Jessica Palud's flawed biopic of Maria Schneider

When New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael wrote a long and heated rave about it Bernardo Bertolucci'S Last Tango in Paris after its premiere in 1972, she stated, among other things, that “this is a movie people will be discussing as long as there are movies.”

Kael might be exaggerating when she was stressed Last tango's monumental importance, claiming that it was a “cinematic breakthrough” and that it “changed the face of the art form.” But in terms of people arguing about the film's legacy years later, she was spot on.

Cast point: being Marya new biopic about the troubled French actress Maria Schneider, who played the opposite lead at the age of 19 Marlon Brando in the Bertolucci film – a performance that launched her career as a promising new international actress and destroyed her life at the same time.

The reasons for this are known and have resurfaced over the past ten years, in addition to the many #MeToo scandals that turned the film world upside down: for the infamous series in Last tango in which Brando's character, Paul, anally rapes Schneider's character, Jeanne, using butter as lubricant, the actress was never warned – the scene was not in the original script – nor was she asked for consent. Brando and Bertolucci conspired to surprise her, and although the sodomy was simulated, the butter was real and the entire humiliating experience would have a life-changing effect on Schneider.

being Marydirected by Jessica Palud (Coming back), who adapted the script from a book by Vanessa Schneider – a journalist for The world and Maria's niece – is built entirely around that pivotal incident, for both good and bad. Like the actress herself, whose life and career exploded Last Tangos success while simultaneously unraveling, the film loses its way after the scandal surrounding Bertolucci's film fizzles out.

For its time, Palud paints a convincing portrait of a young woman from a troubled background whose connection to the film was more personal than professional. When we first meet Maria (the excellent Anamaria Vartolomei from Happens), she finds herself on a film set and admires the work of her estranged father, actor Daniel Gélin (Yvan Attal), who abandoned her as a child.

The girl is already 16 and lives with her mother (Marie Gillian), a former model who raised her daughter alone and does not want Maria to come near her father. When she finds out that the two are getting to know each other, she explodes with rage and viciously kicks Maria out of the house, inadvertently launching her daughter into stardom.

With Daniel's help, Maria starts working as an actress, playing small roles in a handful of films. Soon she is 19 years old and sitting in a café across from Bertolucci (Giuseppe Maggio), who has decided to cast her. Last tango, studying her like a caged tiger, fascinated by its prey. Bertolucci fans take note: the director comes across as a pompous and careless prima donna.

Brando (played quite convincingly by a heavily made-up Matt Dillon) is much more charming and paternalistic and initially takes Maria under his wing to show her the tricks of his trade. In an early scene they film together, Maris admires how Brando manages to shed real tears on set, to which he responds, “I wasn't acting.”

This really comes back to bite Maria when we get to the rape scene and the actress is completely caught off guard. She trusted both Brando and Bertolucci, but the two wanted her reaction to be so real that they deliberately did not warn her. After the scene is in the can and Schneider storms off to cry in her dressing room, she is forced to come back and shoot the second part of the sequence. She does it like a professional, and no one apologizes to her. The best Brando can say is, “It's just a movie.”

Palud, who previously worked as an assistant on film shoots, including, ironically, on Bertolucci's explicit 2003 threesome novel, The dreamers – recreates the Last tango production with both authenticity and emotional confidence. The fatherless Maria finds a surrogate father in Brando, but is sadistically betrayed by him, which would ultimately break her. No matter how successful Last tango would become, Maria would only remember that scene.

The problem with the movie is that that scene happens about half an hour later, after which we are left with a downward and rather predictable spiral that fails to hold our interest. We see Schneider lose it soon after Last tango becomes a scandalous sensation – it was given an set and fail to remember her lines.

Vartolomei is a compelling actress and the camera really loves her, but there's only so much she can do with a script that doesn't really have a second or third act. Did Palud spend the entire movie around the… Last tango shoot and its immediate aftermath, the drama might have been more compact. Instead, we see Maria dancing in many nightclubs, withdrawing, being hospitalized, falling in love with a young film student (Céleste Brunnquell) doing a thesis on women in films, and trying to kick her habit for good. There's a lot going on, but there's no real arc supporting the material.

This doesn't mean being Mary lacks value, as a film about how some great films need to be reconsidered in light of our evolving norms. Not everyone likes the idea of ​​a dedicated intimacy coordinator, but Schneider certainly could have used one Last tango. Sure, the scene may have been less shocking in the end, but Bertolucci may not have traumatized his actress for life.

Palud's film asks us to think about whether art should always triumph over real people, using Maria Schneider's sad true story as proof that certain things aren't worth doing to make a living. film breakthrough'.