LAST TANGO IN PARIS

Sunday, October 12th at 1:00 p.m.
and Monday, October 13th at 7:00 p.m.
Free admission

All ESSENTIAL CINEMA films screen Sunday at 1:00 p.m. and Monday at 7:00 p.m., and admission is FREE!
See classic art films the way they were meant to be seen - on the big screen in glorious new 35 mm prints!

"The movie breakthrough has finally come...This must be the most powerfully erotic movie ever made, and it may turn out to be the most liberating movie ever made... Bertolucci and Brando have altered the face of an art form." - Pauline Kael, THE NEW YORKER

Originally infamous for its sexual frankness, Bernardo Bertolucci's LAST TANGO IN PARIS became an international sensation, and has managed to endure due to its sophisticated storytelling and brave lead performances.
Marlon Brando incorporated details from his own life into the character of Paul, the globetrotting American who finally settled into a marriage and proprietorship of a fleabag hotel in Paris. But when his wife commits suicide, Paul goes into an existential tailspin. One day, while wandering through an apartment that is available for rent, he encounters Jeanne (Maria Schneider), a lovely Parisian girl (she's 20 to Paul's 45) who is also viewing the apartment. The two become intimate and have a heated affair, carried on without names, in the apartment where they first met. While Paul clearly hopes to forget about his wife, Jeanne is simply overwhelmed by her fiancé (Jean-Pierre Leaud, in a somewhat Bertolucci-satirizing role), a filmmaker who wants her to be his subject and inspiration. Nothing is taboo in their relationship, but confrontation comes when Paul breaks the spell of impersonality.
Brando's monologue beside his dead wife has sent many a film student into a paroxysm of pleasure in this groundbreaking, Oscar-nominated (Best Actor and Best Director) erotic drama from acclaimed director Bertolucci (THE CONFORMIST, THE LAST EMPEROR).

(Bernardo Bertolucci, 1972, Italy/France, in French and English, 129 mins., rated NC-17)