Title: Last Tango In Paris

Year: 1974

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci

Reviewed By: Xavier Mendik

Following on the heels of important works such as The Conformist and The Spider�s Stratagem, Bertolucci�s film continues the director�s exploration of the political and psychoanalytical dimensions of desire. The story details the coupling between a young woman Jeanne(Maria Schneider) and two men. Her boyfriend Tom played by Jean-Pierre Leaud is an idealistic filmmaker who dreams of marrying her. However their relationship is complicated by Jeanne�s sexual involvement with Paul, an older man played by Marlon Brando. The film reveals that Paul, the owner of a seedy hotel in Paris enters into the relationship with Jeanne in order to resolve his guilt over his involvement in his wife�s recent suicide.

The construction of these two male love objects that the film establishes for the heroine creates a number of important polarities that the narrative dwells upon. Firstly, the distinctions between Tom and Paul represent the differences between two film making styles that the movie draws on. By casting Jean-Pierre Leaud as a documentary filmmaker, Bertolucci makes a series of self-reflexive references to film making patterns of the French new wave and the art cinema of Godard that followed it. Contrastingly, the placement of Brando in the narrative cast allusions to the post war fragmented Hollywood studio system from which the actor emerged. This self- reflexive statement is confirmed by the film�s construction of Paul�s character as reference point to other famous roles undertaken by the actor. This is particularly marked in the sequence when Paul�s maid recounts the police investigation into his wife�s suicide. When asked by the officers for a character reference of Paul, the maid�s account of him is clearly drawn in the light of other characters that Brando played.

In many respects, the differences between these two male characters reference not only distinct film styles but also an appeal to differing film audiences. While the art film and Hollywood product have characteristically been divided along an axis of elite and mass culture, Bertolucci�s combination of the two traditions in a single narrative is very much in line with his intention in earlier narratives. For instance, Kim Newman has argued that despite the political and aesthetic concerns of films such as The Spider�s Stratagem and The Conformist, Bertolucci�s decision to place these concerns in investigative narratives acknowledges importance of popular Italian cycles such as the giallo during the era.

While the casting of these opposing male types casts clear references to the differing types of film styles that the narrative contains, the distinctions between Tom and Paul come to attain deeper significance in Bertolucci�s discussion of desire. While Tom�s activities as a documentary filmmaker make him an intrusive character, his visual activities also link him to the concept of life: his obsession with filming Jeanne gives her instant celluloid immortality. By contrast, her relationship with Brando is marked by an overwhelming sense of regression, death and decay. Most obviously this link is established by virtue of the couple�s relationship evolving out of the suicide of Paul�s wife. Beyond this fatality, Brando�s connection with death and decay is confirmed by his ownership of a dank, crumbling Parisian hotel. This is a location revealed as being tended by old hags and frequented by disease-ridden prostitutes.

From Bertolucci�s acknowledged psychoanalytical interests, this polarisation of life and death translates into a distinction between mature (post-Oedipal) sexuality and unresolved infantile desire. This libidinal reading of Paul and Jeanne�s relationship is confirmed by the lack of speech that accompanies their sexual activity. According to psychoanalysts such as Jacques Lacan, the child�s entry into language occurs upon resolution of the infant�s initial desires and attractions. The lack of language in the couple�s relationship is established by Paul�s insistence that they do not disclose their names or any information about their former identities. This policy of retarding the role of speech stands in sharp contrast to Jeanne�s relationship with Tom, which is openly dialogue lead. This is demonstrated by his obsession with adding a running voice-over to her actions as he films Jeanne�s every move. A further distinction between Jeanne's two male love objects is provided by their differing relationships to issues of the self and bodily hygiene. Again reflecting his infantile construction in the film, Brando�s character wallows in a fascination with the body and its waste matter. This preoccupation initially takes the form of memory, when Paul narrates how his big high school date was ruined by his clothes being covered in the cows excrement from his father�s farm. Later in the film Paul�s obsession with filth and waste matter becomes defined through his violent and excessive exploration of Jeanne�s body in a series of acts which replicate the infant�s fascination with the body and its associated products such as excrement, urine and saliva.

Paul�s �physiological� interests are again in stark contrasts to Tom�s desires, which seem to de-emphasise sexuality in his relationship with Jeanne. The stark contrast between the two men is clearly signalled in a scene where Tom proposes marriage to Jeanne and then chases her to the abandoned apartment she shares with Paul. When asked whether this location could serve as a matrimonial dwelling, Tom looks disgusted and reacting in horror dismisses the apartment as both filthy and ridden with body stenches. Unlike Paul�s obsession with the body filth and decay, Tom�s revulsion clearly links him to the realm of the civilised, the side which eventually triumphs in the film�s finale. Here, Jeanne shoots Paul after he renounces their past and finally tells her his name and identity. Ultimately, it is this exploration of the distinctions between pre-Oedipal and mature sexuality that remains the defining feature of Bertolucci�s masterful film.

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