Last Tango in Paris (Ultimo tango a Parigi)Unnerved by her filmmaker fiancé's blithe efforts to prostitute their relationship for his 'cinema verite' film, Jeanne (Maria Schneider), a young Parisian woman, decides to pursue an anonymous sexual liaison with a middle-aged American man, Paul (Marlon Brando), who is reeling from the recent suicide of his wife.
Not only is Paul entirely disinterested in projecting romantic illusions of any kind on Jeanne - he refers to his dead wife, Rose, as a "fake Ophelia" - he makes a point of stripping away any and all pretences to conventional notions of love; an attitude Jeanne initially finds liberating but which both she and Paul ultimately struggle to sustain.
Jean-Pierre Léaud plays Jeanne's fiancé, the would-be auteur Tom, with characteristic devil-may-care narcissism, while Brando is electrifying as a man desperately trying to subsume his rage and confusion into raw carnality.
"The most powerfully erotic movie ever made. A landmark in movie history" - Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
"A memorable score by Argentine tenor saxophonist Gato Barbieri punctuates starkly erotic scenes that have lost none of their effect since the film's controversial debut"- MoMA
