Word: tangoes
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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THERE ARE FOUR erotic scenes in The Last Tango in Paris which are so much more honest than the rest of the film that they should be excised, and exhibited by themselves as masterful short subjects. When Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider screw standing up, or shove each other up the ass with various appendages, or play with tenderness in a bathtub scene, director Bernardo Bertolucci's only intent is to evoke passion, harsh, hot or loving --and his intention is fulfilled...
...such an embarassingly direct art as film is nothing to be sniffed at. And at a time when most enlightened filmmakers expend their energies on explicit violence, Bertolucci's attempt to explore the much more human warfare of sexuality is itself significant. The pre-opening reputation of The Last Tango, and the controversy which now surrounds it, should thus not be seen solely as the result of hucksterism...
...indicator or Bertolucci's romantic ambivalence has always been his aesthete's love of the dance and the opera. The finest scenes in Before the Revolution took place at the opera; dance scenes of some sort have been prominent in most of his films. But nowhere except in Last Tango in Paris has the dance had such clear import. The tango at the end of the film is not just another Bertolucci dance -- it is a masterstroke. The tango, originally a spirited, emotional flamenco dance, is shown not just as the diluted ballroom style it is today...
...will still reach a much larger audience than it would have otherwise, and the clearest audience reaction will not be disgust or lust or even deep emotional involvement but rather the lack of impact that comes from viewing it only as a diversion. As a truly radical film, Last Tango in Paris is so far from the popular mind that it can have only subtle, nearly unconscious cultural influence, but it will influence other film makers, and Bertolucci, still a very young man, will make more films. Perhaps these later films will reach a public prepared by this film, less...
...Last Tango in Paris comes to Boston on April...