Bernardo Bertolucci, the director of Last Tango in Paris, has issued a statement addressing the outcry directed at his recently resurfaced 2013 comments about the film's rape scene.
According to Deadline, Bertolucci's statement said: "I would like for the last time to clear up a ridiculous misunderstanding that continues to generate press reports about 'Last Tango in Paris' around the world. Several years ago, at the Cinematheque Francaise, someone asked me for details on the famous butter scene. I specified, but perhaps was not clear, that I decided with Marlon Brando not to inform Maria that we would [use] butter."
In the scene, Marlon Brando's character, Paul, rapes Jeanne, played by Maria Schneider. In a 2007 Daily Mail interview, Schneider said that the "scene wasn't in the original script" and that she "felt a little raped" by Brando and Bertolucci. But in his statement, Bertolucci said that any idea that Schneider didn't know about what would happen in the scene, apart from Paul's use of butter, was false. He said that the scene had actually been included in the script.
Hollywood names like Jessica Chastain and Ava DuVernay have spoken out against the director's actions.
