« The Falcon and the Snowman | Main | Buffalo '66 »
March 05, 2005
Last Tango in Paris
Last Tango in Paris (1972), Bernardo Bertolucci:
I still can't get into Marlon Brando. He always just creeped me out. At least here, he's supposed to be that way.
Emily had a really good point in that her two loves are played by Marlon Brando and Jean-Pierre Léaud, arguably the pillars of American and French cinema. Considering his tribute to French New Wave, I'm sure if on the off chance it wasn't intentional from the start, he must've been at some point. Each presents his own version of love, Brando this raw and unsettling sexuality and Leaud romantic but distant behind his camera.
Brando's still creepy, though.
11/15
Posted by bing at March 5, 2005 05:56 PM
Comments
I think that the reason this movie is so enduring is the sweet, playful, nuanced, painful chemistry between the two main characters. Brando is creepy, and she's kind of ditzy, but they work well on screen together. It keeps the movie from getting too heavy-handed in either his film theory or his carpe diem message. This seems to one of Bertolucci's great strengths--take characters and situations that could easily be 2 dimensional and pedantic, and add character details that make the movies so much more human than that, and so much more entertaining to watch.
Posted by: Emily! at March 9, 2005 05:33 PM