Editing Last Tango in Paris (section)

=== Francis Bacon influence ===
[[File:FrancisBacon-StudyforPortraitofIsabelRawsthorne.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.9|''Double Portrait of Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach'' (left side, oil on canvas, 1964)]] [[File:FrancisBacon-PortraitofIsabelRawsthorne.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.9|''Study for a Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne'' (oil on canvas, 1964)]]
The film's opening credits include two paintings by [[Francis Bacon (artist)|Francis Bacon]]: ''Double Portrait of [[Lucian Freud]] and [[Frank Auerbach]]'' and ''Study for a Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne''. The hues used in the film were inspired by the paintings of Bacon.{{sfn|Tonetti|1995|p=233}} During pre-production, Bertolucci frequently visited an exhibit of Bacon's paintings at the [[Grand Palais]] in Paris; he said that the light and colour in Bacon's paintings reminded him of Paris in the winter, when

<blockquote>the lights of the stores are on, and there is a very beautiful contrast between the leaden gray of the wintry sky and the warmth of the show windows...the light in the paintings was the major source of inspiration for the style we were looking for.{{sfn|Tonetti|1995|p=126}}</blockquote>

Bacon's painting style often depicted human skin like raw meat and the painter's inspiration included meat hanging in a butcher shops window and human skin diseases.{{sfn|Tonetti|1995|p=126}}

Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro had previously worked with Bertolucci on ''[[The Conformist (film)|The Conformist]]'' and often used an azure hue in the film. Storaro later told a reporter that

<blockquote>after ''The Conformist'' I had a moment of crisis; I was asking myself: what can come after azure?...I did not have the slightest idea that an orange film could be born. We needed another kind of emotion...It was the case of ''Last Tango''.{{sfn|Tonetti|1995|p=126}}</blockquote>

For ''Last Tango in Paris'', Bertolucci and Storaro took inspiration from Bacon's paintings by using "rich oranges, light and cool grays, icy whites, and occasional reds combine[d] with Bertolucci's own tasteful choices of soft browns, blond browns, and delicate whites with bluish and pink shadings".{{sfn|Tonetti|1995|p=127}}

Bertolucci took Marlon Brando to the Bacon exhibit and told Brando that he "wanted him to compare himself with Bacon's human figures because I felt that, like them, Marlon's face and body were characterized by a strange and infernal plasticity. I wanted Paul to be like the figures that obsessively return in Bacon: faces eaten by something coming from the inside."{{sfn|Tonetti|1995|p=126}}