the ending (spoilers, obvs)

Well when I say planned, I mean that she knew what she was going to do the moment she got in her apartment and put her hand in the drawer on the gun. I don't think she "planned ahead" in the normal sense of premeditation, but I think she knew exactly what she was going to do the moment she got in the apartment, she was in a corner and had to deal with Paul and get him out of her life somehow, so she planned ahead momentarily due to the position she was put in. I honestly think that if Paul was willing to let her run off and was content with never speaking to her again the idea of killing him would never have entered her consciousness, it was a choice made in the moment out of self-protection, to protect her own illusions about herself and the fact of being found out about Paul, but not out of fear of Paul in my opinion.

As for Paul being crazed, I just watched this film for the first time (2x this week), and when he chases her he is imploring that he wants to talk and what is the matter with you type stuff - pretty normal in my opinion like we agreed. When he comes in the apartment he is so calm and unaware of what is about to happen, so at ease, even trying to be funny to take away all of Jeanne's seriousness. Paul is very relaxed for one of the first times in the film in my opinion, he hardly came off crazed to me. Plus Jeanne had in the past kind of pulled the I hate you (right before I love you) type of stuff in with childish petulance that was usually intended to provoke Paul to respond to her when he would distance himself and I think in a way he thought that her saying it is over and running was part of the game/dance they had been doing, which was for them foreplay. In just watching the movie I can say he never hit her - but he did do worse in the sense of raping her so to speak - but she pretty much let him and obviously didn't mind it because right after she is sitting in the apartment with a smile on her face wanting to listen to music with him. So what he does do "bad" to her she does seem to enjoy afterwards, like some women would, but he never actually physically strikes her in any sort of angry or dangerous way.

I understand the idea of not knowing what a guy would do if he is prone to violence - but that was never Paul outside of certain sexual acts of which Jeanne was a willing participant, and continued to come back for more. The most volatile thing about Paul was that he would yell suddenly and the things he asked Jeanne for sexually were kind of surprising and maybe even frightening, but he did ask for them and she complied. I don't why Jeanne would be scared of violence and actual physical/deathly harm from Paul to where she felt she had to kill him to save herself from harm, there was nothing he had done to instill that kind of fear. And again, if you are afraid of physical harm you pull our gun, maybe attempt to shoot the person in the leg, attempt to threaten them with the gun so maybe you don't have to shoot and they leave you alone. A person in fear for their life just does not act like Jeanne does, not at all. And in that moment, was Paul even hinting at violence? No, he was asking for her name, and telling her again like he had earlier that he loved her. from what we know of their relationship there is no reason for her to be afraid of physical violence from him, and even she was for some reason afraid for her life, a person afraid for their life does not act the way Jeanne does. If you are scared when a person stands next to you and says they love you, you would be scared of them standing across the room and coming towards you, it makes no sense that all of the sudden, when her hand had been holding a gun for awhile, that she then became afraid - and he had told her he loved her at the Tango place, the confession of love was not the first nor was it a surprise.

And she doesn't call the police. She doesn't even try to save him. She doesn't even have ANY emotion after she shoots him, which usually people do even if it is a threatening intruder, the adrenaline is so high that they emotionally lose it. She is quite composed - and she knows he didn't try to rape her! Asking her name? He had already made it clear he was done with the antics of the apartment and was ready for "love and all the rest of it." He had been treating her adoringly all afternoon not at all like he had treated her at the apartment - and even when Paul had once in a sense raped her - he had her do all of the things to put herself in the position to be ready for sexual contact, he never overpowered her in a way sexually in which she wasn't already complicit in what was about to happen.

As far as Paul becoming frightening after he wanted "love and all the rest of it" to Jeanne, I wonder if this person who made these statements you found even watched what happened! The more Jeanne gets to know Paul, the more she feels disgust. It is written all over her face the more he tells her about himself, her statements to him even show her disgust - she gets rather nasty towards him. Disgust, which she clearly feels, and saying mean things to Paul are not signs of being afraid. She doesn't get to know Paul and THEN becomes afraid of him, she gets to know him and realizes that the "dangerous" man who excites her sexually that she thought she was in love with because of his mysteriousness and the fact that she couldn't have him turns out to be just some average old man, an average old man without money to boot. The illusion of Paul being broken revealing him as just another balding old guy with a rather boring existence does NOT frighten her at all in my opinion.

I speak from experience as a person who has had purely sexual affairs, once with a man that was 48 when I was 21, and I did have a moment when the illusion of the guy wore off. When things started to get "real" and I ran away, literally I have up and left and ran out of an apartment building from a naked man that didn't know what the hell was wrong with me and how I turned on a dime. But I was young, and when the illusion couldn't be kept anymore and you can't help but start to see the real person and maybe move deeper into what is going on with the two of you, when I decided I didn't want it anymore it was always final, i wanted it to be over and done with immediately, in a claustrophobic I have to get of here now kind of way. And maybe I am transposing my own personal experience on Jeanne, but when she is running through the streets I felt like the feeling I have had in my life was being captured on film. I felt like Jeanne had gotten her taste of reality, didn't want Paul, and wanted the whole thing over and done with. It is more frightening as a woman when you think back on all that you have done and only have the acts tarnished and sordid because the man isn't what you thought he was, and I think this type of thing can really only happen when a person is young, you grow up and aren't so easily seduced by illusion.

I personally since I have some experience in these types of relationships felt Paul's "tragedy" started the moment he began opening up to Jeanne about himself and was no longer the tortured man but happy and ready for love. To me, since I felt similar emotions, the looks on Jeanne's face were obvious, and watching all the scenes at the Tango place were tragic, it was almost hard to watch they were so tragic. I didn't get that the tragedy came in suddenly at the end. You already knew that Paul was going to get gut punched by Jeanne and all of his optimism was going to be destroyed when he realizes that the woman who professed her love to him was just posturing, Paul was bound for another breakdown and hating women after the number Jeanne was going to do to him just by breaking his heart in my opinion. But what is so tragic about the last scene to me is how much he believed her, how much her "love" had brought him out of his hell, how he for the first time in his life (after Africa, Indonesia . . ) he felt he had truly found love. The whole point of the film for Bertolucci was to capture the look of the man in the Bacon painting, kind of like a wounded dog. And when Jeanne shoots him, in that moment Paul is that Bacon painting, he is utterly disillusioned and broken, just like Jeanne had thought she found love that when the illusion was shattered was more of nuisance to her, Paul when the illusion is shattered is literally killed by it, he had truly given his heart to her, though she obviously hadn't to him.

Thanks for the response, nice to see another person who finds such complexity in this movie, and I loved the bathroom scene! "Before you go (to the grave) wash my feet." Classic.

And I know I just went off but I have to add one thing. Just from our life experience, if Jeanne was really afraid why didn't she yell out into the hallway that she had a gun? Why didn't she yell she was calling the police? She goes completely silent, let's him walk in the house without even statements to the effect of I want you to leave or something, she stops yelling at him completely. She holds the gun the entire time - she is obviously thinking, before he enters the room she is just standing there with her head down holding the gun and looking in the drawer. A scared person who wanted the guy not to come in the house would have warned him not to come in or face being shot. They would also say they are calling the authorities. At that point if she would have acted like a normal scared woman Paul would have probably told her from the hallway she is one crazy bitch and left. But that probably wouldn't have been the end of it - since he knew where she lived he probably would have stalked in her essence and tried to have a conversation with her in the future. Jeanne wanted him completely out of her life, not just out of the apartment that much is true - and killing him accomplished that objective. But what was she thinking about the entire time he walks in and talks and then walks across the room towards her while her hands were on the gun? Why would she even let him get close to her if she was afraid? Why wouldn't she at least threaten to shoot him if he won't leave? It is obvious in the moment what she could have done instinctually to get him not to come in the apartment and leave without killing him. What is very strange is to not say anything, not to act afraid, not to show you have a gun and have the upper hand. Why would any sacred person or rational person behave this way? It makes no sense, unless you factor in that Jeanne wanted Paul gone permanently and obviously was unwilling to explain to him why. When you look at her motivations and what she wanted, being scared aside this is what she wanted, and you look at how she handles the situation, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that she pulled the trigger knowing full well what she was doing, taking care of a problem, and not out of immediate fear in my opinion.