I’m sure you’re all familiar with the stereotype of “high-brow” cinema. Ask a layperson what kind of movie will appeal to snooty film critics with their heads stuck up their asses, and they’ll probably answer that the film will be foreign, pretentious and totally boring. Yet there will be something about this movie that such cinema snobs will defend, claiming that it has artistic merit. For so many years now, I thought that the stereotype was an exaggeration. But then I saw Last Tango in Paris.
If I say it myself, I consider it a great feat of endurance that I was able to completely sit through this film. There were many times when I didn’t think I would make it. The lead characters were simply awful: If their actions and motivations were any less comprehensible, they could run for Congress. The screenplay is garbage, with no set-ups or payoffs and dialogue that constantly switches from French to English and back again for no apparent reason. The camera work is okay, but several shots are worthless and/or overlong. Even by ’70s standards, this editing is total garbage that made two hours seem like an eternity. There are several times when the score makes no sense whatsoever. Last but not least, this film can’t even get sex right. This whole movie is about love and sex, yet the film portrays lovemaking in a way that’s boring at best and disgusting at worst.
Yet this film got Marlon Brando an Oscar nomination. The film’s director, Bernardo Bertolucci, also got a nomination. As I type this, the film has an 81 percent rating on RottenTomatoes, out of 26 reviews counted. I don’t know what people see in this movie, but I’m just not getting it. I’ll grant that Brando wasn’t completely terrible, but when such a legendary acting talent still proves incapable of making a movie watchable or a character sympathetic, abandon all hope.
I’m sure that film snobs and movie students will have a great time picking Last Tango in Paris apart and proving how the film is a masterpiece. I honestly hope they have a great time with it. Nobody else should bother wasting their time. I personally thought that the movie was a pile of pretentious, unwatchable dreck and I don’t care enough about it to be proven otherwise.
I’m glad I’m not the only one. I saw this movie 30 years ago and it is still at the top of my “biggest waste of 2 hours” list. I have seen hundreds of movies that were so bad I can’t remember even having seen them when I hear the title. Tango was so bad, that when I hear the title, I can only wish that I wasn’t able to remember it.
So the film recently came back to attention, but for the sickest wrong reason. It turns out that entire rape scene in the film was non-consensual and the director admitted that he and Brando conspired to do it. I guess that pretty much soiled the film’s reputation then.
I’m aware of it. Just another reason to hate this film, as far as I’m concerned.