In 1972, the entire world was in a state of shock upon seeing one of American Cinema’s most iconic leading men in some of the most intense scenes and sequences that were borderline pornographic and broke any expectation of the viewer. Last Tango in Paris is a film that presents romance at its most feral extreme, a movie that hides a dark secret that perturbed, not only its cast, but also the spectator’s mind, and which continues to cause distress to this day.
Bernardo Bertolucci used a decadent Paris to show a mature Marlon Brando portraying a man dealing with the shock and frustration of having his partner commit suicide. This becomes the face of someone who is brutally willing to bury his impulses in a young ingénue who dreams of becoming a movie star. By some sort of paradox, the lines between fiction and reality ended up being crossed and turned a then teenager Maria Schneider into the embodiment of cinematic desire and real-life sexual assault.
As the film transpires, Brando’s character, Paul, unravels as a man and instinct-driven beast in an experimental encounter of bodies, which drives the inexperienced young woman by his side to discover the emotional and physical wounds a lover can inflict. The repercussions of crossing the script’s boundaries not only ended the young starlet’s dreams but also caused her severe mental trauma.
Bernardo Bertolucci, who won the Academy Award for best director for this film, recalled one of the most disturbing scenes in the shoot during a candid conversation with his fans. When the character of Paul uses butter as lubricant for anal sex with Jeanne (Schneider), the young woman appears to be in complete shock the whole time. This moment was never on the screenplay nor was the actress informed about it.
More than 40 years after the film’s release, the director confessed that while having breakfast with Marlon Brando, as the actor spread butter on his toast, both men turned to each other with a sinister mirth and decided how to work out one of the most emblematic scenes in the film. They unabashedly chose to not tell Schneider of their plan in order to provoke an authentic reaction in her interpretation.
The Italian narrated how the young French artist, who passed away in 2011, when shown crying onscreen, was not the result of characterization but of a real woman with actual tears caused by physical pain and the humiliation of the entire ordeal. Though it remains unknown whether penetration occurred or was acted by Brando, the simple fact of Schneider not being warned became one of the most traumatic instances of her career.
After decades of silence, Bertolucci came out with a statement until after Schneider was no longer able to accept an apology or at least admittance of guilt on behalf of the filmmaker. The truth is that it was not her impression that she had been used during the shoot of her most famous film. Both her integrity and her entire being was admittedly exploited by the director, who stated he deceived the actress knowing full well she would not prosecute.
In 2007, the actress gave an account of her experience during an interview where she declared that as this fateful shoot was happening, she was never able to say no. She never knew what was occurring and regretted not being able to inform her agent or attorney.
The cost of Maria Schneider’s lesson from all this, beside her career, was to know that no actor should be forced to do anything that is not on the script. But it was during this learning process that the young woman’s confidence was lost to the violent artistic stubbornness of a filmmaker, transformed into an unforgivable offense.
Translated by María Suárez
