Kael already felt that Marlon Brando was undergoing a renaissance, and then came a film that made “the strongest impression on me in almost twenty years of reviewing… Bertolucci and Brando have altered the face of an art form.” The X-rated erotic psychodrama — at the time a critical and box office hit — stars Brando as an American widower whose Paris apartment-viewing encounter with Maria Schneider leads to a relationship that spirals from idyllic to violent.