penetrate him, she already suspects that he will stop playing the strong man and that she will uphold her bourgeois values. The attraction of Paul or Brando's mythical past ceases to exist when he suggests a normal bourgeois coexistence. “When the past becomes real, it can no longer provide a living myth for the present.” She perceives his attempt to offer her a civil love affair as an affront. What Jeanne lives out in the special room of the apartment is unacceptable outside in the light of day; She is annoyed by Paul's pursuit. When he puts on the Colonel Képi for Jeanne's father in the final scene, he slips into his role. She escapes her demon by shooting Paul. Is it a liberation against Paul's rule over her, or is she too young to bear his suffering? Does the active step make them mature? It is also unclear whether she will shoot Paul on behalf of her father. In the end, Paul's impositions drove her closer to Tom.

Jeanne's being

It was said of Jeanne that nobody over forty had the stature to fight her. Bertolucci: "Jeanne calmly climbs over the carcass of this man, with superior innocence and unconscious cruelty." Just as she skips the broom at the beginning, she also takes other obstacles and adversities. She exudes a youthful, indifferent arrogance towards civilization and authorities, a provocative, egocentric oblivion to the world. "In the 1970s, Jeanne destroyed the social and sexual rebellion of the 1960s with bored indifference." She has no guilt about Tom about her affair with Paul. While Paul is made up of memory, she is a girl with no past. Nevertheless, the director described her as petty-bourgeois, "my youthful self." Female critics in particular found that the character lacks character and depth.

Maria Schneider's appearance

Schneider was described as a "round and carnal young woman with heavy breasts". She shows her sexuality and nudity with childlike unconcern like the girls in Renoir's paintings . Bertolucci said she looked very French physically. Schneider was very self-confident and narcissistic in public. She found herself more cynical than Brando, freer than Bertolucci, and she was an anti-star without myths, just Maria. She boasted of having had fifty male and twenty female sex partners to date; Brando is too old for her. He is afraid of old age, uses make-up carefully, is lazy and sometimes slow. His fear of nudity shows that he is not as free as her. She emphasized that she had never been submissive. “I want to emphasize that Jeanne was a role. There have been no stories like this in my life. Never. ”A retrospective judgment means that Maria Schneider's contribution to the work was mostly underestimated. She doesn't appear like an inexperienced actress, but rather like a star with a sense of self-worth that makes her forget the expectations of the audience.

Tom

Tom arrives at Gare St. Lazare and assaults Jeanne, who has been waiting for him, with his team, which is equipped with cameras and microphones. Despite her resistance, he makes her the subject of his film. Not to Paul, to Tom she says: “You force me to do things that I have never done before. I'm sick of being raped! "

While Paul looks bored, Tom is enthusiastic; where Paul sees “shit”, Tom looks for the most elegant tracking shot. Paul has crawled into the apartment and the hotel, Tom is assigned the public space. However, Tom has sunk into the disembodied sphere of cinema, while Paul seeks sensual experiences. Tom can't get on with real life without first translating it into movie terms. He or his camera are often too late to capture life. He is a banal personality, unable to understand Jeanne, even “mentally prepubescent”. His emotional connection to his film is stronger than to Jeanne of flesh and blood. He frames her with his fingers before hugging her; the distant gaze takes precedence over physical closeness. Bertolucci used the character Tom to outweigh the severity of Brando's role. The critics also saw the comic: "His deep ignorance about life is only exceeded by his encyclopedic knowledge of the Cahiers du cinéma ."

One saw in Tom a caricature or a parody of avant-garde cinéma vérité authors and an unimaginative voyeur. Many assume that the cartoon is related to Jean-Luc Godard . Tom demands something new with childlike zeal - new marriage, new gestures, new apartment - and makes fun of Jeanne's romantic preference for the old apartment. Indeed, Godard called for a new film language . Tom uses his girlfriend like Godard used his partners Anna Karina and Anne Wiazemsky . The figure represents a godard bourgeois artist who pretends to be a revolutionary. In a time after Godard, Tom's “creative” approach is powerless because the old values ​​have already been stripped down; "There are no more dragons left to kill."

Bertolucci had wanted to shoot with Léaud for a long time because he liked him from films with Truffaut and Godard. He was completely disappointed with the cinema through the 1960s, an avid admirer and occasional imitator of Godard, before he freed himself from this influence and caustic attacked Godard with The Great Mistake (1970). Hence, in Tom, one can see Bertolucci's caricature of himself, a good-natured mockery for cineastes. Bertolucci also emphasized that Tom was not a Godard figure. He felt sympathy for Tom because he saw himself in himself. For him, the character was a farewell to the film craze, which had been very important to him in the past and which he now found increasingly ridiculous.

Allusions to film history

Bertolucci made it clear that the character Tom is not a theoretical reflection on cinema and that there is no such thing as a “film within a film”. Tom is part of the spectacle and the action. He tried to film a story and not a theory. The references to other works are always part of the story and they are used in such a way that even viewers without prior knowledge can gain something from the respective scenes. Tom is a character who drives the plot forward even if the viewer is not aware of the importance of his actor Léaud for the Nouvelle Vague . "If Léaud evokes laughter, it is by no means a little wink among cinéasts."

An example is the scene in which Tom throws a life preserver into the canal with the label “L'Atalante” on it. The ring drowns immediately. Bertolucci wanted to express his painful memory of Jean Vigo , the creator of the film of the same name (1934). The ring also behaves like one of those tricky objects from the Buster-Keaton films. Furthermore, the sinking of the ring promising rescue can be interpreted as a sign that the myth of romantic love cultivated by the cinema offers no security. Bertolucci made his first self-quote when Paul and Jeanne walk past the Hotel d'Orsay, where he shot the Big Error . Paul, in turn, dies in the same position as Brando's main character in Viva Zapata . Bertolucci explained that Paul is looking for pristine authenticity in Paris, like the writer Henry Miller . As an American in Paris, he also followed in the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway and Gene Kelly , whose stepping steps ( 1952 ) he followed.

Brando, the representative of old Hollywood , and Léaud, the symbol of the Nouvelle Vague, compete without meeting each other. The third in the league is Italian neorealism . Marcel's actor Massimo Girotti has appeared in numerous neorealist films, especially in the style- defining Ossessione (1943) by Luchino Visconti . Maria Michi , who represents Rosa's mother, can also be assigned to this direction . When Paul and Marcel sit next to each other, old Hollywood and neorealism come together. Paul: "You were very beautiful, twenty years ago?" Marcel: "Not like you."

Staging

dramaturgy

Paul and Jeanne appear out of nowhere, their lives are only gradually unfolding. She says: “We turn chance into fate.” Compared to Bertolucci's earlier films, the dramaturgy here is rather simple and linear. The narrative is not about events but rather about symbolic situations. Bertolucci merges diverse staging approaches. Antonin Artaud's theories , according to which the “theater of cruelty” should not only occupy its audience intellectually, but also shake it up sensually, inspired him, as did Verdi operas and Hollywood melodrama, to express the feelings of the oppressed individual. For example, when Paul picks up and carries Jeanne the first time they meet, Bertolucci parodies old Hollywood hugs, but then sex violently breaks into the scene. Because of the combination of complex production conditions with the search for spontaneous authenticity, Bertolucci also called the film "Cinéma vérité for the rich".

Drastic

Paul's often vulgar language is striking. “I'm going to get a pig and I'll let the pig fuck you. I want that pig to throw up in your face and that you swallow the puked up. [...] The pig will die if it fucks you. Then I want you to go behind the pig and smell his death fart. ”The obscene dialogues were sometimes perceived as clichéd. Regarding nudity and the drastic sexual representations, it is said that Bertolucci wrapped them up with elegance and tact, that they were enterotized and by no means pornographic; they exposed feelings, not bodies. He explained that it was not an erotic film, just one about erotica, which for him was a dark thing. It was Brando who enriched the dialogues with profanity from the 1950s. He also came up with the idea of ​​showing your bum in the tango hall; he had already let his pants down while the godfather was shooting . Many are convinced that Brando is no less the author of the Last Tango than Bertolucci , especially where they improvised. Perhaps Bertolucci had given Brando so much leeway that he lost control of the subject. This is where speculations begin as to how the film would have turned out with Trintignant and Sanda.

Bacon's visual influence

During the opening credits, the paintings Double Portrait by Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach and Study for a Portrait (Isabel Rawsthorne) are shown, both by the Irish painter Francis Bacon in 1964. He is known for his images of tortured, distorted bodies, people as a mass of flesh expressing existential fear; a common motif is the scream as a metaphor for pain. The first retrospective of his work in France took place in October 1971 at the Grand Palais . Bertolucci took his cameraman Vittorio Storaro to the exhibition. He then led Brando there because he “believed that his face and body had the same alien, infernal deformability. I wanted a Paul who was reminiscent of […] the characters who compulsively appear again and again at Bacon: Faces that are eaten away from the inside. ”This idea is implemented, for example, in the scene in which Paul visits the bathroom in that his wife killed herself. He can be seen through an irregular frosted glass that deforms his face. In one of Bacon's pictures, the middle one of the triptych Studies from human body (1970), a couple can be seen making love on a circular surface. In his pictures, the figures are often on the floor. After anal sex with Jeanne, Paul lies on the floor and his contortions are reminiscent of Bacon's figures. After sex acts, Jeanne and Paul are often at a greater distance from each other. In other scenes they are alone in the picture or separated by strong lines within the picture composition, so that the whole thing appears like an approximation of Bacon's diptychs and triptychs. Baconesk is also the effect of the old lady who flushes her dentures under the tap in the toilet.

Bertolucci tries to give meaning to every single shot through composition, camera movement, color and light. In the outside scenes, he and Storaro capture the melancholy of autumn afternoons. The ornate stairwells, elevators, circular lamps and Jeanne's initial costumes are reminiscent of the style around 1900. The apartment is elegant, but it is decaying; it creates an irrational ambience.

light

The exterior shots show a gray Paris and are mostly shadowless. In contrast, side light falls into the apartment, which leaves the figures half in shadow. The horizontal incidence of light shows that the room is dependent on the outside. It's a warm, orange light just before sunset. Storaro and Bertolucci also found inspiration for this light in Bacon's pictures, where orange backgrounds are often found. Storaro: “At that time I didn't know anything about the symbolism and the dramaturgical quality of the color orange, but I felt that it was the right color for the film. I didn't know that orange is the color of family and warmth, the color of the womb, the color of a certain maturity in a man. [...] A setting sun is the symbol of a man in the end of his life. ”It is remarkable that the French adjective tango describes a lively orange.

camera

As usual with him, Bertolucci determined the camera movements himself. The choreography of the tango and its play of attraction and refusal can be seen in various scenes, including the opening sequence in which Paul, Jeanne and the camera move towards and away from each other. One review said that this sequence was beautifully cinematic and pointed to the style of the rest of the film. Elsewhere, the camera pounces on Paul like a bird of prey to tear the entrails out of his body. With that, his agony comes to the fore. The camera movements are as agile as the arm movement of a painter. But, in comparison to earlier films, Bertolucci uses less camera movements than movements of the characters within the picture to express something. The progressive backward movement, with which the suppressed pleasure principle is to be freed and with which psychoanalysis tries to go back to childhood in order to solve problems for the future, also comes into its own with the camera: Tom counts Jeanne's age towards zero, she gives way to Tell back - memories are translated into spatial backward movement.

music

In his early creative phase, Bertolucci was still of the opinion that music should be independent of the image. Now he gave music a more decisive role. The composer Gato Barbieri joined the post-production and wrote the music in parallel with the cut film. The jazzy style of the music, as well as the black saxophonist in the hotel window, underline the suffering Paul experienced. According to the reviews, the music forms a powerful foundation for the narrative, drives it forward. She is characterized as feverish and Barbieri's saxophone solo as hot-blooded.

Censorship and box office success

World premiere and a hymn of praise

The film had its first contact with the audience at the time of the Venice Film Festival in September 1972, when some Italian directors boycotted the official program with a counter-event for political reasons. On this, Bertolucci presented excerpts from the not yet finished film. The film and media people present suspected that the work would have difficulties with censorship.

Grimaldi pushed for the Last Tango to be premiered at a film festival so that it could be considered an art film. And so the premiere took place on October 14, 1972, the last evening of the New York Film Festival. Since rumors circulated that it was a particularly wicked strip, the tickets were traded black at high prices and were sold out days in advance. Grimaldi and Bertolucci flew the film copy in their hand luggage. There were no advance performances and they only showed the work once because they had yet to submit the film to the Italian censors.

One of the most respected film critics in America at the time, Pauline Kael , had been an admirer of Marlon Brando since the 1940s. In 1966, when his career was on the decline, she defended him as an all-American hero who was great and free because he was not guided by the goals of a corrupt society. Unfortunately, he no longer gets any worthy roles. Shortly after the performance in New York, she praised the Last Tango with exuberance and superlatives. The day of its premiere has the same significance for film history as the premiere of Le sacre du printemps in 1913 has for the history of music. “There was no commotion, nobody pelted the screen, but I think you can say that the audience was in a state of shock because 'The Last Tango in Paris' has the same hypnotic excitement as 'Sacre' and has the same original power "So far, the cinema has only shown mechanical sex without passion and emotional violence. "Bertolucci and Brando have changed the appearance of an art form." The work is emotionally troubling. In the declining relationship model of dominant men and women who worship them, sexual aggressions and battles are lived out. “Bertolucci creates a framework that enables improvisation. Everything is prepared, but subject to change, the whole film is alive, with a flair for discovery. […] Brando can show off all his artistry: intuitive, delighted, princely. ”Your much-cited criticism should prove to be influential on the following evaluations.

Attempts at censorship

On December 15, 1972, theatrical release began in France. The French censorship authorities had released the film without editing requirements, but warning signs in the cinemas drew the audience's attention to the "tricky and delicate" parts. The President of the Authority said he had confidence in the audience's maturity and self-determination. However, there were temporary performance bans in some cities.

In mid-November 1972, the Italian film censors refused to release the film. Producer Grimaldi, who had problems with censorship because of a Pasolini film , agreed to two cuts; the film was able to open in a few cities in mid-December. A viewer in Bologna immediately filed a lawsuit against the producer, the director and the main actors. The court found a "rude, disgusting, naturalistic and even unnatural representation". Police seized copies of films across the country; the defendants each received a two-month prison sentence and the court revoked Bertolucci's civil rights. The procedure, which was not unusual at the time, was based on still valid laws from the time of fascism and aroused resistance from filmmakers. They demanded the abolition of state film censorship. The mayor of Bertolucci's hometown Parma expressed his solidarity with him. Bertolucci insisted that the work should not be judged on the basis of individual scenes, but only as a whole. It was not until a month and a half later that the court acquitted the work of the charge of obscenity. The film was again banned in Italy from 1976 to 1987.

In the United States, the lender was afraid of the film, United Artists, in view of the protests against the pornographic film Deep Throat , the Last Tango could be moved in the nearby; that Pauline Kael had elevated Bertolucci's film to the rank of a serious work of art came in handy. United Artists published their review as a two-page ad in the New York Times . Before it opened to the public in early February 1973, the distributor pursued the unusual strategy of not providing the critics with as much information as possible, but with little information. He invited only a select few journalists to the sparse press screenings. By not commenting on rumors, he managed to keep the production talking longer. However, the procedure also angered many critics. Initially, the film ran in just one room in New York, at five dollars instead of the usual three dollars. "Early screams - and a lot of whispering - sparked a rush for tickets."

In the Federal Republic of Germany the film did not open until March 29, 1973. He was released without any cuts from the age of 18 with the exception of the silent holidays . Der Spiegel interpreted the fact that Claus Biederstaedt has synchronized Brando with a soft voice as “synchronized comfort”. The Last Tango was banned in Chile, South Africa and the Soviet Union . Interested Spaniards circumvented the ban in their country by organizing specially organized bus trips to French cinemas near the border. There were protests against the film or its approval by censors in Great Britain (where the film was cut by ten seconds) and in Australia.

Talking point and commercial success

Bertolucci stated that he was out to reach a wider audience than before, but he was not prepared for the success of the Last Tango . He swore it was not his intention to shock. The audience is grown up and has a choice. The success was not only due to artistic aspects. The censorship measures in several countries and its scandalous reputation meant that the film became an inevitable hot topic of conversation everywhere. The “boisterous ballroom dance of the season” polarized the opinions of the audience. In Paris, the film was often sold out despite 39 daily screenings. The Bild newspaper did not miss the opportunity to publish at least a dozen articles in connection with the Last Tango from December 1972 until the German theatrical release at the end of March 1973 . Most were focused on sex and scandal, but did not reveal any particular attitude towards the film. Many moviegoers expected a particularly swine film; Finding a drama of desperation made them feel deceived. On the other hand, in Palermo an elderly man is said to have died of a heart attack during the performance.

The Last Tango drew numerous parodic porn, comics, and other adaptations. There was also rumor that the film would help remove the mountains of butter created by subsidies in the EEC . Because the film was not based on a literary model that could have benefited from the success of the film, the distributor commissioned an author to work out a novel. The film grossed about $ 50 million worldwide, including $ 16 million in the United States. At least 4 million should have flowed to Brando and solved his financial problems.

reviews

Contemporary criticism

The critical judgments fell mostly into two camps. On the one hand, there was enthusiasm for a sensational film event and an artistically outstanding, liberating work that is supposed to enjoy freedom of expression. On the other hand, there was shock of indignation, the charge of degrading profanity, often combined with calls for censorship. In the discussion, the sex portrayals dominated the message and meaning, strengths and weaknesses of the film. Both positions made it difficult for those who only saw the film later to watch it undisguised and to form their own opinion without prejudice. This was especially true in the Federal Republic, where the film started later.

Der Spiegel recommended the film as “a work of undeniable brilliance that is well worth seeing.” Cinéma 73 said: “The camera brags with bravura, but always intelligent, because it determines space and time with devilish precision.” The colors and tones that appeal to the remember Visconti's best work. "It's just a shame that in such a remarkable work, Léaud roams the streets with the indifferent expression of a paranoid zombie." Positif saw it very similarly : "The little that separates the 'Last Tango' from a very great film are inadequacies, or rather the inadequate final drawing of the character of Léaud: His stereotypical, overloaded feverishness contradicts the measured pace of the film. " Le Figaro attested Bertolucci staging brilliance and said:" Bertolucci does what Pasolini is not capable of. His talent goes beyond vulgarity. ”Likewise, Le Monde :“ Bertolucci goes so far that he sometimes touches on pornography. But his talent saves him. ”On the disclosure of Brando's intimate personality:“ This kind of rape that we witness here is the secret of the fascination that the film exerts. […] Whether you like it or not - and many don't like it - you cannot deny the magnetic power of this work. ”The work was predicted the same future as L'avventura (1960) and Last year in Marienbad (1961): At first a scandal in each case, later the overwhelming importance of the film becomes apparent.

Opponents of the work often suspected that it was pornography masked as art. The star saw “aggressive, animal sex scenes, which are of a previously unknown immediacy and unrestrainedness, and against the common porn films look like a conservative fitness program.” Le Canard enchaîné was of the opinion that Brando was playing one tail-controlled morons. While Bertolucci remains unclear thematically, the images are clear. His film "often sucks" and talent is no excuse. One critic found the film humiliating and noted, “With Schneider, natural fur takes the place of talent.” The liberation rhetoric of the proponents provoked the reply: “As far as the liberating and revolutionary aspects are concerned, I would like to see the film as proof not missed his enthusiastic reception in Hanoi, Beijing, Moscow and Havana; all countries that have been freed from oppressive political systems like ours. "

The Catholic film correspondence gave mixed criticism . She found the film to be quite American: “The pessimism in the suggestion of withdrawing from the position 'the world is broken anyway, I live as I can', gives this work a surface structure, if not to say banality, which in much of the position is more modern American intellectual. "The director had set himself too much and allowed himself Freudian simplifications, but had great narrative qualities:" All that remains of this film is the openness of the portrayal of very personal worlds, an unusual dramaturgical talent and a feeling for the characters Actors, creatively adapting working methods at a very high level. ” L'Express warns: Beware of the deceptive title that arouses expectations of an admirable tango scene like the one in the Great Error . “Some nice moments. Lots of strong moments. A sexual freedom that is another form of bondage. ”The judgment in Film Quarterly is also mixed . The film has too narrow an understanding of what people can give each other in love to be a great film. He shows brilliantly how bourgeois values ​​deform people, even if Jeanne is too shallow a figure to represent women. However, he is visually complex and passionate.

Some publications evaded comment. The film review failed to evaluate it and only gave various explanations by Bertolucci. The Cahiers-du-cinéma critic Pascal Bonitzer missed the Marxist-Leninist position in the dispute between “reaction against liberalism”.

Some directors also spoke. Pasolini did not appreciate the film of his former pupil Bernardo; the sex in it is depressing rather than creative; he saw the cast with Brando as being sold out to the bourgeois commercial cinema. Nevertheless, while shooting his film Salò , he boasted that it would shock more than the Last Tango . Godard was present at the Paris premiere and left the room after ten minutes because he found the film horrific. Robert Altman discovered the utmost cinematic honesty and made the Last Tango the benchmark for all previous and future films.

Critique of gender images

When Bertolucci wrote The Last Tango , his relationship with his partner was breaking up after five years. With Brando there were suspicions that he had developed a serious hatred of women and family because of the disputes over alimony and custody. The strip immediately came under fire from feminists, some of whom called for a ban. Bertolucci said it was a far too instinctive reaction for him. The work is about chauvinism, and making moral judgments does not interest him. In general, the film traumatizes men more than women because it questions masculinity. There were critics who agreed with this reading: Paul is at the same time an extreme expression of macho as well as an example of its failure, which makes feminist criticism difficult.

With regard to gender images, however, skepticism prevails. In the collective mentality, intercourse between equal partners, without rulers and ruled, is still quite unusual. The fact that Paul allows Jeanne to penetrate him is just a reversal of roles between the ruling and the ruled. Bertolucci completely rejects the idea of ​​equal love and caricatures it shabbily in the figure of Léaud. Jeanne tries to escape the dominance of the man over the woman, but is at the same time attracted to her. The film criticizes and at the same time affirms female passivity in the face of male potency. What it has in common with popular porn films is that the more a woman subordinates herself to the sexual desires of the man, the more liberated she is and should discover her true nature. The enthusiastic Pauline Kael was assumed to have consumed the work at a low level of consciousness, did not recognize the actual subject and succumbed to the scenes of the submission of the woman by Brando.

Paul's monologue in front of the laid out Rosa builds up an image of the woman as a riddle, but also as a being who acts underhand against the men. Paul, the rebel against society, humiliates Jeanne as a representative of the bourgeoisie; Bertolucci thus maintains the social humiliation of women. Jeanne does not take part in his rebellion, not even when she shoots him in the end because she is acting as an enforcer of social norms. The film shows how destructive patriarchy affects the characters. The criticism of the patriarchy, however, is presented from Paul's point of view. He is the bearer of suffering and the main melodramatic character, and male suffering is glorified. This restricts the general validity of the criticism of patriarchy. Any reference to the suffering of women must be sought outside of the film text, by viewers who have an empathy that Bertolucci lacks.

The character Jeanne is perceived as inexperienced. An imbalance also resulted from the pairing of a young actress with a seasoned star, whom Bertolucci had assigned the tragedy. Michael Althen described this as follows: “ What he (Brando) plays is, of course, the tragedy of a ridiculous man, but the way he plays it, it becomes the drama of the gifted child, aged early, never grown up. The truly talented child in this film is his partner Maria Schneider, of whom it cannot be said that she was overlooked, but whose contribution to tango has been stubbornly underestimated. "

She stands completely naked in front of the camera for a long time, he is almost always dressed, never seeing his member. Feminist criticism sees this as an expression of power. For Bertolucci, Jeanne's nudity had something childlike, and Paul appeared to him more fatherly in clothing; he wanted to emphasize the Oedipal relationship between the figures. He claimed not to have used existing recordings of Brando's penis in the final version because he identified himself so much with Brando / Paul that he would have felt ashamed as if he showed himself naked.

Later reviews

Authors who deal with the Last Tango in Paris in the context of Bertolucci monographs and place them in a row with his earlier and later works rate the film differently. Kolker (1985) comes to the conclusion: “It is perhaps his most emotionally rich work, but the feelings are not at the expense of a well thought-out, complex form.” And: “The film analyzes ideology and characters and is very much reflected moving form itself. He forces the viewer to be attentive to things for which the characters are blind. At the same time it makes this attention difficult; it is seductive and repellent at the same time, invites you to immerse yourself and refuses to. Bertolucci expresses an intensity in thought and feeling that he has never achieved again before or since. "Kline (1987) thinks that what is genius about film is the merging of several levels of thought in a single work: the mythical of the Orpheus saga, the psychoanalytic and the metafilmic. “By concentrating on Paul's compulsive intrusion into Jeanne's body and on Tom's delusional striving to film Jeanne, Bertolucci makes viewers aware of their own role as voyeurs.” Tonetti (1995), on the other hand, says: “The Last Tango lacks substance; a refined, but restless visual style replaces the exploration of the characters and circumstances. ”With the lonely transgression eroticism, the work testifies to its time and is a forerunner of further films with a dull, soulless eroticism that is self-sufficient.

Kuhlbrodt (1982) places the emphasis on the form: “What Bertolucci is trying to do with the Last Tango is the obsessive approach to an audience that is used to watching Hollywood films and also gets to see a Hollywood star - but a film in which the bourgeois viewing habits are turned upside down. […] Bertolucci has found a language whose immediacy has obviously radically torn down the usual barriers to communication. The film is as direct as the address of the Francis Bacon pictures. ”Several authors point out that this film marks a turning point in Bertolucci's work. In his early work, Bertolucci based himself on the model of an uncompromisingly experimental film that attacks the values ​​of a capitalist society both in terms of content and form. Gradually he adopted an approach that was also accessible and pleasing to the general public. Formally, he gave up radical stylistic devices, returned to a linear narrative style and added melodramatic elements. In terms of content, he moved the political issues into the background and focused on the individual-psychological level. Despite the move away from avant-garde cinema, the film challenges the viewer to think about watching films and the political dimension of private feelings. Loshitzky (1995) states that, in addition to the characters, Bertolucci is also going through a progressive regression towards the conventional narrative forms of the medium. The work works as a postmodern progressive film, since it moves within these forms, only to show the audience that they are no longer tenable.

The last tango in Paris became a symbolic film of the 1970s, when Western society and its values ​​were in a state of upheaval. The film promoted the removal of taboos from sexuality, but turned it pessimistically into tragedy. A few months after he started Das große Fressen , which was said to surpass tango in terms of shock effect. This was followed by The Night Porter and In the Realm of the Senses , which in turn had to struggle with censorship measures. All these films have now been broadcast on German television channels.

Awards

Marlon Brando and Bernardo Bertolucci were nominated for an Oscar in 1974 for best actor and for best director. Brando won the National Society of Film Critics Award of the United States and the New York Film Critics Circle ; Bertolucci was nominated for the Golden Globe Award and won the film award of the Italian Association of Film Journalists ( Sindacato Nazionale Giornalisti Cinematografici Italiani ) . Maria Schneider won the David di Donatello film award . The film was also awarded the Golden Screen in 1974.

synchronization

The German dubbed version was created in 1972 by Ultra-Film -Synchron GmbH in Berlin. The speakers are:

role actor German voice
Paul Marlon Brando Claus Biederstaedt
Jeanne Maria Schneider Heidi Fischer
Tom Jean-Pierre Léaud Randolf Kronberg
Catherine Catherine Allégret Dagmar Biener
Marcel Massimo Girotti Klaus Miedel
Rosa's mother Maria Michi Berta Drews

Further sources

literature

documentary

  • Once upon a time ... the last tango in Paris . TV documentary by Serge July and Bruno Nuytten, arte France / Folamour Productions / Odyssée 2004 (first broadcast on Arte on December 3, 2004; see also a review of this documentary in the taz on the same day)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Claretta Micheletti Tonetti: Bernardo Bertolucci. The cinema of ambiguity . Twayne Publishers, New York 1995, ISBN 0-8057-9313-5 , pp. 122-141
  2. ↑ Florian Hopf: Everything about: The last tango in Paris . Heyne, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-453-00375-6 , p. 9. Michael Althen: Ultimo tango a Parigi , in: Marlon Brando. Bertz Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-929470-86-1 , pp. 241-244; July / Nuytten 2004, 4: 00-5: 00
  3. ↑ Bertolucci in conversation with Positif , No. 424, June 1996, p. 29; and in conversation in July / Nuytten 2004, 4: 00–5: 00
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v July / Nuytten 2004
  5. ^ Peter Manso: Brando: the biography . Hyperion, New York 1994, ISBN 0-7868-6063-4 , pp. 724 and 729
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Manso 1994, pp. 730-767
  7. ↑ Newsweek , February 12, 1973, p. 56; Manso 1994, p. 735; July / Nuytten 2004, 6:00
  8. ↑ Newsweek , February 12, 1973, p. 56; Hopf 1973, pp. 9-10; Manso 1994, pp. 735-736; July / Nuytten 2004 7:00
  9. ↑ a b c d David Shipman: Marlon Brando. His films - his life . Heyne, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-453-04126-7 , p. 258; Manso 1994, p. 736
  10. ↑ Hopf 1973, p. 11; Manso 1994, p. 740
  11. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Newsweek of February 12, 1973, pp. 54–58
  12. ↑ Hopf 1973, pp. 105-109; Manso 1994, p. 740
  13. ↑ Sight and Sound, Summer 1972, p. 146. Manso 1994, pp. 737 and 760.
  14. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Special requests in the old building . In: Der Spiegel . No. 3 , 1973 ( online ).
  15. ↑ a b c d e f Gérard Legrand: The last time I saw Hollywood. Sur Le dernier tango à Paris . In: Positif, March 1973, pp. 22-26
  16. ↑ Sight and Sound, Summer 1972, p. 148. Shipman 1990, p. 266
  17. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j A tango - not for Good Friday . In: Der Spiegel . No. 9 , 1973, p. 105-106 ( online ).
  18. ↑ a b c d e Leslie J. Taubman: Last tango in Paris . In: Magill's Survey of cinema, English language films , 2nd series, Volume 3, Salem Press, Englewood Cliffs NJ 1981, pp. 1318-1321
  19. ↑ Newsweek, February 12, 1973, p. 57; Hopf 1973, p. 17; Manso 1994, p. 740
  20. ↑ Hopf 1973, p. 18; Bertolucci in conversation with Positif, March 1973, p. 33; Manso 1994, p. 739; Fernand Moszkowicz, 1st assistant director, in July / Nuytten 2004, 1:00
  21. ↑ a b Bertolucci, quoted in. in: L'Avant-Scéne Cinéma, February 1973, pp. 54-55
  22. ^ Joan Mellen: Sexual Politics and "Last Tango in Paris" . In: Film Quarterly, No. 3, Fall 1973, p. 9. Julian C. Rice: Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris . In: Journal of Popular Film, No. 2 Spring 1974, p. 157. Robert Ph. Kolker: Bernardo Bertolucci . British Film Institute, London 1985, ISBN 0-85170-166-3 , p. 125
  23. ^ Reclam's film guide . Reclam, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-15-010389-4 , p. 582. Kolker 1985, p. 128; Taubman 1981; 2. Assistant director Lefebvre in July / Nuytten 2004, 34:50
  24. ↑ a b c d e f g h Marsha Kinder: Bertolucci and the Dance of Danger . In: Sight and Sound , Fall 1973, pp. 186–191
  25. ↑ a b c Julian Jebb: The Unvisitable Past. Bertolucci's American Dream . In: Sight and Sound , Volume 42, No. 2, Spring 1973, pp. 80–81
  26. ↑ Bernardo Bertolucci in conversation with Film Quarterly , No. 3, autumn 1973, p. 5; Film review , April 1973
  27. ↑ a b c d Marcus Stiglegger: Ritual & Seduction. Curiosity, excitement & sensuality in the film . Bertz + Fischer, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-86505-303-3 , pp. 82-87
  28. ↑ Bernardo Bertolucci in: Enzo Ungari: Bertolucci . Bahia Verlag, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-922699-21-9 , p. 90; Original edition by Ubulibri, Milan 1982; Bertolucci in Positif, March 1973, p. 32
  29. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Kolker 1985, pp. 125-148
  30. ↑ Bertolucci in Le Monde , December 11, 1972, p. 14
  31. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k T. Jefferson Kline: Bertolucci's dream loom . The University of Massachusetts Press, 1987, ISBN 0-87023-569-9 , pp. 106-126
  32. ^ Yosefa Loshitzky: The radical faces of Godard and Bertolucci . Wayne State University Press, Detroit 1995, ISBN 0-8143-2446-0 , p. 77; Mellen 1973, p. 15
  33. ↑ a b Michael Althen: Ultimo tango a Parigi . In: Marlon Brando . Bertz Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-929470-86-1 , pp. 241-244
  34. ^ Jacques Kermabon: Dernier tango à Paris (Le) . In: Une encyclopédie du nu au cinéma . Editions Yellow Now, Dunkerque 1991, ISBN 2-87340-099-1 , pp. 131-133; Tonetti 1995, p. 128
  35. ↑ a b c d e Dieter Kuhlbrodt: L'ultimo tango a Parigi . In: Bernardo Bertolucci . Film 24 series, Hanser Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-446-13164-7 , pp. 158-170
  36. ↑ a b c d e f g Filmkritik , April 1973, pp. 174–177
  37. ↑ a b c Yosefa Loshitzky: The radical faces of Godard and Bertolucci . Wayne State University Press, Detroit 1995, ISBN 0-8143-2446-0 , pp. 68-80
  38. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Florian Hopf: The case “Last Tango in Paris” . In: All about: The last tango in Paris . Heyne, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-453-00375-6
  39. ↑ a b c d e f g h Bertolucci in conversation with Film Quarterly, No. 3, autumn 1973, pp. 2–9
  40. ^ Reclam's film guide. Reclam, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-15-010389-4 , p. 582
  41. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Mellen, Joan: Sexual Politics and “Last Tango in Paris”, in: Film Quarterly, No. 3, Fall 1973, pp. 9-19
  42. ↑ Mellen 1973, p. 10; Loshitzky 1995, p. 78
  43. ↑ Alberto Moravia in Corriere della sera, quoted in. in: Hopf 1973, pp. 127-129; and Moravia in L'Espresso, 1973, cit. in: Pitiot 1991, p. 106
  44. ↑ Kolker 1985, pp. 189-190; Tonetti 1995, pp. 130-131
  45. ↑ Mellen 1973, pp. 10-11; Kolker 1985, pp. 189-190; Loshitzky 1995, p. 76
  46. ↑ Revisited 'Last Tango in Paris' Rape Scene Causes Internet Outcry
  47. ↑ http://variety.com/2016/film/global/bernardo-bertolucci-responds-to-last-tango-in-paris-backlash-1201933605/
  48. ↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-469646/I-felt-raped-Brando.html
  49. ↑ http://www.n-tv.de/folk/Filmszene-blas-echten-sexuellen-Missusp-article19247421.html
  50. ↑ “The Last Tango in Paris”: The abuse was real. In: DiePresse.com. December 5, 2016, accessed January 7, 2018 .
  51. ↑ a b Löhndorf, Marion in: Marlon Brando. Bertz Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-929470-86-1 , pp. 57-112
  52. ↑ Kolker 1985, p. 144; Jebb 1973
  53. ↑ Mellen 1973, p. 16; Kline 1987, p. 112; Loshitzky 1995, p. 183
  54. ↑ Tonetti 1995, p. 124; Kline 1987, p. 108
  55. ↑ Kolker 1985, p. 142; Kline 1987, p. 109; Löhndorf 2004, p. 92
  56. ↑ a b c d e f g h Julian C. Rice: Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris . In: Journal of Popular Film , No. 2 Spring 1974, pp. 157-172
  57. ^ Positif March 1973, p. 24; Reclams Filmführer 1993, p. 582; Stiglegger 2006, pp. 86-87
  58. ↑ Positif, March 1973, p. 26. Hopf 1973, p. 61 and 63. Mellen 1973, p. 12
  59. ↑ according to Bertolucci's declaration in Positif March 1973, pp. 30-31, in Film Quarterly No. 3, 1973, p. 7, and in Ungari 1984, p. 91
  60. ↑ Feldvoss 2004, pp. 23–41; Loshitzky 1995, p. 182; Rice 1974, p. 161
  61. ↑ Shipman 1990, pp. 229-258
  62. ↑ a b Bernd Kiefer: The last tango in Paris . In: Reclam Filmklassiker, Volume 3, Reclam, Stuttgart 1995, pp. 282–285
  63. ^ A b Pauline Kael: Last tango in Paris . In: The New Yorker , October 28, 1972
  64. ^ Newsweek, February 12, 1973; Taubman 1981; Loshitzky 1995, p. 181
  65. ↑ Jeanne's Dialogue Ce soir, on improvise! in the movie at 37:40
  66. ↑ Bertolucci in Positif , March 1973, p. 32, in Film Quarterly No. 3, 1973, p. 4 (also quotation), and in Ungari 1984, p. 91
  67. ↑ Bertolucci in: La revue du cinéma, quoted. in: Hopf 1973, p. 10
  68. ↑ Bertolucci in Positif, March 1973, p. 32, and in Ungari 1984, pp. 90-91
  69. ↑ a b c d Bernardo Bertolucci in: Enzo Ungari: Bertolucci . Bahia Verlag, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-922699-21-9 , pp. 87-91; Original edition by Ubulibri, Milan 1982.
  70. ^ Bertolucci in La revue du cinéma , quoted. in: Hopf 1973, p. 10; see. also Bertolucci in Positif, March 1973, p. 33
  71. ^ Positif, March 1973, p. 32; Newsweek, February 12, 1973; Ungari 1984, p. 90; Feldvoss 2004, p. 12; Löhndorf 2004, p. 106
  72. ↑ Bertolucci in Ungari 1984, pp. 90-91; Manso 1994, pp. 756-758
  73. ↑ Bertolucci in Positif, March 1973, p. 33; Ungari 1984, pp. 90-91; July / Nuytten 2004, 46:00
  74. ↑ Kinder 1973, p. 189; Mellen 1973, p. 12
  75. ^ Bertolucci in: Filmkritik, April 1973. Rice, p. 163; Tonetti 1995, p. 137
  76. ↑ a b c d Loshitzky 1995, pp. 178-187
  77. ^ A b Film-Korrespondenz, Cologne, March 1973, pp. 6–9
  78. ↑ Kolker 1985, pp. 146-148; Kline 1987, p. 125
  79. ↑ a b c Kuhlbrodt 1982, pp. 158-170
  80. ^ Bernardo Bertolucci in Jean Gili: Le cinéma italien . Union Générales d'Editions, Paris 1978, ISBN 2-264-00955-1 , p. 73
  81. ^ Positif, March 1973, p. 24; Kolker 1985, p. 133
  82. ↑ Bertolucci in Positif, March 1973, p. 33; in Gili 1978, p. 73; and in Ungari 1984, p. 90
  83. ↑ L'Express , December 11, 1972 (also direct quotation), quoted in in: L'Avant-scéne cinéma , February 1973, p. 58; Newsweek, Feb 12, 1973, p. 55
  84. ↑ Kinder 1973, p. 188; Mellen 1973, p. 16; Kolker 1985, 135, Kline 1987, pp. 121-122
  85. ↑ Stiglegger 2004, p. 84, Kolker 1985, p. 135
  86. ↑ Newsweek, quoted in in: Hopf 1973, p. 61
  87. ↑ Rice 1974, p. 167. Stiglegger 2004, p. 84
  88. ↑ Kinder 1973, p. 188; Kuhlbrodt 1982, p. 164; Loshitzky 1995, p. 15
  89. ↑ Newsweek, February 12, 1973, p. 56; Taubman 1981; Kuhlbrodt 1982, p. 166; Kolker 1985, p. 135
  90. ^ Positif, March 1973, p. 31; Ungari 1984, p. 89
  91. ↑ a b Bernardo Bertolucci in conversation with Positif, March 1973, pp. 29–38
  92. ^ Positif , March 1973, p. 32; Ungari 1984, pp. 90-91
  93. ↑ Children 1973, p. 190
  94. ↑ Alberto Moravia in L'Espresso , 1973, quoted in in: Pitiot 1991, p. 106
  95. ↑ Kolker 1985, p. 127; Loshitzky 1995, p. 69
  96. ^ Positif , March 1973, p. 32; Ungari 1984, p. 90
  97. ↑ Newsweek , February 12, 1973, p. 55; Taubman 1981; Kermabon 1991; Acot-Mirande, Thierry and Puzzuoli, Alain: L'enfer du cinéma. Scali, Paris 2007, ISBN 978-2-35012-140-6 , pp. 62-63
  98. ↑ Bertolucci in L'Avant-Scéne Cinéma , February 1973, pp. 54-55; and in Cahiers du cinéma, December 1981, p. 30
  99. ↑ Le Monde, December 1, 1972, cited above. in: L'Avant-scéne cinéma, February 1973, pp. 57-58; Film correspondence March 1973; Kolker 1985, p. 132; Shipman 1990, p. 263
  100. ↑ Ungari 1984, p. 118; see. also Kline 1987, p. 115; Kolker 1985, p. 128; Stiglegger 2006, p. 83; July / Nuytten 2004, 11:00
  101. ^ Pierre Pitiot, Jean-Claude Mirabella: Sur Bertolucci . Editions Climats, Castelnau-le-Lez 1991, ISBN 2-907563-43-2 , p. 67
  102. ↑ Stiglegger 3006, p. 83; Kinder 1973, p. 190; Kolker 1985, p. 133
  103. ^ Jacques Kermabon: Dernier tango à Paris (Le) . In: Une encyclopédie du nu au cinéma . Editions Yellow Now, Dunkerque 1991, ISBN 2-87340-099-1 , pp. 131-133
  104. ↑ Ungari 1984, p. 118
  105. ↑ Stiglegger 2006, p. 83; Pitiot 1991, p. 67; July / Nuytten 2004, 12:00; Kolker 1985, p. 128
  106. ↑ Sight and Sound , Summer 1972, p. 148
  107. ↑ Marli Feldvoss, in: Marlon Brando . Bertz Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-929470-86-1 , pp. 7–56
  108. ↑ Positif, March 1973, pp. 30-31; Film Quarterly No. 3, 1973, p. 7; Loshitzky 1995, p. 78
  109. ^ Positif, March 1973, p. 29; Ungari 1984, pp. 87-89
  110. ^ Pauline Kael: Marlon Brando. To American Hero . March 1966.
  111. ↑ Hopf 1973, pp. 27–28, pp. 79 and 82. July / Nuytten 2004, 42:00 names December 14, 1972 as the start date. For local performance bans cf. Positif, March 1973, p. 88 and Acot 2007, pp. 62-63
  112. ↑ Hopf 1973, pp. 78-83. Newsweek, February 12, 1973, p. 58; Acot
  113. ↑ Hopf 1973, pp. 23-27
  114. ↑ Newsweek, February 12, 1973 (also direct quotation). Shipman 1990, p. 266
  115. ↑ Hopf 1973, pp. 78-83; Shipman 1990, p. 260; July / Nuytten 2004, 45:20; Acot 2007
  116. ↑ Bernardo Bertolucci in Gili 1978, p. 48
  117. ↑ see compilation of the Bild-Artikel in Hopf 1973, pp. 66–73
  118. ↑ Hopf 1973, pp. 74-77; Newsweek, March 5, 1973, p. 88; Kinder 1973, p. 186; Bertolucci, cit. in: L'Avant-Scéne Cinéma , February 1973, pp. 54-55
  119. ^ Bild-Zeitung of March 14, 1973
  120. ^ Hopf 1973: Tango episodes . Pp. 140-142
  121. ↑ Kuhlbrodt 1982, p. 170; Manso 1994, p. 763
  122. ^ Paul-Louis Thirard: à propos de «le dernier tango à paris» . In: Positif , March 1973, pp. 27-28; Hopf 1973, p. 28
  123. ↑ Cinéma 73, No. 172, January 1973, and cit. in: Pitiot 1991, p. 107
  124. ↑ Le Figaro , December 16, 1972, cit. in: L'Avant-scéne cinéma , February 1973, p. 57
  125. ↑ Le Monde , December 16, 1972, cit. in: L'Avant-scéne cinéma, February 1973, pp. 57-58
  126. ↑ Le Point , December 11, 1972, review by Robert Benayoun, quoted in in: L'Avant-scéne cinéma, February 1973, pp. 57-58
  127. ↑ Le Canard Enchaîné , December 20, 1972, cited above. in: L'Avant-scéne cinéma, February 1973, p. 58
  128. ↑ Jacqueline Michel in Télé-7-Jours , December 23, 1972, cited above. in: Positif, March 1973, p. 23. "Schneider à qui sa fourrure naturelle tient lieu de talent"
  129. ^ Jean Cau in Paris Match , quoted in in: Hopf 1973, p. 123
  130. ↑ L'Express , December 11, 1972, cited above. in: L'Avant-scéne cinéma , February 1973, p. 58
  131. ↑ Cahiers du cinéma , July / August 1973, p. 33
  132. ↑ Bernardo Bertolucci in the New York Post , February 3, 1973, cited above. in: Loshitzky 1995, p. 178
  133. ^ Paul-Louis Thirard: à propos de «le dernier tango à paris» . In: Positif March 1973, pp. 27-28
  134. ↑ a b c Kolker 1985, pp. 231-232
  135. ↑ Loshitzky 1995, p. 144
  136. ↑ Michael Althen: Ultimo Tango a Parigi . In: Marlon Brando . Bertz + Fischer Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-929470-86-1 , p. 241 .
  137. ↑ Loshitzky 1995, p. 179; July / Nuytten 2004, 37:30
  138. ^ Newsweek, February 12, 1973; Manso 1994, p. 742
  139. ↑ Kolker 1985, p. 149
  140. ↑ Kolker 1985, pp. 134-135; Kline 1987, p. 122; Loshitzky 1995, pp. 69 and 76-77
  141. ↑ Acot 2007
  142. ^ Epd Film : Changing Values ​​in Modern Film: A Conference . December 1988, p. 9
  143. ↑ The shock film of the Big Eat . In: Der Spiegel . No. 24 , 1973, pp. 134 ( online ).
  144. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated November 5, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Search: The last tango in Paris @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.synchrondatenbank.de
  145. ↑ Entry in the synchronized file
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