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The 30th annual Rendez-Vous with French Cinema festival, hosted by Film at Lincoln Center and Unifrance, is celebrating the work of acclaimed actor Vincent Lindon.

While the 2025 festival is not entirely honoring Lindon himself, the actor appears in a whopping trio of featured films and also will be onsite for Q&As and introductions. Lindon stars in Quentin Dupieux’s meta-comedy “The Second Act,” which opened the 77th Cannes Film Festival, as well as Gilles Bourdos’ dramatic thriller “Cross Away” and Delphine Coulin and Muriel Coulin’s “The Quiet Son” (Lindon won Best Actor at the 81st Venice Film Festival for that drama).

And Lindon isn’t the only beloved French star to join this year’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema: Actors Isabelle Huppert and Édgar Ramírez, plus auteurs Olivier Assayas and Bertrand Bonello are among those who will have features screening. Bonello, while known as a director, lent his composing skills to “Planet B.

Drawing upon a 1983 interview the actress Maria Schneider gave to the French TV show Cinéma Cinéma, Elisabeth Subrin’s short film Maria Schneider, 1983 premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and went on to win in 2023 France’s César award for Best Documentary Short. In Subrin’s film, three actresses — Manal Issa, Aïssa Maïga and Isabel Sandoval — progressively interpret the text of Schneider’s interview throughout the 25-minute piece, with Issa strictly recreating Schneider’s original answers while Maïga and Sandoval adapt the text to reflect their own experiences in the film business, turning the work into, as I wrote […]

The post “… A Singular Biographical Representation of a Subject is Impossible”: Elisabeth Subrin on Maria Schneider, Manal Issa and The Listening Takes first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Drawing upon a 1983 interview the actress Maria Schneider gave to the French TV show Cinéma Cinéma, Elisabeth Subrin’s short film Maria Schneider, 1983 premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and went on to win in 2023 France’s César award for Best Documentary Short. In Subrin’s film, three actresses — Manal Issa, Aïssa Maïga and Isabel Sandoval — progressively interpret the text of Schneider’s interview throughout the 25-minute piece, with Issa strictly recreating Schneider’s original answers while Maïga and Sandoval adapt the text to reflect their own experiences in the film business, turning the work into, as I wrote […]

The post “… A Singular Biographical Representation of a Subject is Impossible”: Elisabeth Subrin on Maria Schneider, Manal Issa and The Listening Takes first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The board of Paris’ French Cinematheque has apologised for failing to contextualise a screening of Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1972 film Last Tango In Paris in December, which was ultimately cancelled.

Filmmaker Costa-Gavras, who is the Cinematheque’s president, joined other members of the directorial board to face a French National Assembly commission on sexual violence yesterday (January 16).

The Cinematheque had programmed a screening of the film, which includes a rape scene shot without the consent of actress Maria Schneider, as part of a retrospective of Marlon Brando’s career on December 15.

The programming decision was harshly criticised by film figures and feminist organisations,...

French Cinémathèque was due to show 1972 film that features rape scene filmed without actor Maria Schneider’s prior consent

A prestigious French cinema has cancelled a screening of Last Tango in Paris after women’s rights groups protested at its infamous rape scene filmed without the consent of the leading actor, Maria Schneider.

The French Cinémathèque in Paris said it had dropped the film after receiving threats.

Actors are often lauded for their striking performances or contributions to the industry, but some become immortalized due to their works. Marlon Brando is one such name who is considered to have revolutionized acting and the entertainment industry.

The Godfather actor was as phenomenal onscreen as he was controversial off it. Matt Dillon got the golden opportunity to step into the shoes of his senior but soon came to regret his choice. However, the American Dreamer star didn’t shy away from the role due to the actor’s tricky past. Rather, it was his legacy that made things challenging.

The reason behind the hesitation: Not the past

Marlon Brando created waves in Hollywood, charming the audience with his god-like looks and moving performances. The A Streetcar Named Desire actor had innumerable hits, but his personal life was embroiled in controversies.

Marlon Brando in The Godfather | Credits: Paramount Pictures

Jessica Palud...

Kino Lorber has acquired North American distribution rights to “Being Maria,” a French movie revolving around the controversial production of Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1972 film “Last Tango in Paris.”

Directed by Jessica Palud, the movie stars “Happening” breakout Anamaria Vartolomei as Maria Schneider and Matt Dillon as Marlon Brando.

“Being Maria” had its world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where it was the only female-directed film selected for the Premieres section. It’s now playing at the American French Film Festival at the DGA. where Kino Lorber’s boss Richard Lorber will be receiving an honorary tribute over the weekend.

The movie charts the turbulent life and career of the late French actress Maria Schneider, who was a promising young actress struggling to break into film when she was cast by Bertolucci, then still rising as a face of Italian cinema, to star in “Last Tango in Paris” alongside an American superstar,...

Despite blue skies over Greece’s second city ahead of the opening ceremony, the 65th Thessaloniki Film Festival kicks off Oct. 31 under clouds of uncertainty, with the war in Ukraine raging toward its three-year anniversary and the year-old Israel-Hamas conflict spilling into neighboring countries and threatening to engulf the entire Middle East. The U.S., meanwhile, heads to the polls next week for an election that’s been framed as a referendum on the fate of American democracy itself — with the eyes of the world watching.

For Thessaloniki festival director Orestis Andreadakis, a veteran film critic who’s been at the helm of the festival since 2016, global events have only brought a renewed sense of urgency “to find movies that matter,” he tells Variety on the eve of opening night. “Movies that say something about our lives, our situation in the world, with so many changes, so many dangers — wars,...

Veteran actor Matt Dillon will receive the prestigious Golden Alexander award at the upcoming Thessaloniki Film Festival in Greece. Organizers will honor Dillon for his long acting career and diverse artistic contributions to cinema. The 65th annual festival runs from October 31 to November 10.

During the festival, Dillon will showcase several of his recent projects. This includes his portrayal of legendary actor Marlon Brando in the film “Being Maria.” The movie explores actress Maria Schneider’s experience filming the controversial 1972 film “Last Tango in Paris.” Dillon both acts in and directed “Being Maria,” which had its premiere earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival.

Festival organizers will also honor Dillon by screening his 2002 directorial debut “City of Ghosts.” In addition, Dillon will participate in an experimental art installation called “Interfears.” The piece will use Mri scans to visualize Dillon’s brain activity while he performs a monologue. Both the installation...

Matt Dillon will be feted at the 65th edition of Greece’s Thessaloniki Film Festival, where he will present his recent film “Being Maria,” in which he plays Marlon Brando.

Dillon will receive the festival’s honorary Golden Alexander award on Nov. 4, before a screening of his 2002 film “City of Ghosts,” which was his debut as a film director and screenwriter.

Other honorees at the festival, which runs Oct. 31-Nov. 10, include Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes, as previously announced.

“Being Maria,” which will screen at Thessaloniki on Nov. 3, had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Directed by Jessica Palud, it revolves around the troubled life of Maria Schneider, played by Anamaria Vartolomei.

When Schneider, a young, struggling actress with promise, is offered the lead role in “Last Tango in Paris,” playing opposite Brando, her dreams seem to be coming true. But what seems like a big break turns...

It is nearly impossible for Luca Guadagnino to discuss one of his films without folding his cinematic hero, Bernardo Bertolucci, into the conversation. While on an upcoming episode of IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast about his forthcoming release, A24’s “Queer,” Guadagnino revealed his documentary about the great Italian director behind such films as “The Last Emperor” and “The Conformist,” who passed away in 2018, is much further along than we thought.

“I’m editing it now,” said Guadagnino while on the podcast. “I have a few more conversations I want to have. Actually, Marty Scorsese, I want to talk to him about it. We’ve been shooting for a while now. They’re not interviews; it’s a conversation. It’s a very personal movie. I am the protagonist of the movie. It could be called, ‘Bertolucci and I,’ which it’s not going to be.”

The current working title is “Joie de Vivre,...

Production has begun on “Merteuila,” a new French original series for Max adapted from Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ 18th century classic novel “Dangerous Liaisons.”

Directed by by Jessica Palud and created by Jean-Baptiste Delfaon, the show stars Anamaria Vartolomei (playing Isabelle de Merteuil), Diane Kruger (Madame de Rosemonde), Vincent Lacoste (Vicomte de Valmont) and Lucas Bravo (Comte de Gercourt). It’s produced by Clément Birnbaum and Joachim Nahum of Nabi Productions (Ugc Group) and Marie Guillaumond of Felicita Films (Newen Studios Group).

Filming is now underway in Normandy, France and will run until December. The ambitious show will stream on Max where the platform in available. The service launched in June in France and will soon roll out its first French series original, “The Confidante,” a psychological thriller (previously called “The Mythomaniac of the Bataclan”) based on a true story, starring Laure Calamy (“The Origins of Evil”) as a woman...

Rachel Griffiths wants people to start respecting sex workers. Now.

“If we disrespect sex workers, we are disrespecting women. It’s the same thing,” she says.

“In Australia, we are in the throes of terrible violence against women. We’ve had more of them die at the hands of their partners or ex-partners in the first three months of the year than in all of last year. People used to talk about what a woman was wearing if something bad happened to her. If she was a sex worker, nobody investigated these cases. I really hope we grow out of it.”

In her new show “Madam,” Griffiths – a “Six Feet Under” and “Brothers & Sisters” star, nominated for an Academy Award for “Hilary and Jackie” – plays Mack Leigh. The show had its world premiere Saturday at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival.

After discovering her husband has been hiring a sex worker,...

“Being Maria” is a flawed but fascinating look at the turbulent life of actor Maria Schneider, played by a game Anamaria Vartolomei (“Happening”). It limns her rebellious teen years, her big breakthrough at 19 in Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris,” and how her trauma on set and the film’s notoriety impacted her subsequent career and mental health. Helmer Jessica Palud (“Back Home”) and co-scripter Laurette Polmanss loosely adapt a memoir by Schneider’s younger cousin to show events through the star’s eyes. Despite a clunky air of earnestness and some soap opera-like scenes, plus the overly familiar arc of a celebrity spiraling out of control, the film resonates because the central topic is so of the moment. It’s a cautionary tale about a naïve and powerless young talent abused in the name of art, as well as the agonizing aftermath of her maltreatment.

The narrative depicts...

Anamaria Vartolomei, the breakout star of Audrey Diwan’s Venice prizewinning “Happening,” is under the spotlight at this year’s Cannes Film Festival playing strong women in a pair of movies, “Being Maria” and “The Count Monte Cristo.” Both movies are supported by Chanel for which Vartolomei is an ambassador.

Vartolomei says since starring in Diwan’s drama “Happening,” which was set in the 1960s and centered around the then-illegal act of abortion, she has continued being lured to demanding roles with political and social themes.

“I think movies are the expressions of my engagements as a woman, and as such I often star in films that are engaged because when you’re an actress you contribute to change and we must continue to wage this battle that other women have led before,” says Vartolomei, who was wearing a glamorous dark khaki and black silk jacquard muslin dress by Chanel.

Take your pick. There have been countless film and TV productions adapting Alexandre Dumas’ classic 19th century tale of revenge and deception, The Count of Monte Cristo. We have seen it in different versions in 1934, 1954, 1975, 2002 and probably up to 15 more iterations. Now we have the latest, the lavish widescreen French production Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, which had its world premiere Wednesday night Out of Competition to a wildly approving full audience at the Grand Lumiere — an appropriate place to launch this film as the screen might be the best in the world, and this movie is big.

In addition to all those past film versions on the book, there are countless other movies that have stolen from this complexly plotted tale. For some reason I kept thinking of the Ocean’s movies as, like this, they involve lots of complicated plotting, and once our title character begins planning his revenge...

There has been a lot of noise at this year’s Cannes Film Festival about France’s accelerated MeToo movement, particularly by female cinema stars leading the charge. So whether coincidental or not, the world premiere in the Cannes Premiere section last night of Being Maria (aka Maria) seemed like perfect timing and more relevant than ever

Jessica Palud directs and co-wrote the screenplay with Laurette Polmanss (inspired by cousin Vanessa Schneider’s 2018 book) focusing on the life of actress Maria Schneider, who at age 19 was cast in 1973’s notorious sexual drama Last Tango In Paris, a scandal-riddled production from director Bernardo Bertolucci and starring Marlon Brando that got so heated the stars and director were even threatened with six months jail time in Italy upon its release, even as critics hailed the film as a masterpiece. Long before MeToo and the focus on treatment of women in Hollywood, Schneider...

When New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael wrote a long and heated rave of Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris after its premiere in 1972, she stated, among other things, that “this is a movie people will be arguing about for as long as there are movies.”

Kael may have been overdoing it when she stressed Last Tango‘s monumental importance, claiming it was a “movie breakthrough” and that it “altered the face of the art form.” But in terms of people arguing years later about the film’s legacy, she was spot-on.

Case in point: Being Maria, a new biopic of tormented French actress Maria Schneider, who at age 19 starred opposite Marlon Brando in the Bertolucci movie — a feat that launched her career as a promising new international actress while destroying her life at the same time.

The reasons for this are well known, and resurfaced over the past...

The world premiere of Agathe Riedinger’s Wild Diamond in Cannes Competition is the only one by a first-time filmmaker and heralds Riedinger as part of a new wave of French female directors to arrive en force on the Croisette.

The film explores western society’s obsession with beauty and fame and the omnipresence of social media through the story of a 19 year-old girl who sets out to earn a spot on a reality TV show.

Also in Competitoin is France-born Coralie Fargeat’s second feature The Substance. The body horror is produced by the UK’s Working Title Films and stars Demi Moore,...

Studiocanal ex-Orange Studio (sic), the sales company in transition following Canal+’s acquisition of Orange Studio and Ocs earlier this year, has taken on All For One, the anticipated second feature from Camera d’Or-winning Divines director Houda Benyamina.

The comedy drama reteams Beyamina with Divines actresses Oulaya Amamra and Déborah Lukumuena who star alongside Daphné Patakia and Sabrina Ouazani. Set in France in 1625, All For One is a feminist retelling of The Three Musketeers and follows four women tasked with protecting the Queen of France.

Orange Studio’s head of sales Charlotte Boucon will be at the market selling the film,...

Matt Dillon is taking on the legacy of Marlon Brando for a biopic about the making of Bernardo Bertolucci’s controversial “Last Tango in Paris.”

Dillon portrays Brando alongside Anamaria Vartolomei as Maria Schneider for Jessica Palud’s upcoming “Maria,” which is set to debut at Cannes later this week in the Cannes Premiere section. “Maria” follows Schneider’s life after starring in “Last Tango in Paris” at age 19, during which she filmed an unsimulated rape scene with Brando in 1973 at director Bertolucci’s (Giuseppe Maggio) instruction. The film is based on Vanessa Schneider’s 2018 memoir “My Cousin Maria Schneider,” which was translated by Molly Ringwald.

Per the memoir, Bertolucci did not tell Schneider the full extent of the film’s plot until right before production. Schneider allegedly was unaware of the pivotal scene in which Brando’s character anally rapes her character using a stick of butter as lubricant.

Studiocanal has unveiled an exclusive first-look still of Matt Dillon and Anamaria Vartolomei (“Happening”) starring as Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider in Jessica Palud’s movie “Maria,” which is slated to bow at the Cannes Film Festival.

Palud’s film sheds light on the tragic life of Maria Schneider, who starred opposite Marlon Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Last Tango in Paris” at the age of 19 and never recovered from the shoot. The film depicts how Schneider was imposed an un-simulated rape scene on the set of “The Last Tango in Paris” by Bertolucci and Brando.

“Maria,” the only movie directed by a female filmmaker that’s set for Cannes Premiere, is based on “Tu t’appelais Maria Schneider,” a book written by Vanessa Schneider, the actress’ cousin. Haut et Court, the banner behind the Cesar-winning movie “The Night of the 12th,” will release “Maria” in French theaters on...

by Cláudio Alves

Michel Hazanavicius joins the Official Competition with an animated film.

As expected, a few more titles have been added to this year's Cannes Film Festival lineup. In the Premiere section, Jessica Palud's Maria Schneider biopic joins a star-studded selection. One of this year's two Count of Monte-Cristo adaptations will screen Out of Competition, while a pair of buzzy documentaries will bow in the Special Screenings program. They are Oliver Stone's Lula and Lou Ye's An Unfinished Film. Other new titles in that section include Arnaud Desplechin's latest Paul Dedalus film and Nasty, directed by Tudor Giurgiu, Cristian Pascariu, and Tudor D. Popescu. But of course, the most important announcements concern the Main Competition, where three films complete the 22-title lineup…...

Films from Oliver Stone, Michel Hazanavicius and Arnaud Desplechin have been added to the Official Selection of the 77th Cannes Film Festival. They join previously announced titles from David Cronenberg, Yorgos Lanthimos, Francis Ford Coppola and Paul Schrader. Greta Gerwig is the president of this year’s jury.

Stone’s film, “Lula” is a documentary about Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and will have its world premiere as part of the Special Screenings section, which also features “Spectators,” from Arnaud Desplechin. His latest stars “Anatomy of a Fall” child actor Milo Machado Graner as well as Mathieu Amalric (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”).

Hazanavicius, a Best Director Oscar winner for “The Artist,” joins the Competition lineup with “La Plus Précieuse des Marchandises” (“The Most Precious of Cargoes”), an animated film about a Jewish child during World War II whose father, in a desperate attempt to save his son’s life,...

Cannes Film Festival has completed its 2024 Official Selection with 13 new films, including three new Competition titles.

Michel Hazanavicius’ The Most Precious Of Cargoes, Emanuel Parvu’s Three Kilometres To The End Of The World and Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig join the Competition line-up, bringing it to 22 films.

There are four additional special screenings, including Oliver Stone’s documentary Lula, about Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Also added are Arnaud Desplechin’s Filmlovers! [pictured], Lou Ye’s An Unfinished Film and Tudor Giurgiu’s Nasty.

Un Certain Regard will open with Runar Runarsson’s When The Light Breaks,...

After announcing a whopping number of English-language films in competition, Cannes Film Festival has added some international titles: Michel Hazanavicius’ animated feature “The Most Precious of Cargoes” and Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Variety has learned.

An auteur-driven allegorical feature, “The Most Precious of Cargoes” (first-look still below) is adapted from Jean-Claude Grumberg’s bestselling novel of the same name, set during World War II against the backdrop of the Holocaust. It will be the first animated feature to compete in more than a decade, since Ari Folman’s “Waltz With Bashir” in 2008.

The film is co-produced and represented internationally by Studiocanal, which also has Gilles Lellouche’s “Beating Hearts” in competition. “The Most Precious of Cargoes” is a passion project for Hazanavicius, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind “The Artist,” who has been developing the project for years. Hazanavicius penned the script with Grumberg and created the drawings,...

On what would be his 100th birthday, Marlon Brando remains synonymous not with acting, but great acting — even if this ranked list of all his performances represents what may be the most wildly uneven filmography for any talent of his caliber. But that’s the power of Brando: A handful of his performances are so great and influential they shook up the art of acting forever. Even among his lesser performances, there’s compelling work deserving of rediscovery.

In order to best exemplify what made him such a singular onscreen presence, we ranked all 39 of his films (and one TV appearance), reflecting a spectrum as wide as the man’s broad shoulders. Based on the quality of Brando’s performances rather than the overall films themselves, there are some placements that may surprise you; for example, as great as Brando is in “The Godfather,” it’s still just the fourth-best...

Yesterday we tossed filmmaker names like Ala Eddine Slim, Alexandre Koberidze, Marco Dutra and the tandem of Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza into the prognostication Un Certain Regard mix. Today we present another ten options and make sure to tune in on Monday for 25 firm Palme d’Or competition guesses. The official line-up will be revealed on April 11th.

Maria –...

Natasha Lyonne has shared a creepy story about James Woods hitting on her during the filming of Scary Movie 2 as part of a darkly comedic riff on the history of sexual assault in Hollywood that left even Conan O’Brien uncomfortable.

The actor told the story during her recent appearance on the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast after revisiting her earlier experience with Marlon Brando holding her boob as part of the script for Scary Movie 2 before he dropped out due to illness.

Woods replaced Brando as Father McFeely in the scene, a spoof of The Exorcist in which Lyonne plays Megan Voorhees, a parody of Linda Blair’s possessed character from the original movie. Speaking on the podcast, Lyonne remembered Woods “hitting on me as a teenager in full monster makeup,” adding, “It’s a crazy move, dude.” Watch the segment below.

Lyonne went on to...

French film promotional organization Unifrance put talent in the spotlight at this year’s Rendez-Vous in Paris, where the 10 actors and filmmakers selected as 2024’s Talents to Watch were fêted with flutes of champagne at France’s Ministry of Culture before being introduced to the international press at a dedicated event.

For more than a decade, the 10 to Watch program has pinpointed the creative talents breathing modernity and vitality into contemporary French cinema. Think of a Gallic artist that’s made international waves over the past decade, and chances are they made this list. Here are the voices taking the industry forward in the years to come.

Sofia Alaoui

Sofia Alaoui

Franco-Moroccan filmmaker Sofia Alaoui will build on the rugged eeriness of her 2023 Sundance jury prize winner “Animalia” with “Tarfaya” – a slow-burn thriller that mines Morocco’s sweeping landscapes for ambient unease.

The upcoming film will follow Meryam, a 40-something...

Jessica Palud’s showbiz drama “Being Maria” reframes the short career and tragic life of “Last Tango in Paris” star Maria Schneider in a post-#MeToo light. “Happening” breakout Anamaria Vartolomei plays Schneider, while Matt Dillon takes on the role of her co-star Marlon Brando. Orange Studio is handling international sales.

Currently in post-production and aiming for a festival premiere later this year, the film in part tracks the controversial production and wrenching fallout of Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1972 masterpiece — a landmark that made Schneider an icon while locking her into a sexualized image she never could escape. Palud’s sophomore feature also marks a fitting echo for the Gallic auteur, who kicked off her professional life on the set of Bertolucci’s “The Dreamers.”

Stepping into Brando’s shoes gave Dillon a unique task, not least because the French-language film required the actor to work in an unfamiliar tongue. “I thought to myself,...

YouTube has earned yet another win in the court of law. In San Francisco, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria dismissed a 2020 lawsuit brought by nine creators of color, who argued that YouTube’s recommendation algorithm discriminated against their videos on the basis of race.

The plaintiffs — including Black and Hispanic creators Lisa Cabrera, Catherine Jones, Denotra Nicole Lewis, and Kimberly Carleste Newman — filed a suit against YouTube in June 2020. The case began less than a month after the killing of George Floyd, which sparked a nationwide referendum on racial justice. In their original complaint, the creators alleged that YouTube and parent company Google “knowingly, intentionally, and systematically” used algorithmic de-ranking to “restrict access and drive them off YouTube.”

Chhabria did not contest the idea that YouTube’s algorithm could have a racial bias, but the federal judge ruled that the suing creators had not done enough to substantiate their allegations.

For three years, musician Maria Schneider has battled YouTube in court in hopes of challenging the platform’s Content ID system. With the case set for a trial, prospects are looking grim for the Grammy winner. Schneider has called for the trial to be delayed so that she can respond to a judicial decision she described as “erroneous.”

In her lawsuit, Schneider argues that YouTube’s rights management system protects powerful interests through its Content ID technology while leaving independent artists out in the cold. That dichotomy, according to Schneider, creates a “hotbed of copyright infringement through [YouTube’s] development and implementation of a copyright enforcement system that protects only the most powerful copyright owners such as major studios and record labels.”

Schneider hoped to gather support from other aggrieved YouTube creators by turning her court case into a class-action lawsuit. YouTube protested that decision, describing the class-action status as a “moving target.

Anamaria Vartolomei (who broke out big in Audrey Diwan’s Happening) will be surrounded by the likes of Céleste Brunnquell (who’ll be seen in Critics’ Week Closing Film La Fille de son père by Erwan Le Duc), Jérémie Renier, Edoardo Pesce, Matt Dillon and Marie Gillain in Jessica Palud‘s highly anticipated sophomore feature Maria. At this point we have no idea how much screen time the likes of Bardot, Brando and Bertolucci might take up in the film but the above mentioned players might fill up those shoes. This is of course the troubling, tormented true life story of actress Maria Schneider who paid a huge price for her fame.…...

Molly Ringwald is revisiting the controversial “Last Tango in Paris.”

The “Breakfast Club” icon translated the non-fiction book “My Cousin Maria Schneider: A Memoir” by Vanessa Schneider from French to English, and in a new interview with The Guardian, Ringwald weighed in on the treatment of then 19-year-old actress Maria Schneider during the erotic 1972 film. Schneider plays a young woman who begins an anonymous sexual relationship with an older man, played by Marlon Brando, with demons of his own.

“She was on board for a lot of it. I feel like she personified the time: she was free, she was bisexual, she was really happy to be part of something that was daring,” Ringwald said of Schneider. “They just went the extra step that they didn’t need to go. The film could have been daring and provocative without that. She should have been able to consent.”

Ringwald began her...

Currently in pre-production phase and deep in the casting process, Audrey Diwan (who will be in Cannes as the head of the Critic’s Week jury) appears to have lassoed the actress she knows well for her highly anticipated buzzy third feature film. Golden Lion-winning Happening in Anamaria Vartolomei might have joined the project and would likely play one of the many Western ex-pats that are part of the main character’s entourage. As we already know, Noémie Merlant landed the top role in Emmanuelle – the one of the sexually adventurous wife. The project was co-written by Diwan and Rebecca Zlotowski. It’s a particularly great moment for Vartolomei who might surface in Cannes next month (if they add the title in the last wave offerings) with Bruno Dumont’s L’Empire, and she is attached to play Maria Schneider in Jessica Palud’s Maria.…...

Hollywood success in the 80s was so unpleasant that Ringwald moved to France. Since then she has made a jazz album, written a novel and translated a memoir about Last Tango in Paris star Maria Schneider

When Molly Ringwald was first approached to translate My Cousin Maria Schneider, by Vanessa Schneider, she said no. It’s not that she wasn’t interested in the late French actor, whose life was so horribly defined and dominated by Last Tango in Paris. Nor was it that she felt too close to the industry to tackle the life story of such a tragic figure. “The opposite,” she says, speaking to me from Vancouver, where she is filming the supernatural drama series Riverdale. “I felt my experience as an actor would only bring more to the project. Because I feel like I understood her.” It was just that she originally didn’t have time.

Walter Smith III has released his stunning new cover of Kate Bush’s “Mother Stands for Comfort,” the latest single from the saxophonist’s forthcoming Blue Note debut return to casual out April 7. The album features pianist Taylor Eigsti, guitarist Matt Stevens, bassist Harish Raghavan, and drummer Kendrick Scott as well as guest appearances by trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and pianist James Francies return to casual is available for pre-order now on Blue Note Store exclusive color vinyl, black vinyl, CD, or digital download.

Walter Smith III

It was Akinmusire who first introduced Smith to “Mother Stands for Comfort,” which is the sole non-original composition on the 10-song set. “From the moment I heard it, the mood and character of the piece grabbed me,” recalls Smith. “‘Mother Stands for Comfort’ was my introduction to Kate Bush’s music, and the more I heard the more I was drawn into her style.

Last Tango in Paris is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The controversial film has been criticised in recent years, following shock revelations about its most infamous scene.

Released in the US on 1 February 1973, Bernardo Bertolucci’s erotic drama follows a young woman from Paris (the late Maria Schneider), who begins an anonymous sexual relationship with an older American widower (Marlon Brando).

In one shocking scene, Paul rapes Jeanne, using a stick of butter as a lubricant.

Schneider, who was just 19 when she shot the film opposite 48-year-old Brando, said in a 2007 interview that the scene “wasn’t in the original script”, but that Brando had come up with the idea to simulate it and told her right before they had to film that part.

“I was so angry,” she said. “Marlon said to me, ‘Maria, don’t worry, it’s just a movie,’ but during the scene, even though what Marlon was doing wasn’t real,...

The Italian director’s knotty drama remains a provocation, a film filled with lyrical beauty but also repulsive cruelty

Revisiting films on the occasion of major anniversaries can be a disorienting reminder of time’s too-swift passage: that film is now 20/30/40 years old? How can that be? Why does it still feel so much younger than I do? In other cases, however, the film wears its advanced age in a way that makes complete sense, and so it is with Last Tango in Paris, released in cinemas in 1973. Now a half-century old, Bernardo Bertolucci’s lightning rod for scandal and debate has dated in many of the ways you might expect, but that’s not quite what I mean: at 50, the film’s age has now caught up with the overriding air of middle-aged despair and disarray that it always carried. In a sense, it was a film made to be forgotten,...

Writer / Director / Actor Halina Reijn discusses some of her favorite movies with Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Rrr (2022)

Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)

Gothic (1986)

Warlock (1989)

Annie (1982)

Midsommar (2019) – Dennis Cozzalio’s 2019 year-end movie roundup

Bambi (1942) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary

Annie (2014)

A Woman Under The Influence (1974)

Husbands (1970) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Opening Night (1977)

The Piano Teacher (2001) – Charlie Largent’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Black Book (2006)

Elle (2016) – Charlie Largent’s Blu-ray review, Dennis Cozzalio’s 2016 year-end movie roundup

The Fourth Man (1983)

Basic Instinct (1992) – Dan Ireland’s trailer commentary

Showgirls (1995)

Indecent Proposal (1993)

Fatal Attraction (1987) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

9 ½ Weeks (1986)

Fifty Shades Of Grey (2015)

365 Days (2020)

A History Of Violence (2005)

Last Tango In Paris (1972) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary

Chinatown (1974) – Ernest Dickerson’s trailer commentary

Marathon Man (1976)

The Abyss (1989)

Apocalypse Now (1979) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSHaunted Hotel.The British Film Institute has begun unveiling the program for the London Film Festival, which runs from October 5-16. So far, they have announced the official competition, featuring films from Alice Diop, Mark Jenkin, and Hlynur Pálmason, and the VR- and Ar-oriented "Extended Realities" strand, including a new work from Guy Maddin, Haunted Hotel.Production has begun on Bruno Dumont's The Empire. Cineuropa reports that the science-fiction film depicts the "epic parallel life of knights from interplanetary kingdoms"; the cast includes Lyna Khoudri (César-winner for Papicha) and the gendarmerie duo from Li'l Quinquin, Bernard Pruvost and Philippe Jore.The international film critics association Fipresci have chosen the winner of their 2022 Grand Prix for Film of the Year: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car.Recommended VIEWINGAndrew Mau and Alan Mak's seminal...

Bertrand Bonello’s Coma, starring Louise Labeque from Bertrand’s Zombi Child is a Currents highlight Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Film at Lincoln Center has announced the Currents selections for the 60th New York Film Festival. Highlights include the Opening Night film João Pedro Rodrigues’s Will-o’-The-Wisp; Ruth Beckermann’s Mutzenbacher; Alain Gomis’s Rewind & Play on Thelonious Monk’s 1969 interview with Henri Renaud screened with Maria Schneider’s short Elisabeth Subrin; Jonás Trueba’s (Fernando Trueba’s son) You Have To Come And See It screening with Pedro Neves Marques’s short Becoming Male In The Middle Ages; Bertrand Bonello’s Coma, starring Louise Labeque from Bonello's Zombi Child, and Radu Jude’s short The Potemkinists screening with Balufu Bakupu-Kanyinda’s Le Damier (in the Revivals programme).

Dennis Lim with Bertrand Bonello for Saint Laurent: “Each Currents lineup is an attempt to distill the spirit of innovation and playfulness...

Established during the early heyday of motion pictures, the "star system" is an informal rule of thumb that most movie producers still swear by, even though the elements of a film's package deal in order to get a green light and raise funds have changed in the last 20-odd years. Nowadays, while having an actor with an established fanbase or persona is still a boon to getting a project off the ground, Hollywood is awash with risk-averse producers using an IP to get a movie made — and that IP is usually comic-book superhero material.

Arguably the film that started Hollywood on this superhero-saturated path, 1978's "Superman," was ironically far from a sure-fire hit when producers Pierre Spengler, Alexander Salkind, and Ilya Salkind were attempting to put it together. Since the Superman character himself wasn't enough to raise the money, the production needed an established star and a seasoned director.

As...

There's another legal battle brewing between a major video platform and a Grammy winner, and this one has nothing to do with Bridgerton. On August 1, A California judge denied YouTube's request to throw out a 2020 lawsuit filed by jazz musician Maria Schneider. The suit, which argues that YouTube fails to protect smaller creators from infringement, will now be allowed to move forward.

Schenider's suit accuses YouTube of facilitating a "hotbed of copyright infringement through its development and implementation of a copyright enforcement system that protects only the most powerful copyright owners such as major studios and record labels." The jazz orchestra leader and composer is a frequent critic of digital media corporations, their control over our data, and the freemium models they employ. Those themes feature prominently in Schneider's album Data Lords, one of her seven Grammy-winning releases.

"My livelihood is being threatened by illegal distribution of my...

Researching the life and career of Maria Schneider for a larger project, filmmaker Elisabeth Subrin discovered a brief interview the actress gave in 1983 for the French TV show Cinéma Cinéma. It’s a conversation alternately defiant and mournful, with Schneider reflecting with real critical awareness upon the gendered power structures of the film industry as well as the violations she experienced living and working within it — including, in one painful section, on the set of Last Tango in Paris. Subrin used the interview as the basis for a 60-second short that was a part of […]

The post “Maria Was Saying Things in 1983 That Were Not Addressed by Actresses Until Decades Later”: Elisabeth Subrin on Her Cannes-Premiering Short, Maria Schneider, 1983 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Researching the life and career of Maria Schneider for a larger project, filmmaker Elisabeth Subrin discovered a brief interview the actress gave in 1983 for the French TV show Cinéma Cinéma. It’s a conversation alternately defiant and mournful, with Schneider reflecting with real critical awareness upon the gendered power structures of the film industry as well as the violations she experienced living and working within it — including, in one painful section, on the set of Last Tango in Paris. Subrin used the interview as the basis for a 60-second short that was a part of […]

The post “Maria Was Saying Things in 1983 That Were Not Addressed by Actresses Until Decades Later”: Elisabeth Subrin on Her Cannes-Premiering Short, Maria Schneider, 1983 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

It’s a compact ten offerings that make up the short films selection over at the Directors’ Fortnight. The eyebrow-raiser goes to Radu Jude – who has been “banging” out a bunch of short films since the release of 2021’s Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn. His The Potemkinists looks at the defiant gesture against Russia made in 1905 by the sailors from the Potemkin Cruiser – they would receive political asylum in Jude’s native Romania. With renewed interested in the life of Maria Schneider (Jessica Palud’s biopic with Anamaria Vartolomei as Maria will premiere next year), Elisabeth Subrin continues to dissect the life of an actress with Maria Schneider, 1983 — you’ll see The Sea Ahead actress Manal Issa (image above), Aïssa Maiga and filmmaker Isabel Sandoval) in the film.…...

Marlon Brando stars in Bernardo Bertolucci's existential drama "Last Tango in Paris" as Paul, a middle-aged expatriate in Paris who has an intense, anonymous affair with a young girl named Jeanne (Maria Schneider). Paul is a brusque man haunted by the recent death of his wife who uses aggressive sexuality to exorcise his personal demons. 

The lines between performance and reality were frequently blurred on set, leading to some controversy surrounding one of the most aberrant sex scenes in the film. Schneider's tears while shooting the violent rape sequence where Paul uses butter as lubricant were genuine, as it was not in the script, but reportedly devised...

The post The Last Tango In Paris Didn't Require Much Acting From Marlon Brando appeared first on /Film.

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By Todd Garbarini

The major question that I have about Douglas Heyes’s Kitten with a Whip, which opened in New York on Wednesday, November 4, 1964 on a double bill with Lance Comfort’s Sing and Swing (1963) with David Hemmings at some theaters, is this: where is the titular whip? We have the kitten, as embodied by the overly beautiful Ann-Margret as “bad girl” Jody Dvorak, but there is no whip to be found. Perhaps the “whip” is her personality? There certainly is an argument to be made for that. Jody has just made a break from a juvenile detention center but not before seriously wounding the head of the place who becomes hospitalized. Outwitting the police, she breaks into the semi-upscale home of David Stratton (John Forsyth), a stuffy, by-the-book political candidate hopeful twenty-three years her senior whose wife and daughter are conveniently...