httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GfYfRftrPw
In a recently resurfaced video interview from 2013, Bertolucci confirms that Schneider, who died in 2011, did not know about the rape scene ahead of time, and that the graphic nature of the scene was improvised on set.
Bertolucci said he felt guilty about how he treated Schneider, but does not regret the scene.
Nothing in the resurfaced video is news as the director has been very vocal about his filming of the scene and how it affected Maria Schneider in multiple interviews over the years, most recently during a press tour for his last film Me and You, during which the YouTube video interview was shot.
He expressed roughly the same sentiment in a 2013 interview with The Telegraph: “No, I don’t feel guilty, but when she died I thought, God, I’m so sorry that I can’t apologize for what Marlon and I did with that scene and we decided not to tell her. Her sense of humiliation was very real, but I think what really offended her was that she didn’t feel she’d been allowed to prepare for the scene as an actress. But I wanted her reaction as a person, not as an actress.”
Anna Kendrick acknowledged that Schneider’s lack of knowledge of the scene prior to the shooting day was nothing new.
Last Tango in Paris earned Brando a best actor Oscar nomination and Bertolucci a best director nomination.