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Bernardo Bertolucci / Last Tango in Paris (1 Viewer)

battlebeast

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There has been a revelation that Bernardo Bertolucci, when Making Last Tango in Paris did not discuss with Maria Schneider the rape scene they were planning, in order to capture very real emotions from the young actress. He only crafted it with Brando.

Maria has stated, before she died, that she felt "a little bit raped." I haven't seen the movie, and from what has been revealed I don't know if I want to.

IMHO, I think the director went WAY too far to capture the performance he wanted. WAY too far. No actor / actress should have to go through humiliation like this for the sake of a motion picture. NO ONE.


I'd like to know what your thoughts are on this. Do you see the director, and Brando, in a different light? Does this change your view of the film? Will you watch it again?

You can read the article here.

http://deadline.com/2016/12/last-ta...marlon-brando-bernardo-bertolucci-1201864017/
 

Robert Harris

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There has been a revelation that Bernardo Bertolucci, when Making Last Tango in Paris did not discuss with Maria Schneider the rape scene they were planning, in order to capture very real emotions from the young actress. He only crafted it with Brando.

Maria has stated, before she died, that she felt "a little bit raped." I haven't seen the movie, and from what has been revealed I don't know if I want to.

IMHO, I think the director went WAY too far to capture the performance he wanted. WAY too far. No actor / actress should have to go through humiliation like this for the sake of a motion picture. NO ONE.


I'd like to know what your thoughts are on this. Do you see the director, and Brando, in a different light? Does this change your view of the film? Will you watch it again?

You can read the article here.

http://deadline.com/2016/12/last-ta...marlon-brando-bernardo-bertolucci-1201864017/

The film is the film. Never liked it.
 

Josh Steinberg

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Schneider talked about it before she died, so it made some waves a few years ago as well. I think this is making bigger waves because he's admitting to intentionally making the scene difficult to shoot, whereas she could only say that she suspected as much.
 

Cranston37+

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The video was first released in 2013 so I was kind of taken aback at the press it got this week because nothing new came to light.

At the end of the day, with any of these scandals, all you can do is decide how you personally feel about it and how you will spend your monies on the films of those involved.

I am the first to stand up and admit to being a hypocrite because I refuse to spend money on a Victor Salva film and yet the movie I have purchased the most is Chinatown.

It can be a tough thing.

I do find it amusing though at how many young celebrities have called on Brando to be jailed. If you geniuses can figure out how to work a shovel, go for it...
 

Thomas T

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As has been pointed out, it's old news. Ms. Schneider gave an interview in 1977 to a British newspaper where she discussed this. Did Bertolucci exploit her? Absolutely! But to call it "rape" is an offense to real rape victims. Schneider was informed of what they intended to do just before the scene was shot. As an inexperienced actress, she didn't realize she could have said no and a more experienced actress would have said no or "Let's talk about this before we shoot the scene. What are the boundaries going to be?" etc. But all this hullaballoo is ridiculous. At the least, it was insensitive and unprofessional of Bertolucci and at the worst, unspeakably cruel. But rape it is not. And guess what? Naive, inexperienced young girls are still being exploited every day in Hollywood. Ms. Schneider is gone and may she rest in peace, let's save our outrage for the young girls (and boys) at the mercy of those in Hollywood who abuse their power because they can.
 

Winston T. Boogie

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Well first this story is doing wonders for sales of the blu-ray and DVD as Amazon has sold out of both.

Second, it is kind of strange that this has suddenly become big news as Maria Schneider had spoken about this for many years and it was never a big deal in the news nor did it cause a bunch of celebrities to comment or talk about putting Brando in jail.

Now we suddenly have outrage? 44 years after the fact, 12 years after the death of Brando conveniently so he can't respond and 5 years after the death of Schneider. No surprise this story is all about the "Twitterverse" where people can weigh in and express their outrage while both Brando and Schneider are unavailable for comment...which is absolutely perfect for this sort of manufactured outrage.

This was never a secret so why now?

Well, my opinion is this story has "suddenly" surfaced because some clueless reporters finally "discovered" the tale after years of it being out in the open. Other reporters over the many years this has been out did not care about this story in part because Schneider was over the years an unstable person and so they were not inclined to run with a story from somebody with drug and mental stability issues. Second, this was not thought of as a big deal as Schneider was not "raped" just pushed to a level of discomfort by a director...which was common practice back then and guys like William Friedkin were accused many times of doing terrible things to actors to get "real reactions" from them rather than acting.

So, I do not mention Schneider's issues to downplay what Bertolucci did, which was obviously cruel and today would be seen as totally unprofessional but to give this story some context...something rarely done in today's media...which we need to actually evaluate this.

What Bertolucci did back in the early 1970s was not frowned upon back then. It would be today however and so that is exactly the reason this story is being dug back up now. Plus add the "Twittervoice" of a famous actress overreacting to this 44 year old "crime" and you've got a full on modern day frenzy where likely people in the business must now come out denouncing Brando and Bertolucci or risk being labelled people that would "condone" this kind of behavior.

I absolutely do not condone how Bertolucci went about getting the "reaction" from Maria Schneider but I also realize that while he could not do this making a film in America today (nor would a film like Last Tango get backing here today) in the early seventies making a film in Europe that was about adult themes and featured considerable nudity and sexual situations that the actors agreed to prior to filming...then to change a scene to include a stick of butter which was explained prior to shooting it and then everybody went on to shoot it...well...I find it unfair to now 44 years later when the outlook on this kind of thing has drastically changed to convict Bertolucci and Brando.

Sure, nobody is going to ask Jessica Chastain to do an anal sex scene involving a stick of butter today and no director would attempt that kind of scene, particularly in the USA without full consent and checking in on the actors many times both before and after the scene...but back in 1972 what happened was not very unusual for the time.

Also, I would say filmmakers still do utterly insane things. The scene in the last Mission Impossible film where they actually strapped Tom Cruise to the side of a plane and had that plane take off and land several times was quite frankly nuts and put Cruise in severe danger where he could have lost his life or easily been horribly injured. Sure, Cruise consented to doing this but you would think today somebody would have stepped in regardless of Cruise's consent and said this is too dangerous to risk permanent injury or the death of one of our actors.

Is there outrage about this? Nope, people just applaud Cruise's commitment to his craft. Honestly, I find what was done to Cruise far more shocking and worse than what Schneider did in her scene with Brando...which was entirely fake, simulated, and she was never in danger...whereas Cruise was allowed to risk his life or serious injury and everybody went along with that. That was real.
 

Worth

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I suspect a number of people tried to talk Cruise out of doing the plane stunt, especially given that it wouldn't have been covered by insurance. But I don't see why there should be any outrage over it, as it was reportedly his idea and he was both star and producer on the film. It's not as if he was coerced into doing anything.
 

Winston T. Boogie

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I would guess that the reason Cruise was in the end allowed to do the stunt was because he was also a producer. Who should be outraged by that? Well, I would say most people should not and probably don't care about it at all. I think people that work in the film industry though maybe should be at least a little outraged because there is NO REASON for actors to risk their lives or serious injury making a film particularly in a stunt like the plane stunt. Basically, I would just look at it as a bad and bizarre precedent being set and one where somebody could say "Well, they strapped Tom Cruise to the side of a jet so why can't we do this stunt?"

I admit nobody had to "talk him into" doing it but still, rationally thinking about it strapping an actor to the outside of a jet for several takes was a stupid move. Did it make for a thrilling moment on film? Sure, and every time I watch that scene I can't believe what I am seeing but it was certainly a bad idea.

I brought that scene up because it was a good example of filmmakers pushing way beyond the limits of what they should be doing to make a film. So, where is Jessica Chastain's tweet about how horrible it was that for a movie they intentionally risked killing or maiming an actor? That would seem like a big deal...
 
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Winston T. Boogie

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“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. 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.” - Bernardo Bertolucci




 
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English Patient

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For years, I always thought Brando's performance and character in Last Tango were the best of his career - his character was often funny, often grief-stricken, intellectual and worldly but also childish and vulgar. The movie as a whole had the richness of a post-modern novel. Does this appalling revelation from Bertolucci affect my opinion of the movie? To some degree, yes. There are some directors out there who think that getting "authentic" or "real" performances requires vile, underhanded and/or extreme methods - but no performance is worth those methods. Imagine if that were your sister or daughter being subjected to that treatment. I know other directors have done questionable things (slapping actors/firing off guns like Friedkin, for example... or what Landis did on Twilight Zone: The Movie), and it always fills me with mixed emotions about the films. Last Tango always had a streak of sadism and misogyny in its story and dialogue, but I thought it was there to serve some literary purpose, not because the director/writer was like that. I know no artist is a saint but you don't get to paint a painting with someone else's real blood.

I wonder what'll happen to this movie's future on video - is it too radioactive now for a label like Criterion to put out a special edition? My guess is that the current edition is probably all that we'll get and most labels won't watch to touch it. Maybe that's as it should be.
 

Winston T. Boogie

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For whatever it is worth, the scene in question was in the script and part of it is in the video clip in the post above. So, nothing was a surprise in the scene to the actors except the use of the butter. Now, if you watch the clip above there are several shots/set-ups that introduce the butter, from Marlon asking for Maria to get the butter to a shot of him pulling it toward them with his foot. So, I'm not sure what people are imagining went on...to me it seems like they think Bertolucci walked into the room with a camera turned it on and yelled "Get her Marlon!" and then Marlon proceeded to viciously attack her.

Obviously, if you actually watch the scene there are several set-ups and they carefully blocked and laid out what was going to happen and where the camera would be placed. These were all professionals shooting a scene they knew they were going to shoot and you can see that it was not haphazard nor done in some crazy handheld shot with Bertolucci yelling "Rape her, Marlon! Use the butter!" as Marlon randomly attacked her. It's actually a pretty tame scene compared to what is in films that came later. Marlon keeps his pants on the entire time and you can see what is happening is obviously fake.

I understand that the film, later, really upset Maria and she did not like how she was presented in it and after seeing it she never spoke to Bertolucci again. It also seems that people are blaming Bertolucci and Brando for everything that happened to Schneider in her personal life after the film but that's more than mildly ridiculous. She was not "raped" in the film and she knew she would be doing that scene because it was in the script. Watch the film and the scene in question.

All actors should be treated with respect, no question about that. Brando and Bertolucci probably could have handled it better but also consider that in those days a lot of directors felt their job was to "pull a performance" out of an actor and so they did use a lot of crazy and unfair ways to do this. I recall Coppola describing how he got the performance out of Martin Sheen where he punches the mirror in Apocalypse Now...it was not particularly nice.

These days directors treat actors differently and they expect the actors to show up ready to go and to bring the performance with them. They don't do cruel things to manipulate them into reactions and they certainly do not pull stuff that directors pulled in the 1970s. My feeling is that it is not really fair to convict Brando and Bertolucci for methods that were accepted 44 years ago. Just watch Kubrick treat Shelley Duvall like dirt during the making of The Shining. Bertolucci is getting judged for letting Brando use butter in one scene...literally one take...in a film during a planned simulated sex scene. This seems pretty overblown.

I'm not saying this to defend the director or Brando nor am I condoning what they did. I am speaking specifically about this reaction 44 years later when this has been out in the open for many many years.
 

TravisR

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I am speaking specifically about this reaction 44 years later when this has been out in the open for many many years.
I was wondering the same thing but the best explanation is that someone who needed a story stumbled upon an old story and when they posted it, people on social media suddenly noticed and an essentially old story caught fire. The same thing happened with former Pudding Pop spokesman/alleged rapist Bill Cosby. I live outside of Philadelphia where Cosby had been accused of drugging and raping a woman probably a dozen years ago but it took another decade and 60 more victims for anyone outside this area to notice what he was about.
 

Dick

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For years, I always thought Brando's performance and character in Last Tango were the best of his career - his character was often funny, often grief-stricken, intellectual and worldly but also childish and vulgar. The movie as a whole had the richness of a post-modern novel. Does this appalling revelation from Bertolucci affect my opinion of the movie? To some degree, yes. There are some directors out there who think that getting "authentic" or "real" performances requires vile, underhanded and/or extreme methods - but no performance is worth those methods. Imagine if that were your sister or daughter being subjected to that treatment. I know other directors have done questionable things (slapping actors/firing off guns like Friedkin, for example... or what Landis did on Twilight Zone: The Movie), and it always fills me with mixed emotions about the films. Last Tango always had a streak of sadism and misogyny in its story and dialogue, but I thought it was there to serve some literary purpose, not because the director/writer was like that. I know no artist is a saint but you don't get to paint a painting with someone else's real blood.

I wonder what'll happen to this movie's future on video - is it too radioactive now for a label like Criterion to put out a special edition? My guess is that the current edition is probably all that we'll get and most labels won't watch to touch it. Maybe that's as it should be.

The movie seems extremely tame in this day and age, but for the raw emotions (truth?) and explorations of relationships that seem to be happening onscreen, someone we rarely see in current films except from a dwindling number from Europe. Sexually, it barely requires the "R" rating it received after being downgraded from an "X." I don't see this as a pick for Criterion, but stranger things have happened. The film remains controversial for various reasons, but it simply isn't the sexual bombardment critics would have it be. The film contains nudity (not an inordinate amount, for a 70's flick) and appears to be largely improvised, but the crock of gold Bertolucci seems to have been after was more the capturing of raw emotions than just the physical act of sex. Personally, I think he succeeds in this, although I find the film long, slow, and often boring.
 

Stephen_J_H

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Sexually, it barely requires the "R" rating it received after being downgraded from an "X."
There are actually two cuts: an "R" cut and an "X" cut [which was re-rated to NC-17 in 1997]. The running time difference is approx. 2 minutes, and one scene has a lamp superimposed over Brando's and Schneider's bodies to obscure nudity.
 

JPCinema

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This whole episode is about...spreading conjecture to be truth. It is indicative of the times. If anyone would have researched and saw that Maria Schneider herself said it was simulated...the butter was a surprise . It is called improvisation . Knowing Europeans...they use no lubricant. No wonder she was surprised.
Should I spill the beans that during filming Godfather II...Michael V Gazzo was actually sleeping when he was awoken?
 

Thomas T

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This whole episode is about...spreading conjecture to be truth. It is indicative of the times.

indeed! The proliferation on the internet with this current phenomenon of fake news or speculative gossip masquerading as journalism is frightening as people don't even bother to check the facts, they just dive in screaming and ranting!
 

Winston T. Boogie

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I was wondering the same thing but the best explanation is that someone who needed a story stumbled upon an old story and when they posted it, people on social media suddenly noticed and an essentially old story caught fire. The same thing happened with former Pudding Pop spokesman/alleged rapist Bill Cosby. I live outside of Philadelphia where Cosby had been accused of drugging and raping a woman probably a dozen years ago but it took another decade and 60 more victims for anyone outside this area to notice what he was about.

Yes, I think there are people/reporters, or maybe just what I would label instigators, that look for stories that will potentially outrage people, stir them up emotionally and in the land of the internet allow millions of people to weigh in with their personal "rage" and yes, offering an opinion on the internet does not require understanding any facts. Particularly when it involves the treatment of women or children or something related to race relations. In areas like this people just react on an emotional level and basically feel totally justified in voicing their outrage.

In this way the film The Ox-Bow Incident becomes more and more meaningful all the time...because we now live in an age of "internet lynch mobs."

This was a perfect story for the internet "mob" because two of the main players are dead and so can provide no defense or response of any kind. Then we have the unfortunately ignorant reply of Ms. Jessica Chastain who labeled what took place an actual rape and "lynched" Bertolucci, Brando, and the crew for watching it happen and not doing anything.

Honestly, this helped blow this story up into something loads of people then wanted to "react to" and Chastain's comments, calling it an actual rape, were both disgusting and coming from an actress that should know better, actually were incredibly stupid.

I mean what were the crew supposed to do jump in and drag Brando away? Beat Bertolucci to a pulp? First off, if you watch the scene in question, something I am not sure most people commenting have done, Brando never has any sort of sexual contact with Maria at all...never even removes his pants which makes the scene look a little silly. So, a crew watching this would see obviously no real attack was taking place plus they all would know this was the scene they were shooting that day and they would know what was going to happen.

Secondly, it was an emotional scene so later when Schneider said she was "crying real tears" how the hell is anybody watching this, including Bertolucci, supposed to know if she is crying real tears or just acting? I mean this is what actors do...they exhibit a wide rage of emotions to bring some sort of level of reality to a scene. No professional crew is going to burst in on a performance to check to see if somebody is really crying, or in a rage, or terrified if this is what the scene called for...because they are going to expect the actor is doing their job.

This is why I think Chastain and any other industry people commenting on this are being either ridiculous or totally dishonest or they seriously have an agenda they are pushing.

I mean great, I hope that every time now that Chastain does a scene that calls for her to cry or appear terrified that the crew busts in on the scene to make sure she is just acting. Should be great for an actor attempting to get into the right space to display their emotions for this to happen over and over again. Imagine a poor crew member doing this to Christian Bale...he would not react in a friendly manner I can assure you.

In truth it would likely lead to any crew member that did something that stupid on a set getting fired. And honestly, Chastain is well aware of this.
 
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