“Actors don’t choose, roles choose actors,” says one character in Jessica Palud’s “Being Maria.” A biopic of bisexual actor Maria Schneider (Annamaria Vartolomei), it makes the case that her life was ruined by a confusion between performer and character. She’s best known for appearing in Bernardo Bertolucci’s (Giuseppe Magio) 1972 “Last Tango in Paris,” as the much younger lover of a desperate middle-aged man played by Marlon Brando (Matt Dillon). While it’s been reevaluated far more negatively after the #metoo movement, “Last Tango in Paris” was one of the key symbols of the sexual revolution. In an ecstatic review for the New Yorker, Pauline Kael praised it as a turning point in film history. Even among people who know nothing else about it, it’s infamous for the scene in which Brando’s character sexually assaults Schneider’s anally, using a stick of butter as lubrication. For decades, this was the butt of tasteless jokes.
Abandoned by her birth father Daniel (Yvan Attal), Schneider seeks him out as a teenager. When she starts spending time with him, her mother reacts badly, throwing her out of their home. She follows Daniel into work as an actor. At 19, she takes a major role in “Last Tango in Paris.” (Since she was legally a minor, her mother had to give permission for her to perform the sex scenes.) Before making the film, she was rather innocent, telling Bertolucci she doesn’t understand her character’s abandon in physical passion. The turning point is the sexual assault scene, shown at painful length. (This decision has proven controversial, with some arguing it risks re-traumatizing rape victims.) Long after the film’s release, it defines her public image. She’s treated as though she were a porn performer. Only offered tissue-thin characters written as sex objects, she takes solace by self-medicating with heroin. She also goes through a period of institutionalization in a mental hospital, where she receives electroshock treatment. Her life takes a more positive turn when she’s interviewed by Noor (Celeste Brunnquell), a 20-year-old student. The two fall in love and move in together. Even though Schneider is still dependent on drugs, she experiences tender intimacy for the first time.
“Being Maria” falls victim to facile psychology. Schneider’s issues with her parents are replicated in her treatment by Brando and Bertolucci. At first, she sees Brando as a paternal figure. Before the rape scene is shot, he’s kind to her during difficult moments of the “Last Tango in Paris” shoot. After his character dunks her head underwater, he asks if he pushed her too hard. Her relationship with Noor is treated as though she were attracted to women because she’d been so badly hurt by men. Noor is patient to the point of saintliness, nursing her through withdrawal, while Schneider’s male lovers had introduced her to drugs.
Vartolomei’s performance is the best aspect of “Being Maria.” Even while going through the agonies of addiction and mental illness, Schneider always seems a bit restrained. She’s sullen, embittered by her experiences in the film industry. Vartolomei expresses these attitudes with a contained ferocity. Elsewhere, “Being Maria” suffers from the difficulty of requiring Dillon to impersonate one of the most iconic performers in history.
Palud adapted “Being Maria” from Vanessa Schneider’s book “You Were Called Maria Schneider.” (Vanessa was her cousin.) She had worked with Bertolucci herself, during the shoot of his film “The Dreamers.” While not necessarily speaking about that experience, she says “I witnessed complicated scenes, actors and actresses humiliated, and I myself felt the control some directors abuse.” She’s careful to include many scenes of Schneider being interviewed, speaking frankly about such behavior. Schneider knew exactly what happened to her and spoke out about it. While Brando did not literally penetrate her during the “Last Tango in Paris” shoot, she told journalists that she felt as though she had been raped by Brando and Bertolucci.
As shot by Palud, that scene centers on her agonized face. When the camera cuts, she’s no less pained. Bertolucci tells her that he wants no distinction between her characters’ emotions and hers. The perception that she was responsible for a film in which she actually felt victimized followed her around. In a restaurant, a stranger tells her she’s disgraced all women. Yet once again, “Being Maria” takes the most direct route to show her pain: Schneider speaks about being offered nothing but roles calling for nudity and then takes a shot of heroin.
The scenes on the “Last Tango in Paris” shoot hit all the expected beats. While Palud has spoken about the need to place Schneider, rather than Brando or Bertolucci, at her film’s center, it still defines her by her encounter with them. “Being Maria” cuts off in 1980, entirely ignoring the final 30 years of Schneider’s life. Sadly, the damage done to female celebrities and the fact that we tend to listen to them only when it’s too late has become all too familiar. (Inevitably, a film like this will be made about Amber Heard.) It’s unfortunate that “Being Maria” can’t find a more imaginative way to depict Schneider’s life than an arc of trauma, tragedy, and return.
“Being Maria” | Directed by Jessica Palud | Kino Lorber | In English and French with English subtitles | Opens March 21st at the Quad
