MATT DILLON, ANAMARIA VARTOLOMEI

JESSICA PALUD: BEING MARIA/MARIA (2024) - RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA

Maria Schneider's unfortunate path to fame recreated

This is a movie about how Maria Scneider's life got wrecked by doing Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (and maybe we shouldn't like Bertolucci afer that movie). But Being Maria seems, however tumultuous and eventful, a banal piece of work in both style and outlook - in other words, a conventional biopic, though it may be informative; it may surprise uninformed members of its audience that a lot of it is true, although, as the critic for Le Monde wrote, this film is more "martyrology" than biography.

Why do it? Because it's more fun than reading a Wikipedia article. But this film is not as compete as a Wikipedia bio. The filmmakers can justifiably point to its timely nature. This is very much a #MeToo story. The sequences about the making of Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris show that in a rape sequence, where Marlon Brando uses a stick of butter as a libricant for implied anal intercourse with the young actress who was 29 years younger than him, she had not been told in advance what was going to happen. This was by arrangement between Brando and himself, Bertolucci latger admitted, so Schneider would be taken by surprise. Bertolucci "wanted her reaction as a girl, not as an actress," he said. "I wanted her to react humiliated." As Maria Schneider says here, after the "rape" scene was shot she felt as if she had been raped twice, by Bertolucci, and by Brando.

This very young and inexperienced actress, nineteen years old, was given an "opportunity" that allowed her to be exploited in a blatant way. How could she turn down the chance to costar with Marlon Brando? Incidentallly did Anamaria Vartolomei, the star of Audrey Diwan's excellent and celebrated 2021 illegal abortion story film Happening/L'Évènement set herself up for exploitation by consenting to play Maria Schneider? But again, how could she resist? As for Matt Dillon, he doesn't discredit himself as Brando. He even does good mimicry of the actor at times. Arguably it is brave of him (or is it simply, also, foolhardy?) to take on this role. There is talk of roles taking the actor rather than vice versa. But isn't this rather stupid? Shouldn't the point be made that actors must be careful to make the choice of their roles and not have it made for them? (Or am I being stupid?)

Since this is taking a personal turn, it may be the moment to recoiunt my relation to Bertolucci's controversial movie. I went to see it, but was too horrified by the whole idea of it to watch it, or at least the sex scenes, and stood out in the lobby of the theater in Honolulu, where I was living at the time, till they were over. I was an admirer and constant reader of Pauline Kael, but when she said Last Tango was "a bold and imaginative work—a great work," I did not read how she explained or justified such a claim. There are reasons for questioning many of Kael's opinions and actions, but nothing can take away from how stimulating she was and how much excitement she generated about cinema and film critism, which has not been equaled since, even remotely. The time, 1973, when Last Tango was released, was also a moment of energy and stimulation around movies that hasn't come since.

A Letterboxd French post on this film says "Je n’ai jamais vu 'Un dernier Tango à Paris' et après ce film j’ai encore moins envie de le voir" ("I've never seen Last Tango in Paris and after seeing this film I have even less of a desire to see it." Another entry points out the unkindness of recreating the worst moment of Schneider's life. A third notes that the excess of nudity shows female directors too can be guilty of practicing the "male gaze."

It does not feel to me that Jessica Palud's film recreates successfully or interestingly the making or conceiving of Last Tango in Paris or presents her successive dissolute life, her turn to heroin addiction, and her lengthy love affair with a younger woman she met doing a dissertation about her. In this vein one might compare Mia Hansen-Love's early film Tout est pardonné/All Is Forgiven (2007), for a thought-provoking and elegant treatment of similar lives; and Mia Hansen-Løve has made terrific films since that early one. No director in France today deals with more supleness and intelligence with difficult moments of a life than Hansen-Løve.

Relatively recently it has become a practice to have an "intimacy coordinator" on set whenever shooting scenes that involve nudity or sex, to "facilitate" an environment where actors "understand what is expected of them" and ensure that there is "informed consent." But after recently watching Halina Reijn's new film Babygirl, it has seemed more clear to me that sexiness on screen doesn't come from similating sex,or from nudity, anyway.

Being Maria/Maria 103 mins., debuted at Cannes May 21, 2024, also showing at Seoul International Women's Film, Rio, Malaga, and Thessaloniki. French theatrical release Jun. 19.AlloCiné ratings 3.2 (64%) press, 3.5 70% spectators. In the USA, a Kino Lorber release. Screened for this review as part of the 2025 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center, NYC. Showtimes:
Saturday, March 15 at 6:45pm – Q&A with Matt Dillon and Anamaria Vartolomei

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.