Bernardo Bertolucci's 1972 film Last Tango in Paris has been hailed as "a landmark in movie history" by New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael, as well as pornography and polarizing, for its torrid sex scenes between a paunchy, middle-aged Brando and very young Maria Schneider. Tomorrow night, at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the movie is being screened by none other than actor-Tweeter Alec Baldwin and writer-director James Toback, who will be discussing the film afterwards. And there are still tickets left (details below)!
The Film Society was inspired to have the pair after Baldwin and Toback screened and discussed Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon at the Savannah Film Festival last October. Toback, whose works include writing Bugsy, writing and directing Two Girls And A Guy (1997) as well as the wonderful Fingers (1978; starring Harvey Keitel), is always very outspoken—and did you realize that he met Mike Tyson, the subject of his 2009 documentary Tyson, when Tyson was visiting Robert Downey Jr. on the set of The Pick-Up Artist?
And Baldwin will undoubtedly be very Baldwin—it should be interesting what he thinks of Brando's work, since he's played a part immortalized by Brando, Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire.
The screening is at 6:15 p.m., Thursday, April 5 at the Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65 Street, 4th Floor, by Lincoln Center). United States Tickets are $35 but the Film Society is offering them for $25 (plus $1.50 handling) for Gothamist readers—select "Gothamist" here.
