The confusion of response which [Last Tango in Paris] excites arises, I think, from several sources: the opulent cinematography, Marlon Brando's performance and the sexuality are all accessible, each contributes to the shocking force of the film's impact, but simultaneously they can make one overlook the impenetrable obscurity of some of the imagery. I was sometimes reminded of Auden's early poems, where the force of the ideas and the grace of the language help one to ignore the privacies with which they are spiked. In Auden's case the images and phrases were teases, minute love letters from a subconscious mind to a desired body, perhaps; or snatches of clever dreams given the dignity of poetic utterance. With Bertolucci the subconscious is the poetry, and one of his films, Partner, which deals with schizophrenia, remains virtually impossible to understand as an idea or even a series of fragmented ideas...