"The Last Tango in Paris" Rape Scene Draws Outcry Many Years Later

[JamesG]

Hollywood Reacts With Disgust at Last Tango Rape Scene Revelations
by Ross A. Lincoln
December 3, 2016


Actors and other public figures are responding with outrage at recently surfaced news that The Last Tango in Paris director Bernardo Bertolucci, in a three year old video that only came to light this week, confirmed what co-star Maria Schneider has long said about the film’s most controversial moment:

The brutal rape scene was shot without her full consent.





The scene in question featured Brando’s character raping Schneider’s character using a stick of butter as lubricant. It was a shock to audiences in 1972 and as Schneider, who died following a battle with cancer in 2011, said herself years later, a shock to her as well.

In a 2007 interview with The Daily Mail, Schneider was blunt, revealing at the time that Brando and Bertolucci came up with the idea without her, and heavily pressured her to do it when she showed up for work.

“I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you can’t force someone to do something that isn’t in the script, but at the time, I didn’t know that. Marlon said to me: ‘Maria, don’t worry, it’s just a movie,’ but during the scene, even though what Marlon was doing wasn’t real, I was crying real tears. I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci. After the scene, Marlon didn’t console me or apologise. Thankfully, there was just one take.”





Bertolucci largely confirmed Schneider’s account in the video, filmed during a 2013 Q&A at La Cinémathèque française in Paris. He also provided the added detail that they didn’t tell Schneider about the butter before filming.

“We were having, with Marlon [Brando], breakfast on the floor of the flat where I was shooting. There was a baguette, there was butter and we looked at each other and, without saying anything, we knew what we wanted,” the director said.



“I had been, in a way, horrible to Maria because I didn’t tell her what was going on,” said Bertolucci. However, he insisted he doesn’t regret the film, and defended the approach to the scene because he “wanted her reaction as a girl, not as an actress. I wanted her to react humiliated.”

“I think she hated me and also Marlon because we didn’t tell her,” said Bertolucci, who apparently had not been informed of Schneider’s prior comments on the film.



He was as it turns out partly correct.

“I think Bertolucci is over-rated,” Schneider said to The Daily Mail in 2007. “And he never really made anything after Last Tango that had the same impact.”



Schneider had even harsher words for Bertolucci.

“He was fat and sweaty and very manipulative, both of Marlon and myself, and would do certain things to get a reaction from me. Some mornings on set he would be very nice and say hello and on other days, he wouldn’t say anything at all. I was too young to know better. Marlon later said that he felt manipulated, and he was Marlon Brando, so you can imagine how I felt. People thought I was like the girl in the movie, but that wasn’t me.”







As the news spread, several actors and public figures shared their dismay and disgust about the admission on social media.



Jessica Chastain:

"To all the people that love this film- you're watching a 19yr old get raped by a 48yr old man. The director planned her attack. I feel sick."





Chris Evans:

"Wow. I will never look at this film, Bertolucci or Brando the same way again. This is beyond disgusting. I feel rage"





Michael Cudlitz:

"Special place in hell for these two scumbags and everyone on the crew that watched and did nothing. **** YOU"





Howard Dean:

"Not surprised at Brando or Bertolucci."





Bryan Greenberg:

"OK not watching Last Tango in Paris ever again."

http://deadline.com/2016/12/last-tan...ci-1201864017/

[JamesG]

Bernardo Bertolucci responds to The Last Tango in Paris Rape Scene Controversy
by Joey Nolfi
12/5/16


The Last Tango in Paris director Bernardo Bertolucci has responded to the renewed outrage over the film’s controversial rape scene.

In statement obtained by Variety on Monday, Bertolucci said there was a “ridiculous misunderstanding” of his comments made during a recently resurfaced interview (originally filmed at La Cinémathèque Française in Paris in 2013), in which the filmmaker admitted he and lead actor Marlon Brando came up with the idea of using butter as sexual lubricant prior to filming the scene, though they kept their decision a secret from Brando’s scene partner, Maria Schneider, who was 19 at the time of production.





“I would like, for the last time, to clear up a ridiculous misunderstanding that continues to generate press reports about The Last Tango in Paris around the world,” he said.

“Several years ago at the Cinemathèque Francaise, someone asked me for details on the famous ‘butter scene.’ I specified, but perhaps I was not clear, that I decided with Marlon Brando not to inform Maria that we would have used butter… We wanted her spontaneous reaction to that improper use of the butter. That is where the misunderstanding lies.”

He added, “Somebody thought, and thinks, that Maria had not been informed about the violence on her. That is false! Maria knew everything because she had read the script, where it was all described. The only novelty was the idea of the butter.”





Several Hollywood celebrities reacted to the news in anger, with stars like Jessica Chastain and Jenna Fischer alleging the scene contained “actual rape.”

During a 2007 interview with the Daily Mail, Schneider explained no sex act occurred in the film but did admit the sequence left her feeling “a little raped” by Bertolucci and Brando.

“Marlon said to me: ‘Maria, don’t worry, it’s just a movie,’ but during the scene, even though what Marlon was doing wasn’t real, I was crying real tears… I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci,” the actress, who died at 58 after a battle with cancer in 2011, told the publication.

When asked if any of the sex depicted in the film was real, Schneider insisted, “Not at all.”





Bertolucci’s statement acknowledged Schneider’s distaste with the way the scene was captured, however.

He continued: “… I learned many years later, I offended Maria. Not the violence that she is subjected to in the scene, which was written in the screenplay.”

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/12/05...rdo-bertolucci