Random Thoughts On Last Tango In Paris (1972)

Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.  Widely seen as a landmark in the history of sexual explicitness in cinema.  So where was the explicit sex I must have missed it?  Even the uncut version is not overly graphic.  Many people if the movie is mentioned automatically think of butter.  That's a childish mind.  Some of the scenes that come to my mind is the character of Paul played of course by Marlon Brando talking to his dead wife alone in the room as she's being prepared for burial.  To my mind this is some of the best acting in the history of cinema.  Also the classic ending where Jeanne played by Maria Schneider shoots him.   The ending is so open-ended it called for a sequel but there never was one.  She's rehearsing her lines for when the police will interview her later (he was a lunatic, I never knew him, he tried to rape me) but so many people had already seen them together at the dance hall but the movie simply ends with the sultry music coming on.  My takeaway - she was okay with having a kind of strange even perverse relationship with him.  She kept going back to him in the apartment even though she was engaged to another man yet when Paul wanted a normal loving relationship with her she basically kept saying it's over and killed him.  A cinematic and much discussed enigma.  Although not by any stretch an exemplary character he's been through the mill after his wife's gruesome suicide and this is his fate.  A movie with many layers to it it's worth a watch or a few.  The actress appeared nude in many of the scenes while Brando kept his clothes on except for one brief scene early on where they didn't show much.  Much vulgar language throughout.  So that's my take the movie is worth diving into.