Jessica Palud’s Being Maria tells of the rocket-like rise and plummeting miserable descent of actress Maria Schneider following the infamy and controversy arising from her appearance, and one scene in particular, with Academy Award winner Marlon Brando and a block of butter in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris.
Anamaria Vartolomei completely embodies the late Schneider, who lives a lonely life with her bitter mother. All this changes when she reconnects with her actor father, Daniel Gelin (Yvan Attal), who invites her to sets of his films, fostering in Maria a love for movies and performing. But her mother is furious and so kicks Maria out of the house, forcing her to be taken in by relatives.
So, however, she is alone in a cafe when she is approached by the leeringly malevolent Guiseppe Maggio as Bernardo Bertolucci, who plucks the then nineteen-year-old out of obscurity to star opposite Brando in what he defines simply as a love story. The excitement of the experience is frenetic, and Matt Dillon does an admirable job playing a post-Godfather Marlon while slipping off the cliff into outright caricature.
“…the rocket-like rise and plummeting descent of actress Maria Schneider…”
“It’s just a film,” Dillon’s Brando whispers into the ear of Vartolomei’s Schneider following the unscripted rape sequence that Last Tango of Paris would forever remain tarnished for presenting. Being Maria shows us the cold and callus nature of which the cast and crew captured and then blatantly ignored the incident. However, the side effects of the incident left Maria deeply scarred and would dominate the course of her life and career.
The film is largely set and focused on Schneider’s life and trials during the 70s and partial 80s. Venturing down dark paths as she struggles to find acceptance as a performer and not merely a piece of meat. Despised, derided, criticized and even condemned by people in public, the gift of fame is depicted as a blessing and a curse. One from which Maria seems unable to grapple with, let alone escape.
As sad as the incident itself, it is equally regrettable that this film liberally skips massive chunks of Schneider’s world in the aftermath. Yes, while she fell into debilitating drug addictions and a number of times attempted to take her own life, she spent too little time on the joyous film experiences she was a part of, along with the tireless work she did towards the end of her life to make sure nothing like what she experienced happened to another actress again. This is an exhaustive work she poured into achieving equality for women in the industry.
While I would have loved to have seen some more attention paid to balance, perhaps more of a showing of the grand time she had whilst filming Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger, or her fiery walk-out on Tinto Brass’s Caligula, Being Maria stands strong because of a soulful and textured performance from Vartolomei, who though almost destroyed by her life’s entanglements, bravely and boldly tangoed on.
"…stands strong because of a soulful and textured performance from Vartolomei..."
