Last Tango in Paris cinematographer on butter scene: 'Journalists are making an issue that is not really an issue, nothing happened'

He believes director's apology to actress over rape scene was misread

Oscar-winning Apocalypse Now cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, who served as Director of Photography on Last Tango in Paris and was there on set during the now infamous ‘butter rape scene’, has accused journalists of stirring up a false narrative with regard to the treatment of actress Maria Schneider by director Bernardo Bertolucci and actor Marlon Brando.

Comments made about the filming by the director in 2013 which resurfaced last week led many to believe that the entire scene, in which Schneider’s character is raped by Brando’s, was sprung on the actress without her consent.

“I was there. We were doing a movie. You don’t do it for real. I was there with two cameras and nothing happened. … Nobody was raping anybody,” Storaro told The Hollywood Reporter.

“I think the journalists are making an issue that is not really an issue. I read that there was a kind of violence made on her but that’s not true. That’s not true at all.”

Yesterday, Bertolucci offered similar sentiments in a statement, saying that only the use of butter as a “lubricant” was improvised in the scene and the violence was always in the screenplay.

Storaro added: “Probably Bernardo felt that maybe he didn’t explain it completely to Maria from the beginning and that’s why he felt a little guilty and nothing more than that.

“What Bernardo said later was he would like to apologise to Maria, only because he probably didn’t explain to her at the beginning what was discussed with Brando. Nothing happened during the shooting.”

“[Maria] knew perfectly well what she was doing. She knew pretty well what was happening in every scene. She was an actress and had no problems with this. It was an acting job, not something else.”

Schneider, who died in 2011, remembers the scene differently, saying in retrospect she “felt a little raped, both by Marlon and Bertolucci”.

Storaro characterised the shoot as a “fantastic period”, claiming that “like everybody in this wonderful atmosphere, [Schneider] was so sorry that the movie was ending.”