CINEMA
Escaping the Last Tango in Paris
Actress Maria Schneider in her own voice.
March 27th marks the birthday of actress Maria Schneider who would have been 70 this year.
Back in March 1986, my friend Myriam Aziza (now a film director) and I interviewed Maria on the set of a French film called Résidence surveillée. We were doing a week-long internship for middle school.
As her cousin Vanessa Schneider noted, she will, unfortunately, forever be linked to one scene in one film and, at times, reduced to that one brutal scene from the Last Tango in Paris.
As young adolescents, we were blissfully unaware of Tango, and perhaps that put Maria at ease. She enjoyed discussing her work as an artist instead. She was incredibly authentic, down-to-earth, and passionate. She even showed interest in our lives by asking us questions!
The film crew was astonished that Maria gave us an interview. Both Myriam and I made a note of it in the personal diaries we wrote for our internship report. Only much later would I understand this astonishment and the mayhem she survived after Tango.
Maria’s trust in us was a unique honor.
Since interviews with Maria are so rare, I think there is value in these words…
