I was a bit surprised how much I liked the movie this time because it did not please me when I first saw it as a teenager, which was in the early 80's. Probably, then it was too little action and too much depth for a teenager's taste despite its label as a scandal movie.
In my eyes, it is still an uncompromising piece of art, far off from commercial mainstream. It does have, however, some lengths, especially in between minutes 30 and 60, where Marlon Brando gives his great monologues, parts of them allegedly in an improvised manner. They are not badly plaid but for my taste just a bit too long. Overall there is no need to discuss the indisputable acting qualities of Marlon Brando, but I would like to emphasize that young and quite unknown Maria Schneider as the female part of this 'amour fou' is in no way inferior in her performance. While Brando impresses by giving a desperate middle-aged guy trying to forget, Schneider is good in showing a somewhat pampered young lady on the search for something, that her rather immature and playful boyfriend, wittily plaid by Nouvelle Vague hero Jean-Pierre Leaud, cannot offer her.
It was also interesting to see that the raping scene was the only scene that had no German dubbing, which can only mean that it was apparently censored in the original German version. Surely a bit overdone but I do not think that the omission changed the movie all too much.
It is quite a pity that uncompromising films like this one become rarer and rarer nowadays. Compliments to Mr. Bertolucci for creating a movie that has such extreme and vulnerable characters.
In my eyes, it is still an uncompromising piece of art, far off from commercial mainstream. It does have, however, some lengths, especially in between minutes 30 and 60, where Marlon Brando gives his great monologues, parts of them allegedly in an improvised manner. They are not badly plaid but for my taste just a bit too long. Overall there is no need to discuss the indisputable acting qualities of Marlon Brando, but I would like to emphasize that young and quite unknown Maria Schneider as the female part of this 'amour fou' is in no way inferior in her performance. While Brando impresses by giving a desperate middle-aged guy trying to forget, Schneider is good in showing a somewhat pampered young lady on the search for something, that her rather immature and playful boyfriend, wittily plaid by Nouvelle Vague hero Jean-Pierre Leaud, cannot offer her.
It was also interesting to see that the raping scene was the only scene that had no German dubbing, which can only mean that it was apparently censored in the original German version. Surely a bit overdone but I do not think that the omission changed the movie all too much.
It is quite a pity that uncompromising films like this one become rarer and rarer nowadays. Compliments to Mr. Bertolucci for creating a movie that has such extreme and vulnerable characters.