Last Tango in Paris

(Ultimo tango a Parigi, Bernardo Bertolucci, France/Italy 1972, 129 min., 35mm)

Vittorio Storaro. Still haunting, still disturbing, Last Tango in Paris is marked by the confluence of legends who made it: the stealthy tracking shots of Vittorio Storaro, the raw torment of Marlon Brando’s performance, and the directorial brilliance of Bernardo Bertolucci. And there’s Maria Schneider, still a teenager, as Jeanne, who, searching for a Parisian apartment, crosses paths with Brando, deeply disturbed after his wife’s suicide. Brando and Schneider suddenly rush together, beginning an affair of fears and desires. The feverish erotic intensity of Last Tango led to its ban in Italy for promoting obscenity and made it one of the most controversial and furiously debated films in the entire history of the cinema. Screening of a rare X-rated 35mm print!

"Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris was presented for the first time on the closing night of the New York Film Festival, October 14, 1972: that date should become a landmark in movie history comparable to May 29, 1913—the night Le Sacre du Printemps was first performed—in music history. There was no riot, and no one threw anything at the screen, but I think it’s fair to say that the audience was in a state of shock, because Last Tango in Paris has the same kind of hypnotic excitement as the Sacre, the same primitive force, and the same thrusting, jabbing eroticism." 

– Pauline Kael, New Yorker (October 28, 1972)

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