The leaders of the Cinémathèque Française made a mea culpa on Thursday before the parliamentary commission on sexual violence, for not having put in context a screening of “Last Tango in Paris”, which was ultimately 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 24 hours before, officially for security reasons, in the face of an outcry from associations feminists.
The programming of this film without context “has aroused a considerable number of reactions”, the filmmaker and president of the Costa-Gavras Cinematheque admitted to the National Assembly, before the commission on violence committed in the artistic and media sectors. .
“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 session presentation because (it had) serious consequences, indisputably, on the life of Maria Schneider,” he continued.
“I take my responsibility in this refusal” to contextualize, he added. “I deeply regret that we did not plan to accompany the presentation of the film with a specialist. (…). It 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.
