Film Forum

Italy, 1972
Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
Starring Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, Maria Michi
Approx. 126 min. DCP.

Post-sexual revolution brief encounter à Paris, as tormented widower Marlon Brando makes immediate contact with funky Maria Schneider in an empty apartment. Succès de scandale, keyed by Brando's most self-revelatory performance.

PROGRAMMING NOTE:
THE LAST TANGO IN PARIS is a film with a controversial history, particularly since lead actress Maria Schneider revealed in 2007 that a sexually humiliating scene was conceived off-script by director Bernardo Bertolucci and Marlon Brando together, without informing her in advance. Bertolucci spoke of the scene himself, in a 2013 interview: “I’ve been in a way horrible to Maria, because I didn’t tell her what was going on. Because I wanted her reaction as a girl, not as an actress. I wanted her to react humiliated.”

We present the film as a key work in a series highlighting Marlon Brando’s career. We encourage our audience to seek out interviews and other resources detailing the controversy, Maria Schneider’s career after LAST TANGO, and her relationships with Bertolucci and Brando.

Reviews

“When Brando improvises within Bertolucci's structure, his full art is realized; his performance is intuitive, rapt, princely. Working with Brando, Bertolucci achieves realism with the terror of actual experience still alive on the screen.”
– Pauline Kael, New Yorker