Anyway, times and tastes do change, so it's too early to make conclusions about the final status each figure will eventually converge to. After all, cinema in general is fairly recent when compared to the overall artistic human production.
This is very true and as a more, shall we say, proletariat art form, there will always be ebbs and flows of opinion, which the internet has brought to the forefront. I for one welcome that and would never want to go back to those 70's days where only a minimum of elitist "experts" were granted the status of establishing what was worthwhile in film and what wasn't. I love the idea of an always evolving art form with new masterpieces being discovered all the time.
I for one welcome that and would never want to go back to those 70's days where only a minimum of elitist "experts" were granted the status of establishing what was worthwhile in film and what wasn't. I love the idea of an always evolving art form with new masterpieces being discovered all the time.
This is an interesting point, because while there were definitely elite tastemakers, there was an incredibly diverse amount of critical opinion by and large, exposed daily to an engaged readership, and even a mild independent/low-budget/foreign hit could expect more viewership than the biggest non-event TV shows of today. It feels like those were more organic circumstances for a canon to develop than what we have today.
I really love how exciting, non-mainstream stuff can find interesting niche audiences now, but I miss how films could catch fire in a cultural way, and I miss the constant critical exchanges that took place in the mass media.
Do we even know that Criterion ever had Last Tango in Paris? I searched through the thread, and could only find speculation of them having it. Was there anything actually confirming their acquisition?
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Originally Posted by DimitriL
You know, though I’m of course extremely aware of its importance in cinema history - and certainly that iconic Kael review - I feel like it’s suffered in reevaluations. Even before the whole highly public toxic controversy broke out, it seemed to become a footnote. Criterion had almost two decades to port their LD edition to DVD/BD, long before it became so publicly controversial, but they sat on it - as did pretty much every other label of note. It’s an odd situation, and it’s not recent - for example, it didn’t get a single vote in the compiled top 1000 films for the 2012 Sight and Sound poll, nor did it get anywhere near the top 250 in the 2002 poll. Did it just stop resonating?
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Originally Posted by SeanJoyce
^I really don't think it's ever been regarded as an especially great or important film...it's merely Brando's powerhouse performance that its reputation rests on, and obviously the controversy in more recent times.
Still, who would be shocked if they did have it and deferred putting it out because they couldn't withstand an additional NY Times hit piece?
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Originally Posted by DimitriL
They had almost 20 years to put it out on DVD before the controversy hit. IIRC, even the LD was kind of bare bones. But there was definitely a time when it was regarded as Great Art(™) by some, though that’s perhaps colored by the most over-the-top rave Kael ever gave, where she compared it to Le Sacre du Pritemps. (Ebert said it was the most influential movie review of all time.) Robert Altman said he walked out wondering how he could ever make another film after it.
My own theory is that porn eventually destroyed the transgressive shock of it, and removed from that, audiences started looking at it as kind of a turgid, pretentious and unpleasant experience.
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Originally Posted by dwk
I can't find anything to indicate that they had licensed the film, or even attempted to license it (ala "Phantom Pages" for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly cast and crew.)
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Originally Posted by mclellandj
Even before the recent statements from Schneider, I’d never heard anyone refer to Last Tango as a great or even particularly good film. Just controversial and that controversy went from silly to grim given the sexual assault revelations.
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Originally Posted by gekats
Surprised the importance/greatness of Last tango seem to be up for debate. Maybe a cultural thing? Has always had a reputation as one of the all-time great films in Greece (where I come from) and still does for good reason, regardless of the controversy.
What's not to love? Barbieri's score is excellent, so is Storaro's photography, the mood, performances, etc. As good as anything Bertolucci has done. Very surprised to read some of the comments above.
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Originally Posted by DimitriL
They put it out on LD, so I think there was always an assumption that they either had the rights or would make an effort to acquire them. Of course, that really wasn't based on anything solid.
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Originally Posted by DimitriL
One can debate whether this was insightful or hyperbolic, but Kael's legendary review is worth reading. She does elucidate what the film's admirers saw in it. Of course, she lavishes praise on Brando but she also goes into what she sees at Bertolucci's brilliance.
I personally don't agree with her assessment - gekats, I'm Greek too and I don't see any great affection for it from the cinephiles in my family there - but I get what they're arguing.
Just another of those scenes that has always been magnified out of proportion, having been discussed intensely at the time as well. If one watches the film today (and could disregard the more recent controversy - though that might be difficult to do), I don't think that is scene stands out particularly as either particularly harrowing or important in the context of the film. Anyway, if one could disregard the recent sexual assault allegations, this is just another film in the film and it has always done the film a disservice that it has always ben blown out of proportion. (Imagine if everyone were taking about the Depardieu/de Niro/Cassini masturbation scene in 1900, which they are not.)
For what it's worth, I do think it's a masterpiece and the final shot is unforgettable.
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Originally Posted by Professor Echo
Bertolucci, besides being an s.o.b. for what he did on this picture and unlike Brando, never apologizing for it, is one of those big "foreign" directors from the 70's that everyone tripped all over themselves praising, but who has been relatively left behind to the dust of that era along with Wertmuller, Chabrol and to a degree, Truffaut, who some considered a film GOD in those days. After all the middle class suburban married couples rushed to see LAST TANGO in its peak of notoriety, Bertolucci fell on some bad times with mixed notices for even THE LAST EMPEROR and downright ridicule for LITTLE BUDDAH. During the mid-70's he was being worshipped for TANGO and CONFORMIST and 1900, none of which I believe hold up all that well 50 years later. Truffaut too hit some hard times after ADELE H., with many critics thinking SMALL CHANGE inconsequential and beneath his caliber of talent. I was in film school at the time and can remember both of these directors being discussed less and less as the decade went on, contrasted with their elevated status at the beginning of the 70's.
Antonioni too fell from grace after the brilliance of BLOW UP. Bergman on the other hand had his genius survive intact following some missteps in the 70's and rightly has retained his reputation over the decades. It was a time when cinephiles were emerging from college press magazines and major metropolitan museum screenings and bringing foreign directors into the spotlight so it was an interesting era to see the ups and downs of these movements and reflect on them now. The word genius has proved pretty fickle over time and I myself no longer think of LAST TANGO as being brilliant and can easily see Criterion taking a pass on it, especially with the unsavory controversy attached.
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Originally Posted by HarryAlbright89
I always thought Last Tango retained acclaimed status until fairly recently. When I first started getting into film seriously in the mid 2000s the film was constantly mentioned as a must watch in various books I read. I thought of it as the first sexually charged arthouse film to crossover to the mainstream, so naturally I was curious to see it. What I got was a moody, haunting tale about two wayward souls trying to fill the void of pain and emptiness in their lives. It was a gripping, hypnotic experience that has retained it's potency to me over the years. Anecdotal as my experiences may be I'm just relieved that Last Tango still has a place at the table for more people to discover it even if it's no longer considered a venerated classic.
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Originally Posted by gekats
If nothing else, the current controversy surrounding Last tango makes it even more important in my eyes, as it leads me to question whether (alleged or proven) reprehensible circumstances in creating a work of art (or even the problematic natures of the artists involved, as could be argued in another context for Balthus, Schiele, Gaugin, even Picasso himself) can be distinguished form the artistic product itself, which, in this case and in my eyes, remains a most potent film, indeed, one of the peaks of cinema.
1. Do we KNOW Criterion had it in the modern era? No. Do we THINK? Depends on who you ask. I have no evidence to suggest either way. It seems like a film they'd have.
2. We know that Criterion had it in the laserdisc days, and that Criterion's been on this mission to get as many LD titles back as possible. So either this one was taken, they had this and lost it, or they'll wait until VS loses the rights and then rerelease it.
3. While I didn't think much of the film the first time I saw it (having heard what a shocking and controversial film it was growing up, I found it very underwhelming. I watched it once, dismissed it as okay at best, and never watched it again. A few years later was when I learned of what happened on the set, and at that point it effectively tipped me into the hate column.
4. Don't forget Pauline Kael hated tons of truly great movies, and most infamously published the "Raising Kane" essay that falsely accused Orson Welles of bogarting the writing credit for Citizen Kane from Herman Mankiewicz, when in reality Welles and Mankiewicz co-wrote the screenplay together. While every critic has written a review or two we don't agree with, Kael might be the only critic in history who published a demonstrably false review.
In other news, we can scratch High Society from the July consideration list, as WAC is bringing it to both formats. I know I'm way late with the news, but it's making me wonder about July now, since two great 4K options - Brazil and High Society - are now out of the running.
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Originally Posted by NeoNical
New 35mm print from the original camera negative of Fellini's 8 1/2 screening at New York's Film Forum from April 25 to May 8.
I'm thinking the reason we haven't gotten the 4K-mastered Blus out of the Fellini box set is because we're going to see more 4Ks. By the end of this year there'll be another one. (And somehow I forgot 8 1/2 got released on 4K.)
who has been relatively left behind to the dust of that era along with Wertmuller, Chabrol and to a degree, Truffaut,
Antonioni too fell from grace after the brilliance of BLOW UP.
Hmm, even with your modifiers "relatively" and "to a degree," I have to disagree with this, especially Truffaut
Also, saying "after the brilliance of BLOW UP" makes it sound a bit like nothing brilliant followed, which is absurd because there's a case to be made that The Passenger is his most brilliant work
Hmm, even with your modifiers "relatively" and "to a degree," I have to disagree with this, especially Truffaut
Also, saying "after the brilliance of BLOW UP" makes it sound a bit like nothing brilliant followed, which is absurd because there's a case to be made that The Passenger is his most brilliant work
Anyway, just my 2 cents
You won't find any disagreement with me on the artistic merits of THE PASSENGER, but I don't recall it making much of a splash when released in 1975. Certainly I did not intend to give the impression that the careers or artistic achievements of the directors I mentioned had nothing more to contribute following the dates and titles I indicated, just that their "reputations" took some hits and that their legacies may not be as strong now as it once appeared they would be. With them all having passed and no more evidence added to their filmographies, it can be hard to estimate what might have been, but Truffaut's image was not as strong among cinephiles as the 70's went on. I know because I was there and found myself constantly defending him against naysayers who were giving up on him.
Isn't Captain Blood a possibility for a July release?
That's Warner Bros while Hud is Paramount so different studios so essentially we could technically get both titles in July, which sounds bonkers, but then again look at June. I mean was anyone expecting Sorcerer, The Wiz, and a great Thelonius Monk documentary all in the same month like I sure wasn't. So honestly I don't even know what to expect from Criterion this year as predicting titles isn't worth it. I really do think Flow, and Brother From Another Planet are coming in July though any other titles are up in the air for me.
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