Last Tango in Paris - Essay Example

5th December, Last Tango in Paris This essay is a movie review of Last Tango in Paris. The essay shall be evaluating the movie and shall be looking at the movie from various perspectives. It will be highlighting various aspects of the movie, from the acting, direction, cinematography, film scenes, realism and critical analyses of the story. Introduction Last Tango in Paris is a movie, which highlights sexual violence. It is a Franco-Italian drama movie made in 1972. The movie is regarded by many as one of the all time greats movies of our times. The star cast consists of Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider and Jean Perre Leud. Bernardo Berolucci directs it. The story revolves around a man who has just divorced his wife and is searching for peace in his life. The movie begins with a lady who is looking for a house on rent, and she finds this man in the same house. The lady has also gone through a lot of pain in her real life and that truly reflected in the movie. Paul, Marlon Brando plays the main lead, while Jeanne the female lead is played by Maria. While Paul is gong through an emotional turmoil since his wife committed suicide, Jeanne is also suffering emotionally since her fiance has not been giving attention to her and is busy trying to make a movie, and the fact that he is a very narcissistic personality. Paul and Jeanne meet in the house and Jeanne arrives there since she is looking for a house on rent, and Paul happens to be there for a similar reason. Right after they met each other, Paul tries to have sex with her and they make love instantly. This was the beginning of the story and then they continue to live with each other. One day Paul left her, only to find her at the street and they both resumed their sexual relationship. Paul is a disturbed personality and has been extremely well portrayed by Brando. He doesn’t like knowing names and refuses to tell his to Jeanne, and asks Jeanne not to tell hers to him. He doesn’t believe in this concept and tends to get very irritated. Later onwards, while they continue their relationship, one fine day Paul leaves. He meets her somewhere again, and they both come back to the rented house. There he tells her that her is in love with her, and asks her the name. She tells him the name, and then immediately shoots him to death. The movie ends there. Cinematography Vittorio Storaro did the cinematography of the movie. He used light in connection with the conscious side of the mise-en-scene and dark for the unconscious. He picturised the movie in an epic manner. He used low light techniques frequently to cast a dark shadow in the room, especially in the sexually explicit scenes. He drew a conflict between light and shadow, which came naturally to him. The cinematography of the movie took different routes during the filming and the picturization of the movie. The cinematographer used low light and high frequency techniques to display grey shadows and dark colours often in the movie. Francis Bacon, the painter of many scenes, which were later, portrayed in the movie, played an influential role in the minds of the Vittorio Storaro, in the way that he used the paintings to carve out beautiful scenes. There were certain confusions with regard to the lighting effect in the movie, especially the warm artificial light fragmentation, since the wintertime in Paris used to have natural winter light. Therefore, it was a challenge for the cinematographer to put into perspective a different shade of grey into the picturization. Putting into place a different light effect did require some greater conviction, and that was justified once he saw Francis Bacon’s paintings. The look of the film is pure romance—lots of dusky, autumnal golds and blue-grays, long, graceful camera movements, scenes shot through frosted glass or against fractured mirrors. Camera Movement Bertolucci camera's movements throughout the film characterize the rights steps of the tango, which the two main characters execute at the climax of the film. The camera movements focus on the tango effect given to the characters when the climax scene is shot. The overall camera movements have been profound throughout the movie. The camera movements are very graceful and slow throughout the movie. The shots are taken in one go and the characters are portrayed from different angles depending upon the lighting effect provided by the cinematographer. The direction of the movie is truly astounding, especially when the sexually explicit scenes are shot in the movie. It must be said that the movements are not conventional and they have been either shot from opaque distance or from a close up angle, which has gone deep into the erotic scenes. There are occasions where the shots have been directly taken when the man and woman are having sex and there seems to be a sense of monotonousness in the filming of the picture. There are subtle camera movements which consists of change of displays of a particular scene, from one angle shot taken while the scene of Paul crying and remembering about his wife, to the look and feel of other scenes where Paul is talking to Maria and contemplating to sleep with her. Unlike other of his movies, Burtolucci has shown immense depth in the way he took the shots of the movie. Cameras are put in strange places where one could not even imagine, such as the table or near the clock, or the passing of the doormat and over the top picturization. The director went really deep into his shots, and used movements of the camera, which followed the direction of the character’s movements and his perception. Marlon Brando, as usual, did not chose to memorize his lines which made it a bit difficult to keep a tab on his movements in the scene. He proposed the idea of putting the lines on a piece of paper and have it displayed to him while he was acting in the scene. This made life difficult for the director and his camera movements, as the movements of the character were very spontaneous and never precise. Mise-En-Scene Before explaining mise-en-scene and its influence in the movie, it is crucial to define the concept. Following is the definition of mise-en-scene: “Mise-en-scene is a French term and originates in the theater. It means, literally, "put in the scene." For film, it has a broader meaning, and refers to almost everything that goes into the composition of the shot, including the composition itself: framing, movement of the camera and characters, lighting, set design and gen eral visual environment, even sound as it helps elaborate the composition” Last Tango in Paris relied heavily on the concept of mise-en-scene. The character was placed in the scene through character dramatization. This concept places significance by creating a scene, which usually does not exist in reality. There are movies, which are made and portray reality as it is without compromising the effect of reality as perceived by people. However, the artistry of the movie is affected and that leads to a situation where the movie is shown as a trail of events, more like a documentary. Therefore it becomes crucial to invest in mise-en-scene in the movie in order to give it a trippy and an artistry affect. This is not to say that the entire concept is faked before the audience. In fact, this concept gives light to the imagination of the director and justifies in the way the director or the writer might have imagined and thought about the movie. Certain depictions such as the props, lighting, character moods, and cinematography are given a certain degree of perceived directions, which are beyond the realm of reality as we see it today. It gives an approach of theatre like perception and the concept defines its logic from the boundaries of art. In Last Tango in Paris, the director continuously used this concept to reach out to his audience. The scene in which Paul is remembering his wife, when he meets Joanne for the first time are quintessential mise-en-scene scenes. Such is the depth of the direction that the movie takes course from such scenes and goes deeper and deeper thus creating an alternate notion of reality. Editing The editing of the movie has been precise. The movie shots have been taken keeping in mind the action and the drama sequence. It is important to note that the editing was done on a very spontaneous basis and there were no planned shots which were part of the movie. The scenes in which the couple are in the room have been taken without any editing and the director and the editing cast insisted that no explicit scenes be cut from the movie. The best form of editing happens when the scenes follow one another and there are less lags. It is important to have a streamlined approach to the way the scenes are picturised and to have a consistent flow to the story. The editing has taken care of the storyline and did not end up distorting the picturization. In movies where a lot of emphasis is placed on mise-en-scene, it is crucial to not miss out on any important scenes which add crucial flavour to the movie. A lot of the scenes displayed explicit content, while it was important to respect the storyline of the movie, it was also important to include scenes which made sense to the theme of the movie. In movies like these it is very easy to keep scenes for the sake of having them; therefore the editing team had their task cut out with respect to the inclusion of scenes. Each and every scene was there to tell a story or to take the story forwards, it wasn’t there just for the sake of it, and gave weightage to the scenes and the movie as well. A few art scenes in the room, along with the scenes on the streets of Paris were beautifully done and the connect from one scene to another did not only display some amazing filmography, it also opened different perspectives to the movie. This could have been only achieved by some classy editing, which ensured that the right scenes depicting variable meanings and connecting the dots of the movie were included in the right areas. Sound The music of Last Tango of Paris was simply sublime. Just like the characters and the script, the music and sound carried different notes and tones throughout the picturization. The music theme of the movie is greatly inspired by old classic rock and French theatrical style. The music is truly sublime and changes with the change in the moods of the scenes and the movie. As the characters take their roles, the soundtrack and the backdrop music tends to change and move subtly. There is no one particular themes towards which the audience can pin point and conclude that the music was styled in a particular fashion. The background score is elegantly created and justifies the arty theme of the movie. The movie had different shades to the story, ranging from the meeting of the characters, to the sudden sexual escapades and the immediate resignation from love and affection. These themes happen in a spontaneous manner, and the style of the music changes and drifts rapidly to complement the style of the movie. Just like the character sequence, the soundtrack and the theme of the movie was a living species throughout the picturization. The entire combination of the cinematography, the music, camera movements which ranges from focusing on one object and the beginning of the scene at the end of such sequence added great art value to the movie. There isn’t any particular theme, which can be singled out to explain the style of the soundtrack of the movie. Tango is something else altogether, cinema verite photographed by Vittorio Storaro, a revolutionary artistic genius, Gato Barbieri's music and Marlon Brando giving himself totally in one of the most brilliant pieces of self-indulgence ever put on film. Realism There's emotional realism in this film, and in Bertolucci's other films of course, but it's certainly not the kind of realism where the filmmaking becomes invisible. The movie is not about realism as much as it is about formalism. However, it does cater to realism in certain sense and we shall be discussing those perspectives in this part. Marlon Brando and Maria both had an immense influence in the movie from their past life. Realism is defined in two aspects, one, where the movie could be deemed to have been a real story, and the second where the actors have influenced the story from their acting and brought out originality through their own life history and portrayed the character as if the movie was a reality. It is very difficult to put down thoughts and assume that a man and a woman can actually have a sexual relationship without knowing the names of each other and having just met randomly at a strange place for different purposes. They were either there by accident or the guy was stalking the woman, however the latter is not true therefore we shall assume that they both reached there by accident. The director of the movie has fantasized about having sex with a beautiful stranger. He gave light to this fantasy by making this movie. Therefore, it must be said that the film does tend to stray more towards fantasy realism than that of reality realism. The movie is based out of a surreal fashion and has a very arty feeling to it. Such aspects arise more from the perspective of formalism than that of realism. However, there are certain aspects, which must be taken into context while understanding the concept of the movie. The movie strays towards fantasy realism, and the entire theatrical experience provided by the director confirms that. Even the way the costume were designed and the sets were placed, along with a strange storyline and incredible acting by the cast, the movie is the outcome of fantasy realism. However, the depth provided by the actors must be mentioned and that gives the movie a broader sense of realism which would not be possible without the acting of Marlon Brando, who later confessed that he took a lot of himself into the character and the fast that at time it was him who was the character and there existed no ‘acting’ per se. Formalism Formalism is a film theory that is concerned with the technical point of view of the movie. It focuses on the lighting, sound, editing and photography of the movie. It is a form of study of the movie and gives rise to a deeper level of technical understanding of the movie. Last Tango in Paris would satisfy any technical expert who is looking for a technical masterpiece. It was indeed one. It was deeply inspired by the paintings of Francis Bacon and took a lot from various aspects of his paintings. As explained in the essay above, the technical angle of the movie was very well covered. The direction and editing were upto the mark and the lighting and storyline were given a beautiful natural feel, which has been difficult to describe. Indeed, it remains as one of the technical masterpieces of our times. Conclusion Last Tango in Paris ranks as one of the all time Hollywood greats. The acting of the Marlon Brando stood out among his contemporaries. Maria, who played the female lead suffered from schizophrenia. She had multiple sex partners and had sex with both males and females. She brought some amazing complexity to an already complex character, and portrayed it with amazing serenity. It is a very surreal movie, and stands out perfectly as an all time classic. Last Tango in Paris does not have a concrete storyline and that is what separates it from other movies. The acting at most of the times was immediate and the use of emotions by Marlon Brando was amazing. The dialogue delivery of the movie was on another level, as at every point of time the characters took a giant leap from their existing roles. Work Cited "Mise-en-Scene." Mise-en-Scene. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2013. "The Criterion Collection." RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2013 Kehr, Dave. "FILM REVIEW; For Movie and Its Marketing, A Marriage of Convenience." The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 Aug. 2004. Web. 05 Dec. 2013 Jones, Jonathan. "Painting with Light." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 09 July 2003. Web. 05 Dec. 2013 MDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2013 Read More