Last night “This Is Heavy, Doc” tried to whitewash the Being Maria / Maria Schneider saga by calling me a whitewasher and a “poisoned soul.”

HE response; “A poisoned soul”? Who’s “white-washing”? I’ve gotten into this because the legend and narrative of Maria Schneider, who passed in 2011, and the tempest that’s been generated by her #MeToo allies has been used, I feel, to unfairly trash Bernardo Bertolucci’s professional reputation.

Was Schneider not a budding actress who was hired to bring to life before cameras a young, free-spirited Parisian character named Jeanne? When Brando pretended to anally assault Jeanne in Last Tango in Paris, Schneider-the-actress naturally responded with rage and anguish. That’s what Bertolucci wanted. It’s what the Tango dynamic required.

Bertolucci stated in 2016 that the sexual assault scene wasn’t a surprise as it was scripted. This is what I may or may not be able to verify by thoroughly reading and correctly translating the 1972 French-language Tango shooting script that yesterday arrived in my inbox.

The only surprise on the day of shooting, Bertolucci said nine years ago, was a decision to use butter as a lubricant.

Was it professionally unkind and disrespectful of Bertolucci and Brando to not invite Schneider into their small creative circle as the scene was being planned? Yes, it was. They hurt her feelings; she felt bruised. It was nonetheless a staged, allegedly written-out scene that required persuasive acting on the part of Brando and Schneider.

Schneider bore the emotional brunt of the scene, obviously. Pretending to endure a sexual assault had to feel traumatic to some extent, even within the realm of trying to sell a made-up, make-believe situation.

Keep in mind that Brando also felt emotionally manipulated and over-exposed in terms of his emotional past, which was used by Bertolucci to give dramatic definition to Paul.

Was it fair for Brando’s soft white underbelly to have been exploited for artistic motives? I think it was. Dramatic acting is not tiddly-winks, and yet Brando resented Bertolucci for having mined his personal childhood saga to produce dramatic dividends. They didn’t speak for quite a few years after Tango was released.

So did Bertolucci do something wrong or dishonorable by extracting strong, distinctive performances from Brando and Schneider, in some ways by manipulation and pushing their personal buttons and whatnot? I don’t think so. Art isn’t easy, and the creation process sometimes involves occasional bruisings and discomfort, especially given the fact that pulling emotional truth out of a person is essential.

What matters at the end of the day is what’s finally on the canvas. What Bertolucci did here and there may have been a bit cruel and hurtful, yes**, but it was done for the right reasons and was hardly a crime against humanity.

** Bertolucci’s manipulations on this film weren’t hugely different from that moment during the Chinatown shoot when Roman Polanski abruptly yanked a couple of strands of stray hair out of Faye Dunaway’s scalp. She was infuriated.

Not every first-rate director is an obsessive, but many are under the surface. The good ones are certainly exacting when it comes to the various details that have to be finessed and arranged just so.

Gone at 83, Jesse Colin Young lived a healthy, vibrant, productive life. Strictly a boomer, hippie-heyday guy. Beautiful, velvety, high-pitched voice. I stopped listening decades ago, but not out of boredom or anything. I just moved on for whatever reasons. Full respect.

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I’ll be attending a Being Maria post-screening q&a at Manhattan’s Quad Cinema. Thursday evening (3.20) at 7:15 pm. Director Jessica Palud and Matt Dillon (who does an excellent job of portraying Marlon Brando in the film) will be taking questions.

Being Maria, which I saw last night, explores the ramifications and results of trauma visited upon poor Maria Schneider, who died of cancer in 2011. Her troubles were due to the shooting of the infamous anal sex scene, the film says, and especially due to the persistent toxic reactions to that scene. The main topic is the jagged relationship between Schneider, Brando and Last Tango in Paris director-cowriter Bernardo Bertolucci.

I for one believe that it’s a dishonest film as Schneider (played by Anamaria Vartolomei) states that the sexual assault scene was a Brando-Bertolucci idea that was sprung on her at the last minute, which wasn’t the all of it or so I strongly suspect.

Bertolucci stated in 2016 that the only surprise visited upon Schneider was the use of butter as a lubricant, and that Schneider, having read the shooting script, knew that the scene would depict sexual assault.

I’m presuming that Bertolucci was speaking honestly when he said this, and yet Schneider claimed years ago that the anal sex scene wasn’t scripted but was cooked up on the morning of filming between Bertolucci and Brando…an improvisational thing altogether and not just regarding the use of butter.

And yet before shooting the scene Bertolucci (played by Giuseppe Maggio) tells Schneider that it will represent a breaking of trust between the Paul and Jeanne characters.

I have reason to believe that the Tango shooting script spells out the assault with some clarity, and I may even have proof that it’s actually in the shooting script, as I received a 100% authentic Tango shooting script PDF earlier today.

The 201-page script is all in French, but if the scene is in there I’ll find it.
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A friend says that the Tango shooting draft “indicates the scene in question will depict a sexual violation.”

Before shooting the scene Bertolucci tells Schneider that the scene will enact rape and represent dominance.

I won’t know for sure until I’ve read the 201-page shooting draft cover to cover, but I do trust (or WANT to trust) that Bertolucci, being a first-rate artist, a legendary sensualist and an immaculate truth-teller, was not fibbing in 2016 when he recounted the 1972 filming episode in question.

The fact that Jack Nicholson was “that guy” between the late ’60s to the mid ’90s, especially the first few years when he was relatively slender and had decent hair…that, for me, was part of the joy of living, fan-wise, absorption-wise. Nicholson’s hot run began with Easy Rider (’69) and lasted over 25 fucking years. Okay, he didn’t really start to downshift until after his last great role, in The Departed (’06).

It’ll be a sad, sad day when “that day” comes.

Posted on 3.29.16:

This morning a producer friend told me about how Jack Nicholson saved Jim Harrison‘s financial ass in 1978 with a loan of $15K.

The late author-poet (whose recent death prompted yesterday’s post) became friendly with Nicholson through novelist and screenwriter Thomas McGuane, who had written The Missouri Breaks (’76). McGuane and Harrison had met from their mutual base of Livingston, Montana. Harrison published three books in the early to mid ’70s — “Wolf: A False Memoir” (’71), “A Good Day to Die” (’73) and “Farmer” (’76), but the income from these works was negligible and by ’78 he was “broke and all but starving,” the producer relates. Harrison was working on “Legends of the Fall” (which was actually three novellas — “Revenge,” “The Man Who Gave Up His Name” and “Legends of the Fall”) and so Nicholson, advised by McGuane of Harrison’s desperate situation, stepped in with the $15K, which gave Harrison enough breathing room to finish. “Fall” was published in ’79. It became Harrison’s biggest success of his life at the time, and he lived more or less comfortably after that.

Here, by the way, is a nice Outside piece on Harrison (“The Last Lion,” published on 8.31.11) by Tom Bissell.

Greenwich Entertainment will release the new Bonjour Tristesse sometime in the summer. Otto Preminger’s 1958 version used both color and black-and-white. In the newbie Lily McInerny plays Jean Seberg, Chloë Sevigny is Deborah Kerr, Claes Bang is David Niven, and Aliocha Schneider plays Goeffrey Horne.

My favorite aspect of the Preminger film? Saul Bass‘s poster art.

In a lengthy 2.10.25 New Yorker profile, White Lotus creator Mike White laid out the basic game plan of The White Lotus. The default idea, as always, has been to “find ways of depicting gay life as transgressive or even perverted.” White: “It’s not all harmless, but it’s not inherently harmful.”

Over the show’s three seasons White has made certain that the quivering pleasures that come from the heavenly stimulation of men’s anuses…giving and receiving analingus, guys being fucked in the ass, slurping bro kisses, the visual savoring of ripped male bods…are always lurking or hovering or what-have-you. Women also seek and receive a fair amount of hetero dick action, of course, but anal bend-overs are obviously closer to White’s heart.

Last night Sam Rockwell‘s Frank, a longtime friend of Walton Goggins‘ Rick…a dude who’s obviously straight…delivered a long confession about his once active and very bacchanalian Bangkok sex life, and the main part of his confession was about…well, lots of anal action. Frank wanted to feel what it’s like to be a hot Asian girl, and so he gussied himself up in feminine apparel and invited a series of white dudes to fuck him in the ass, over and over and over. And then, gradually, he decided to forego the endless cycle of lust, frustration and anxiety and become a Buddhist.

Rockwell delivered Frank’s anal soliloquy in a certain whack-ass, wide-eyed fashion…the kind of acting that says to the audience “this is kinda ridiculous…you know it, I know it. I’m a hetero dude…there’s nothing the least gay or Mike White-ish about me…and here I am talking about getting fucked by lots and lots of guys….logjammin’, logjammin’, logjammin’. I’ve never taken it up the ass but listen to my White Lotus shpiel…I’m goin’ nuts here.”

Outside of gay porn, there hasn’t been this much devotional attention paid to the pleasuring of male anuses since Pier Paolo Pasolini‘s Salo, or The 120 days of Sodom (’75). White would probably never admit it, but I began to develop an idea that his basic White Lotus goal is is out-Pasolini Pasolini. All White has to do to even things up is to arrange for a young straight woman to take it up the ass…I shouldn’t say any more. All I’m saying is that White is really playing the transgressive card this season.

Next week, more brotherly incest with a beneath-the-sheets handjob!

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During his 3.14 “New Rules” rant, Real Time’s Bill Maher discussed how various historic terms for those who traffic in performative sexual satisfaction-for-hire have more or less been retired (the terms, I mean) in favor of “sex worker.”

This led to an acknowledgment of roughly 20 such female film performances (prostitute, whore, lady of the evening) that have won Oscars and another 20 that were nominated but didn’t win.

Out of this came a side mention of the Madonna-whore complex, and then a diss about Madonna (Mary Louise Ciccone) having never made “a good one”. Dead wrong — Alan Parker’s Evita (‘96) is completely respectable (80% or 85% of it is actually damn good). Madonna’s all-singing Evita Peron was / is the best she’s ever been. I’ve watched the film several times over the last 29 years. It more than holds up.

“Fate, Luck, Serendipity,” posted on 5.11.17:

The other day Patti Lupone dismissed Madonna‘s performance as Evita Peron in Alan Parker’s 1996 film adaptation (which I’ve always enjoyed and admired). “Madonna is a movie killer,” Lupone said. “She’s dead behind the eyes. She couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. She should not be on film or on stage. She’s a wonderful, you know, performer for what she does, but she is not an actress.”

(Lupone’s performance as Evita in the original 1979 Broadway production is commonly regarded as the summit.)

Except Madonna was never better than she was in Parker’s film. She wasn’t brilliant or staggering, but she gave it everything she had and this, coupled with the fact that Evita itself was a way-above-average musical, makes her performance a fully honorable, good-enough thing. Madonna was more than reasonably decent in the role, at least to the extent that she didn’t get in the way.

Sidenote: I don’t agree about Hayden Christensen‘s performance in Shattered Glass being a high-water mark. I found his manner in that film oppressively phony and cloying, making it impossible to believe that Stephen Glass‘s coworkers at the New Republic would buy into his bullshit.

From a Lee Bollinger interview, posted four days ago (3.11.25) by Evan Goldstein and Len Gutkin, The Chronicle of Higher Education:

…to admit that it took me this long to finally sit down with Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths. I’d planned to catch it theatrically in Manhattan seven or eight weeks ago…can’t explain, don’t ask. Earlier today I streamed it on Amazon for nearly six dollars. Just me, Leigh, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and the others.

I was riveted by it. Brutally honest writing, acting, sculpture. No “story” to speak of but pared to the bone. With the exception of one dialogue-free scene near the end involving Jean-Baptiste’s son (played by Tuwaine Barrett) that I didn’t believe, there’s not even a faint sprinkling of bullshit in any of it.

Jean-Baptiste is guns-blazing brilliant in a way that really slaps you down — her character’s anger…her misery, I mean…seeps right into your bloodstream. No “acting”, no charm, zero excuses. I’m sorry but I found MJB’s unprovoked acidic rantings kind of funny. (Keep in mind that the Wiki page describes Truths as a “comedy–drama”).

How in the world did Jean-Baptiste not land a Best Actress Oscar nomination? How or why was Hard Truths blown off by Cannes, Venice and Telluride?

Every single costar (Michele Austin and David Webber especially) delivers the same cut-the-crap realism as MJB. Leigh, 82, is such a master.

How much better looking or sounding can Criterion’s forthcoming 4K Bluray of William Friedkin‘s Sorcerer possibly be? Ask yourself that.

I’ve asked myself this and more, and I’m still buying the fucker. Despite my owning a perfectly pleasing upgraded Bluray version that came out nine years ago`.

How can I resist a “new 4K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack approved by Friedkin”? Plus an “alternate 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack…one 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and two Blu-rays with the film and special features”?

Posted on 5.3.13:

“I’ve seen Sorcerer (a terrible title in terms of what the 1977 Joe Popcorn crowd was led to expect) six or seven times, but until last night I’d never wondered about the gas. The two trucks make a 200-mile journey through the jungle, and driving entirely in first and second gear. Surely they couldn’t make the trip on a single tank each, and yet I didn’t notice any extra cans of gas strapped to the flatbeds. And how long did the journey take? Two days? 36 hours? The film gives you no real clue about the clock.

“And Scheider getting iced at the very end seems wrong. The trip was hell but he made it through and had earned redemption by delivering the nitroglycerin. I wanted his character to taste the satisfaction of a job well done, and perhaps a little serenity.

“Scheider apparently wasn’t happy with how he came off. From the Wiki page: “Scheider was angry that in the final cut Friedkin removed a subplot that showed his character in a more sympathetic light; it involved him befriending a small boy from the village. For that reason, Scheider consistently refused to comment on the film.”

[Originally posted on 4.13.14] “”Again — Why Sorcerer Failed“:

“I’ve never completely bought William Friedkin‘s theory that Sorcerer died because the hugely popular Star Wars, which opened on 5.25.77 (or a month before Friedkin’s film), had ushered in a sudden sea-change in mainstream cinematic appetites.

“He meant that a new comic-book, popcorn-high attitude had taken over, and had brought about a consequential lessening of interest in gritty, noirish, character-driven adult dramas.

“Sorcerer, of course, was never going to be a hugely commercial thing. It’s a fairly downbeat, men-against-the-elements adventure flick made for guys. Women don’t go for sweaty, atmospheric, end-of-the-road Latin American fatalism.

“You But I suspect that Sorcerer would have been at least a modest success if it had delivered a sense of justice in the case of Roy Scheider‘s character, a wise guy on the run from the New Jersey mob.

“Sorcerer is about four desperate men hired to deliver nitroglycerin in trucks to a burning oil well in the middle of the South American jungle. Scheider is the only one who makes it in the end. He’s gone through hell, and despite his previous criminal inclinations, the audience has been taught to respect him for getting through this terrible ordeal. They may not love him, but he’s done a really tough thing and earned, in movie-story terms, a kind of redemption. A little peace and gratification.

“But then Friedkin and screenwriter Walon Green turn around and stab Scheider with an icepick. Mob assassins (accompanied by a friend who had helped him escape the country and who has now obviously betrayed him) arrive at the very end to rub him out, and there’s no escape.

“Yeah, yeah, I know — that’s what ‘noir’ is. Life is hard and cruel and then you die. But that’s not how audiences see it.

“I felt this way when I first saw Sorcerer, and I felt it again last night. Scheider doesn’t deserve death — he’s earned a chance to live again and maybe do things right for the first time in his life. But Sorcerer rejects this notion, and that’s why audiences rejected it. It left a sour taste by (a) making it clear that Scheider’s scummy, low-life character is possessed by fierce determination and concentration and courage, and then (b) zotzing him anyway.

“That’s a kind of ‘fuck you’ to the audience, a kind of a burn.

“This, trust me, is a major reason why Sorcerer screwed the pooch. A movie doesn’t have to end happily or sadly, but it does have to end on a note of justice.”

Steven Soderbergh‘s Black Bag made the vast majority of critics critics flutter with joy…RT 97% approval!…Metaçritic 85! HE, however, was less enthused, partly due to an inability to hear roughly half of the dialogue, which was partly augmented by a combination of shitty mixing and gloopy British accents.

I thought I was all alone until discovering that Joe and Jane CinemaScore have given Soderbergh’s film a B. If you know anything about CinemaScore ratings, an A-minus means “good with a couple of problems,” a B-plus means “decent…not too bad” and a B means “meh, not so much.”

In sum, I do not live in an elite ivory tower and I don’t fool around. There’s a lot I despise about mass taste in movies, but at the end of the day “I am a river to my people”**.

On top of which RT popcorn-munchers have given it a not-so-hot 75% rating.

** This line has been stolen from Anthony Quinn‘s Auda Abu Tayi. More precisely from screenwriter Robert Bolt.