Beastly: Brando, Bertolucci, You, Me, Everybody

I recently watched the new TCM 2-part series on Marlon Brando. I highly recommend it to all movie fans and especially to anyone interested in the craft of acting. Of all the films they showed clips of and discussed, one continues to work on me. I haven't watched it in a few years and I almost don't need to, its mark is so hauntingly indelible. The film is Last Tango in Paris. It's almost too bad that there was that unsalted butter bit in there, because that's all anybody ever seems to remember about the film. That's like saying Sgt. Pepper's is all there is to The Beatles.



I've been thinking a lot about the film this week. It's so beautiful. The camera tells us so much as it dances with the characters. And I'm not talking about the tango scenes. I'm talking about the apartment interiors. Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider move about independently and the camera both brings them together and underscores their separateness. Brando slumped against the wall, his distorted body forming a strong composition. He does nothing and commands everything.



It's also a lot about what the camera doesn't see. There's a lot of distorted shots through textured glass that are very painterly. Sometimes the distorted images are Paul's (Brando's) memories. The painterliness wasn't an accident as Bertolucci and Brando visited the Francis Bacon show up in Paris at the time. They directly quoted Bacon's compositions and alluded to the way in which the painter renders his figures compositionally.



In the end the film is about how truly grotesque we can be when every bit of our sophistication and pretense is stripped away.



As the truth always sets us free, there is absolute beauty in our monstrosity.

Bestiale,
Signore Direttore