“When something is not written in a script, but improvised, you can say no. On set, I immediately felt that it would be me who would be humiliated. It’s a scene written by men“, explains Maria Schneider with seriousness in front of the France 3 cameras, almost 20 years ago, about the filming of “Last tango in Paris”.
“I should have called an agent. Today, you can’t force an actress to do that on a film: something she doesn’t want to do, which isn’t written in the script. My youth was clearly taken advantage of. The director is the manipulator in the story. Even Marlon Brando told me he was manipulated by Bertolucci.”
Facing Mireille Dumas and alongside the actress Andréa Féréol (“La grande bouffe” by Marco Ferreri), Maria Schneider also evokes with equally painful lucidity the consequences of this film on her life: “Marlon Brando supported me afterwards. But no one protected me. And after this film, I wanted to forget who I was. So I took drugs. And hard drugs made me lose seven years of my life, that’s what I regret“
Presented at the Cannes Film Festival, the film “Maria”, directed by feminist filmmaker Jessica Palud, now offers to pay tribute to this great actress sacrificed on the altar of patriarchy. To have !
