LAST TANGO IN PARIS (Ultimo Tango a Parigi)
SPECIAL EDITION - 2 DVD SET

LABEL: Capolavori
REGION: PAL 2
LENGTH: 124'
ASPECT RATIO: 1,85:1 Anamorphic
LANGUAGES: English talian  (5.1 & Mono)
SUBTITLES: Italian
EXTRAS: Documentaries, censorshiop, interviews (2 discs)
STARS: Malon Brando, Maria Schneider
DIRECTOR: Bernardo Bertolucci
ALTERNATIVE TITLES: Ultimo Tango a Parigi

Last Tango in Paris (Italian: Ultimo Tango a Parigi) is a 1972 Italian film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci which portrays a recent American widower who takes up an anonymous sexual relationship with a young, soon-to-be-married Parisian woman. It stars Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider and Jean-Pierre Léaud. The film's raw portrayal of sexual violence and emotional turmoil led to international controversy and drew various levels of government censorship. The MPAA gave the film an X rating upon release in the United States. After revisions were made to the MPAA ratings code, it was classified as an NC-17 in 1997. MGM released a censored R-rated cut in 1981. The film has its NC-17 rating for "some explicit sexual content."

Background
The idea grew from Bernardo Bertolucci's sexual fantasies, stating "he once dreamed of seeing a beautiful nameless woman on the street and having sex with her without ever knowing who she was".

The screenplay was by Bernardo Bertolucci, Franco Arcalli and Agnès Varda (additional dialogue) and was novelized by Robert Alley. It was directed by Bertolucci with cinematography by Vittorio Storaro. Agnès Varda based the last scenes on the death of Jim Morrison in Paris the previous year.

Filming

As with previous films, Marlon Brando refused to memorize his lines for many scenes. Instead, he wrote his lines on cue cards and posted them around the set for easy reference, leaving Bertolucci with the problem of keeping them out of the picture frame. During his long monologue over the body of his wife, for example, Brando's dramatic lifting of his eyes upward is not spontaneous dramatic acting but a search for his next cue. Brando even asked Bertolucci if he could "write lines on Maria's rear end," which he refused to allow.

During the publicity for the film's release, Bertolucci said that Maria Schneider developed an "Oedipal fixation with Brando."Schneider herself said that Brando sent her flowers after they first met, and "from then on he was like a daddy. In a contemporaneous interview, Schneider denied this, saying, "Brando tried to be very paternalistic with me, but it really wasn't any father-daughter relationship." Years later, however, Schneider recounted feelings of sexual humiliation:

Schneider subsequently stated that making the film was her life's only regret,  that it "ruined her life," and that she considers Bertolucci a "gangster and a pimp." Much like Schneider, Brando "felt raped and humiliated" by the film  and told Bertolucci, "I was completely and utterly violated by you. I will never make another film like that."  Bertolucci also shot a scene which shows Brando's genitals, but later explained, "I had so identified myself with Brando that I cut it out of shame for myself. To show him naked would have been like showing me naked."

 International Response

In France, movie-goers stood in two hour lines for the first month of its run at the seven theatres where Tango played.[1] British censors cut the sodomy sequence from the film before permitting it to open in the United Kingdom.[15] Chile banned the film entirely for nearly thirty years.[16]

In Italy the movie was released December 15 but one week later police seized all copies on the order of a prosecutor, who defined the movie as "self-serving pornography", and its director was put to trial for "obscenity". Following first degree and appeal trials, the fate of the movie was sealed on January 26, 1976 by the Italian Supreme Court, which sentenced all copies to be destroyed, (though some were preserved by the National Film Library). Bertolucci was served with a four month suspended sentence in prison and had his civil rights revoked for five years, depriving him of voting rights.[5] In 1987, fifteen years of the original censorship ban, a new ruling allowed the movie to be released in Italy.