Costa-Gavras and the Cinémathèque make their mea culpa after the canceled screening of “Last Tango in Paris”

The directors of the Cinémathèque française made a mea culpa, Thursday January 16, before the parliamentary commission on sexual violence, for not having put in context a screening of the Last Tango in Parisfinally canceled.

Last December, a screening of this 1972 film by Bernardo Bertolucci, including a scene depicting a rape shot without the consent of its actress Maria Schneider, was canceled twenty-four hours before, officially for security reasons, in the face of public outcry. feminist associations.

The programming of this film without context “aroused a considerable number of reactions”recognized at the National Assembly the filmmaker and president of the Cinémathèque, Costa-Gavras, before the commission on violence committed in the artistic and media sectors.

“A lesson for the future”

“Our desire was far from provocation, it was to present an important work with a legendary actor”Marlon Brando, he added. “The film should have been the subject of a very detailed and in-depth screening presentation, because [il a eu] serious consequences, indisputably, on the life of Maria Schneider”he continued.

“I take responsibility for this refusal” to contextualize, he added. “I deeply regret that we did not plan to accompany the presentation of the film with a specialist. (…) This is a lesson for the future. »

Also interviewed, the general director of the Cinémathèque, Frédéric Bonnaud, and its programmer, Jean-François Rauger, shared this mea culpa, but also sought to defend the position of the Cinémathèque, much criticized by feminists on these subjects.

Mr. Bonnaud announced that the board of directors of the Cinémathèque had just decided to “take greater account, when presenting certain films, of the retrospective light cast on these works by the passage of time, the evolution of society and the respect due to the victims”.