Banned: UK, Chile, South Korea, Portugal, Australia, Italy, Canada, Singapore Bernardo Bertoluccis spicy erotic drama which chronicles the anonymous love affair between an American middle aged hotelier and a young, free spirited woman in the aftermath of his wifes suicide was massively controversial upon its release and incurred the wrath of the censors worldwide. Starring Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider, the film is far from being a mere sex and sleaze fest. It is a fine piece of art house cinema which is expertly directed by Bertolucci. However the authorities in Bertoluccis native Italy deemed it Self serving pornography and the director narrowly avoided a jail sentence for obscenity. Brando gives one of his best performances in the film but both he and his co-star Maria Schneider complained of feeling like sexual puppets at the hands of Bertolucci. Schneider went as far as to say she felt a little raped in the movie, that it ruined her life and Bertolucci was a pimp and a gangster. Brando told Bertolucci that he utterly violated him, and he too felt raped and manipulated by the film. Looking at the films content, which was apparently based on a sexual fantasy of Bertoluccis, it is easy to see why not just the films main stars, but also the film censors of the world got hot under the collar. A massive hit around the globe, Last Tango in Paris was furiously debated and scandalised many cinema goers. That is, if they were lucky to see the film. The infamous butter/buggery sequence between the two stars was the main scene that got the film into hot water with the censors, almost universally. There were also numerous raunchy sex scenes and a very well acted sequence by Marlon Brando in which he sits with his dead wifes corpse in a coffin and proceeds to lay a deluge of verbal abuse upon her, calling her a pig f**ker. So there was some pretty torpid stuff going on in the film. Over time, the film became less controversial and is now available in most countries even in Italy where the fuss they made over it in the 1970s was a few clowns short of a circus.
My first film watched was Carrie aged 2 on my dad's knee. Educated at The University of St Andrews and Trinity College Dublin. Fan of Arthouse, Exploitation, Horror, Euro Trash, Giallo, New French Extremism. Weaned at the bosom of a Russ Meyer starlet. The bleaker, artier or sleazier the better!
