‘Last Tango rape scene was nonconsensual’
LOS ANGELES: Comments by the director of the film Last Tango in Paris, Bernardo Bertolucci, that he conspired with Marlon Brando to film a graphic rape scene without the consent of 19-year-old actor Maria Schneider have prompted outrage in Hollywood.
Speaking in a video from 2013 that surfaced recently, Bertolucci said he and Brando came up with the idea to shoot the infamous scene depicting assault, in which Brando’s character uses a stick of butter to anally rape his lover, played by Schneider.
“The sequence of the butter is an idea that I had with Marlon in the morning before shooting,” Bertulocci said at an event held at La Cinémathèque Française in Paris in 2013. He said he “wanted her reaction as a girl, not as an actress.”
“I think she hated me and also Marlon because we didn’t tell her that there was that detail of the butter used as lubricant,” he said.
Although he admitted that not telling her the plan was “horrible”, Bertolucci said he didn’t regret how he decided to direct the scene.
At the time of filming Brando was 48, while Schneider was 19. Schneider, who went on to have drug addiction problems and depression, said in 2007 that she felt humiliated and “a little raped”.
She said she was told about the contents of the scene shortly before the shoot and that it wasn’t in the script.
Actress Jessica Chastain said the comments made her feel sick. Evan Rachel Wood retweeted Chastain’s comments, adding, “I second that. This is heartbreaking and outrageous. The 2 of them are very sick individuals to think that was ok.”