Last Tango in Paris 1972 / calling shit wild apple butter

Tonight I was  thinking about all that I have learned about pornography in the last month and suddenly I remembered THAT movie, Last Tango in Paris.  The actress, Maria Schneider, died this year.  She and I
are the same age. In 1972 we were both nineteen years old.

I did a little research on her life and found that she was a runaway and an illegitimate daughter of a well known actor and because of this connection she came to the attention of Warren Beaty and the William Morris Agency.  She was beautiful, young and on her own in Paris. Flattered I'm sure, by the attention, she took the role to play opposite Marlon Brando in this X rated film by Bertolucci. The film was scandalous and rightly banned in several countries.

It represented an early seismic shift in the attempt to normalize pornography.  I remember the taboo of  watching this X rated movie was mitigated by it's lofty participants, whereas it's contemporaries, Behind the Green Door and Deep Throat were still actual pornographic films not veiled by an Oscar worthy actor and director. But the sensation of seeing the film could not have been more pornographic.

In fact it was repulsive and I kept asking myself, WHY?  The pathos of Marlon Brando's character who aggressively sexually violates Maria (and her character, ) was entirely lost on me.  He appeared to be nothing more than a self obsessed madman, an evil predator at best. The films attempts at rehabilitating his character were superficial in the face of his actions. In Maria Schneiders recounting of that experience she explains that she was experiencing real terror, humiliation and tears in the film.

"The truth is, it was Marlon who came up with the idea," Schneider said. "They only told me about it before we had to film the scene, and I was so angry. I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you can't force someone to do something that isn't in the script, but at the time, I didn't know that. 

"Marlon said to me: 'Maria, don't worry, it's just a movie.' But during the scene, even though what Marlon was doing wasn't real, I was crying real tears. I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Brando and by Bertolucci. After the scene, Marlon didn't console me or apologize. Thankfully, there was just one take."

In his review of the film when it was released in the United States in 1973, The Times' Charles Champlin wrote that Schneider "is a triumph of casting — petulant, self-indulgent, and convincingly terrified as someone who has gotten in beyond her depth."

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-maria-schneider-20110204,0,1685595.story



The whole scenario (Marlon Brando anally rapes her using butter) smacked of ordinary pornography in the guise of an art film and it was captured in real time with real emotions  and all for the actual degradation of this young woman (girl) by means of anal sex explained as some pathos driven need in the grieving Brando. The impact on Maria's life was sadly similar to what porn actress experience.  Maria's fate after the film was riddled with drug addiction for many years and she was never able to advance in her career despite all the promise she was told she had.

She was a young woman lured ("cast") and manipulated into acting as vessel for the perverse pleasure of  the (homo-erotic?) mind of the director.  She was tricked into compliance with forethought and she paid the price for both  Bertolucci's and Brando's grandiosity.  No matter how you package manipulation and degradation or re frame morality you are left in the company of evil and the ruination of your character through the senseless punishing of another human being.