Director Bernardo Bertolucci admits to 'non-consensual' rape scene in 'Last Tango in Paris'

Greg P. | 8:16 PM on December 04, 2016

Well, this is disturbing.

A old video has surfaced of “Last Tango in Paris” director Bernardo Bertolucci admitting that he and Marlon Brando never told actress Maria Schneider about the infamous “butter” rape scene before it was filmed:

Bertolucci admits infamous Last Tango rape scene was non-consensual. The actress was not told what was happening. https://t.co/xLRZLAp2mx

— Soraya Chemaly (@schemaly) December 2, 2016

Bertolucci admits infamous Last Tango 'butter' rape scene was non-consensual https://t.co/EGuSUuTSUd <— this is APPALLING.

— Luvvie Ajayi Jones (@iLuvvit) December 2, 2016

More from Elle magazine:

Instead, Bertolucci confessed in the 2013 clip that he and Marlon Brando came up with the idea to shoot the assault scene in which Brando’s character uses a stick of butter to rape Schneider on screen. At the time, Brando was 48. Schneider was just 19.

“The sequence of the butter is an idea that I had with Marlon in the morning before shooting,” Bertulocci said in an event held at La Cinémathèque Française in Paris in 2013. He added that he felt horrible “in a way” for his treatment of Schneider but defended himself, explaining that he “wanted her reaction as a girl, not as an actress.”

“I wanted her to react humiliated,” he said. “I think she hated me and also Marlon because we didn’t tell her.” Even so, Bertolucci clarified that he didn’t “regret” how he decided to direct the scene.

“To obtain something I think you have to be completely free,” he said. “I didn’t want Maria to act her humiliation her rage, I wanted her to Maria to feel…the rage and humiliation. Then she hated me for all of her life.”