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May 5, 2008
"Last Tango" in Stamford
Even though hard-core pornography has been widely available in this country for more than three decades — some of us saw “Deep Throat” 36 years ago in theaters, long before the advent of Internet and hotel room porn — we still live in a culture that keeps behaving as if it is “shocked” by nudity and overt sexuality in the media.
The recent madness over the Miley Cyrus photos in Vanity Fair is a sign of either rampant neo-Puritanism (bare shoulders equals porn?) or cynical PR machinery.
So, I don’t know what to expect Wednesday night in Stamford when I host a gathering at the non-profit Avon Theatre Film Center devoted to the issue of sex in cinema that will include a screening of the 1972 Bernardo Bertolucci classic “Last Tango in Paris” along with the striking new black-and-white short film, “Leave You in Me,” by Stamford filmmaker Dutch Doscher.
Doscher’s film is an honest treatment of a young couple in crisis, played out in their bedroom, with both participants nude the whole time.
The film’s premise is that after the intimacy of their lovemaking, the man and woman then have a primal discussion about the man’s infidelity. Doscher believes it would be dishonest to have the characters clutching at sheets and/or towels before they start talking, and that the viewer should accept the nudity as being entirely natural.
Doscher gave me a DVD of the film at another Avon screening a few months ago and told me he was having a hard time getting the picture screened in the area because of the frontal nudity. I suggested to Avon programmer Adam Birnbaum that he show Doscher’s short with a feature that deals with sex in a frank, adult manner.
When Birnbaum learned that prints of “Last Tango in Paris” were again available — in conjunction with the 90th anniversary celebration of United Artists — it seemed like the perfect pairing with “Leave You in Me.”
It will be interesting to see if the 1972 Marlon Brando vehicle has any shock value left and how the audience will respond to Doscher’s striking contemporary vision of romantic and sexual strife.
(The screening of “Leave You in Me” and “Last Tango in Paris” will be Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. The Avon Theatre is at 272 Bedford St. in Stamford. For more information, call 967-3660.)
Posted by Joe on May 5, 2008 6:12 PM
