I remember hating this movie when it came out; it was depressing and trivialized love and all the way through it Brando mumbled like Col. Kurtz.
But in the Lost Soul documentary, about the abortive Island of Dr. Moreau movie, an analyst was talking about Brando's deliberate choice of roles in the 1970s, designed to restore his reputation after having taken several roles beneath him in the 1960s that he admits he did just for the money. This person specifically mentioned The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and Last Tango in Paris.
I thought, I need to see it again.
When I mentioned this to Mrs NoCo she said, "Wasn't Last Tango voted, like, the worst movie ever made?"
Well no... But it's certainly in the running. The soundtrack by Gato Barbieri is absolutely the worst use of music I've even seen -- inappropriate music, repetitive music, played at too high a volume in all the wrong places. The camerawork has several WTF moments. The dialog appears to be mostly improvised, and meaningless. The acting, by Brando and Maria Schneider, was actually more nuanced than I remembered, and there's more to the story than I remembered. But the central story of their coupling to deal with his wife's suicide is one of the saddest and most cynical portrayals of lust ever filmed. Her (Maria's) motivations in this film are almost entirely incomprehensible, and unbelievable.
I'd forgotten Jean-Pierre Leaud, from Truffaut's films, starred as Maria's fiancé. This was just a year before Day for Night.
And 7 years before Apocalypse, where Brando played essentially the same character but now grossly obese and physically disgusting, to match his character. Here he looks pretty good actually, just acts despicable.
Maria OTOH looks dishy, and contrary to the ratings board of the time, there is far too little total frontal nudity of her.
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