10 Worst Defences Directors Had For Bad Movie Moments
1. "The Rape Scene Was A Misunderstanding" - Last Tango In Paris
Last Tango in Paris features an infamous scene in which protagonist Paul (Marlon Brando) rapes his lover Jeanne (Maria Schneider), using butter as a lubricant.
Prior to her 2011 death, Maria Schneider spoke extensively about her traumatic experience shooting the scene, namely that the use of butter wasn't included in the script, with director Bernardo Bertolucci only instructing Marlon Brando about its inclusion in order to generate a more "spontaneous" reaction from her while filming the scene.
Schneider said that she "felt humiliated and to be honest... a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci" due to their decision to deviate from the scene as written.
Over the years Bertolucci has himself opined on Schneider's experience, famously remarking, "I feel guilty, but I don't regret it," and in 2016 rather clumsily referred to the controversy surrounding the scene as a "misunderstanding":
"I decided with Marlon Brando not to inform Maria that we would have used butter. We wanted her spontaneous reaction to that improper use [of the butter]. That is where the misunderstanding lies."
Unsurprisingly it wasn't a remark that painted the filmmaker in a more sympathetic light, instead only further underlining his fundamental failure to appreciate how such on-set practises can be majorly harmful.
Situations like this are why Hollywood's recent trend of hiring intimacy coordinators for sex scenes is most certainly a good thing.