Scandal in Cannes, the film about Maria Schneider accuses ‘Last Tango in Paris’: “The violence on the set marked her”

The biopic 'Maria' by Jessica Palud arrives at the festival which tells the story of the iconic protagonist of the film with Marlon Brando (here played by Matt Dillon)

ROME – Scandals on the Croisette. ‘Maria’ arrives at the Cannes Film Festival, the biopic of Jessica Palud inspired by the biography of Maria Schneider written by Vanessa Schneider, cousin of the actress . The film highlights the torments of Schneider who acted alongside Marlon Brando in the famous film ‘Last Tango in Paris‘ by Bernardo Bertolucci , at the same time censored and consecrated. She never recovered from that set. The biopic, in fact, shows how the actress – at that time she was 19 years old, Brando was 48 and already famous – was forced to perform a scene of sodomy simulated with butter. A deafening silence fell on the set.

The director – as we read on Corriere.it – does not judge: “I made a portrait of that society through the gaze of Maria Schneider. I admired Bertolucci, for whom I was an intern for ‘The Dreamers’. In the name of art has all gone unnoticed.The film interrogates the mockery of integrity, the limits of art, betrayal through Maria’s gaze“. When Schneider told what had happened, no one listened to her“, underlined the director, who tried “to feel what she felt. When years later she told what had happened to her, no one listened to her. There was no one to protect her. As her cousin says,Schneider was damaged by that film, she started taking drugs, she was insulted on the street, associated with a sexual object, people made vulgar jokes about butter“.

Schneider only found the strength to speak in 2007. At the scene of the shooting Brando told her ‘don’t worry, it’s just a film’. While Bertolucci, shortly before his death, declared that the actress knew about everything, except the butter. “A rapid, sharp and unappealing violence”, said the director.

Palud then concluded: “I am not prepared for either glory or scandal. I focused on the freedom of the tormented Maria with her black curls, messy like her, and on the consequences of her freedom. The film is dedicated to her, who disappeared in 2011, at age 58.” The cast includes Annamaria Vartolomei (Maria Schneider), Matt Dillon (Marlon Brando), Giuseppe Maggio (Bernardo Bertolucci).