Last Tango in Paris

It is amazing how the passage of time makes what once seemed scandalous seem rather mundane. I can recall how they had to show Elvis from the waist on the Ed Sullivan Show in the 1950′s, how his shaking and gyrating while performing was seen as dangerous for America’s youth. Rock N’ Roll after all was the devil’s music. This came to mind while I was thinking out the subject of this review, Last Tango in Paris. I was in high school, when this film debuted in 1972 and I can recall how it caused quite a stir, with what was for the time, shocking sexuality in a mainstream film. Due to my age, I did not see the film during its initial run and have never seen it before its arrival on Blu-ray. Would its sexuality seem as mundane now as Elvis’ performances on Ed Sullivan now seem in retrospect? In a word, yes.

Film 

Last Tango in Paris stars Marlon Brando as Paul, an American who lives in Paris in an hotel with his wife who owns the hotel. His wife commits suicide in their bathtub and this seems to send Paul over the edge. He takes out an ad for a rather squalid flat in the Passy section of Paris that he is renting and he is there when Jeanne, played by Maria Schneider, arrives to look at the flat.

For some strange reason, they immediately begin to make love on the floor of the filthy flat. They continue to meet there every day for a sexual liaison, even though Jeanne, an actress, is engaged to be married. Most of the film takes place in the flat as Paul and Jeanne interact together. Paul views the flat as a place of solitude, as a way of getting away from the world. He does not even want to know anything about Jeanne. They don’t even know there names or anything about each other. Little by little, director Bernardo Bertolucci, begins to show you a little about the real lives of Paul and Jeanne. You just know, that these two both have serious emotional issues and that their relationship will not end well.

I realize that the film received critical acclaim when it was released but in viewing the film all these years later for the first time, I only found the film to be weird. Both main characters are hard to warm up to with Brando’s Paul, on the edge of the macabre. The film does feature plenty of nudity, fortunately mostly of Maria Schneider, and plenty of sexual activity which while I am sure rather graphic for a non pornographic film of the day, is no where near as shocking today as it was back in 1972. While I appreciate the historical significance of the film, I can’t really imagine sitting down and watching this film more than once. I therefore can recommend the film but as a rental only.

Video 

Last Tango in Paris is a a rather soft looking film. It is a rather grainy looking film and all of the fine film grain appears to be well preserved. I could detect no significant evidence of the application of digital noise reduction to “clean up” the look of the film. The overall image is rather soft, although the close-up scenes have plenty of fine facial detail. The film has a rather warm color palette, with plenty of reds, oranges and browns the dominate colors. Other than the opening title sequence, I found the black levels to be no more than average and certainly not inky. As a result of the softness, the film has a rather flat look, lacking much in the way of three dimensionality. However the over all clarity and detail is still good enough to warrant a full 4 star rating. I am sure that fans of the film will find the encode to be more than satisfactory.

Audio  

I was not as impressed with the audio here as I was with the video, not by a long shot. There is no 5.1 mix presented here at all. While the film does feature a lossless track, it is DTS HD MA stereo only. While this is the default track and is listed as the English track, make sure that you have the English subtitles for the hearing impaired enabled while you watch the film, unless you are fluent in French. Otherwise, you will not be able to follow parts of the film which are in French and not otherwise subtitled. In fact, in many scenes both characters slip in and out of both languages. On the technical end, I found the audio to be rather inconsistent in levels, which varied from scene to scene as well as in scene. There is one scene in particular in the bathroom in the flat where the volume level of the dialogue changes significantly as the actors move closer to the camera by only a few feet.

I also found the overall fidelity of the audio to be less than ideal, sounding a bit harsh and thin, especially the musical score. I also found the musical score to be higher in level as well compared to the dialogue, so that the music is much louder when it kicks in than the dialogue and at times, jarringly so. While this is not doubt how the film sounded in the theater, I would have preferred that a 5.1 track be included as well. Given that there are 15 mono tracks included in some languages that I didn’t even know existed, it would have been nice if they had found room for a 5.1 mix.

Special Features  

There is only one extra included with this release and it is the original trailer for the film, which is nothing more than a moving set of stills. No featurettes about the film at all. Kind of disappointing that a film with such a historical significance gets such a bare bones treatment.

Final Thoughts  

Last Tango in Paris finally makes its debut on Blu-ray. While the video is fine, the audio is a bit of a disappointment as is the lack of extras. The film is certainly worthy for a look, but on the basis of a rental only.