Last Tango in Paris is a 1972 drama directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. It stars Marlon Brando as an American expatriate who, reeling from the suicide of his wife, enters into an anonymous sexual relationship with a young Parisian woman played by Maria Schneider.
Classification Issues
- Sex
- There are scenes of strong sexual activity featuring full nudity, as well as graphic verbal sex references.
- Sexual violence
- A male character rapes a female character
Classification history
Bertolucci's film was submitted to the BBFC at the end of 1972.
It had already caused controversy at the New York Film Festival in October 1972 but had also received critical acclaim as a serious and important film. Following its New York screening, several British tabloid newspapers published articles that described the film as containing “a series of blistering sequences guaranteed to knock the bottom out of the backstreet porno market.”
When viewing the film for classification, the BBFC's concerns centred around two scenes – one involving very explicit sexual dialogue and the scene in which Brando’s character rapes Schneider’s character using butter as lubricant.
Ultimately, the BBFC concluded that the explicit dialogue could not be removed without affecting a key element of the story. By contrast, it determined that the duration of the so-called “butter scene” could be shortened without causing significant harm to the overall film.
The distributors agreed to make a cut lasting about 20 seconds but the cut was appealed against by the film's director and, following meetings between the film's producer and BBFC Secretary Stephen Murphy, a compromise was reached in which 10 seconds were cut. The BBFC therefore passed the film X (which meant that only audiences of at least 18 years old could see the film in the cinema) after one cut on 16 February 1973.
The BBFC's decision to cut the film was criticized by some as tokenistic, especially in light of the strong sexual and sexually violent content that the BBFC had recently been passed in other controversial films such as The Devils, Straw Dogs and A Clockwork Orange. At the same time, the film’s sexual content continued to attract objection, and the BBFC’s decision to grant a classification was questioned by some sections of the press and by campaign groups such as Mary Whitehouse’s Festival of Light.
Local authority response and legal challenge
Some local authorities bowed to pressure and prohibited the film exhibition from in their areas. However, it received favourable write-ups from film critics and played unopposed in most areas.
Events took an unprecedented turn, however, when Edward Shackleton, a member of the Festival of Light, brought a private prosecution against the film's distributors for publishing obscene material. The case ultimately collapsed as, at the time, the Obscene Publications Act 1959 (OPA) did not apply to film.
When the Obscene Publications Act was applied to film under the Criminal Law Act 1977, the BBFC’s then Secretary, James Ferman, chose to set aside the original 1973 cut and passed Last Tango in Paris uncut with an X certificate in 1978. The application of the Act required films to be assessed as a whole and allowed for a defence of artistic merit. On this basis, Ferman concluded that the film, in its complete version, was not obscene and could be released uncut in the UK.
The BBFC’s decision to waive the cut provoked no comment and the film was subsequently passed 18 uncut for video release in 1988.
