The drama will remember how Bertolucci and Brando mistreated Maria Schneider
The movie Last Tango in Paris revived Marlon Brando's career but pushed Maria Schneider into a spiral of addiction and mental health problems. A new series from the North American network CBS will explore the tumultuous filming of the film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and the impact it had on the leading couple.
The series, which will be shot between the United States, Italy and France, will focus on the eighteen months that the project lasted –it will show not only the shooting but also the months before and after– and will reflect on questions such as identity, fame and artistic ambition.
According to Variety, the series will start with Bertolucci's trip to Los Angeles to convince Brando, who was bankrupt at the time, to participate in his new movie. During the filming of Last Tango in Paris, the Italian director had a despotic and sometimes ruthless attitude in order, as he explained, to capture the real emotions of the actors.
One of the most controversial moments in the film is when Brando improvised a scene in which he sodomized Schneider's character by lubricating her with butter, a scene that the actress, who was then 19 years old, had not been informed of, as she herself denounced. in 2007 in an interview with the Daily Mail.
"The scene was not in the script. The truth is that it was Marlon's idea," said the actress. "I should have talked to my agent or a lawyer, because you can't force someone to do something that isn't in the script, but I didn't know all of this at the time. Marlon told me, 'Don't worry, I just it's a movie." But during the scene, even though it wasn't real, I was actually crying.
To be honest, I felt humiliated. I felt like I had somehow been r-ped by Marlon and Bertolucci. After the scene, Marlon He didn't apologize or comfort me. Luckily, it was just one take." The actor actually rubbed a block of butter between the actress's buttocks, without warning her, looking for a reaction that was as likely as possible.
In 2013, two years after Schneider's death, Bertolucci acknowledged the abuse. "Poor Maria, she died two years ago. After the movie we never saw each other again because of the butter scene. It was an idea we had with Brando in the morning.
I was despicable, because we didn't say anything to her. We cheated on her, because I wanted her to react like a girl and not like an actress. I wanted her to feel humiliated and scream," the filmmaker explained in an interview at the French Cinematheque. "I still feel guilty now," added Bertolucci, who assured that he did not regret the decision he made.
"The series tells the story of two men who abuse a young and inexperienced woman, not for s-x, but for art. They did it on camera and the resulting scene is part of a critically and publicly acclaimed film. The director and the actor enjoyed the success, while Maria's pain was left aside.
I am delighted to explore a story about the ethics of art, an important but often neglected topic," said José Padilha, who will co-direct the series. with Lisa Bruhlmann. The project about Last Tango in Paris follows the line of The Offer, the series that Paramount is preparing about the filming of The Godfather, another turbulent shoot in which Marlon Brando participated.
