As the Harvey Weinstein trial proceeds in Los Angeles and the #MeToo movement makes ever-greater strides to leverage survivor justice, a look back at a classic film is perhaps in order. An infamous scene from the 1972 film Last Tango in Paris was shot by violating a very basic requirement for exercising moral agency.
In 2016, a clip of director Bernardo Bertolucci speaking about a Last Tango in Paris scene set off a firestorm of reactions on Twitter. He had failed to get an actor’s informed consent to participate in a mock rape scene, hoping to evoke a genuine reaction of horror from her.
The film tells the story of a recently widowed American man’s sordid sexual affair with a French woman. In one particular scene, the character Jeanne, played by 19-year-old Maria Schneider, is raped by the character Paul, played by 48-year-old Marlon Brando.
This scene is problematic for many reasons, several of which are ethical in nature.
The confession
Bertolucci confesses that he did not tell Schneider in advance of the scene that the shoot would involve a feigned rape with her as the victim. His rationale was that he “wanted her reaction as a girl, not as an actress.”
Although Schneider revealed the deception in 2007, the release of the Bertolucci clip nine years later caused a stir.
Three tweets are representative:
“All copies of this film should be destroyed immediately. It contains an actual rape and sexual assault. #disgusting #disgrace”
— Jenna Fischer (@jennafischer) December 3, 2016
“To all the people that love this film- you’re watching a 19yr old get raped by a 48yr old man. The director planned her attack. I feel sick.”
— Jessica Chastain (@jesschastain) December 3, 2016
“Were this a rape scene in a script when an actor was hired, or one that was planned & could be practiced, that’d be a very different story.”
— Zelda Williams (@zeldawilliams) December 4, 2016
According to his confession, Bertolucci “wanted her [Schneider] to react humiliated.”
Bertolucci’s gambit
Bertolucci’s gambit worked. Schneider responded authentically, exactly as a rape victim would. The scene was so realistic that several governments and trade associations, including the Motion Picture Association of America, censored it prior to the film’s distribution.
Bertolucci later backtracked, claiming that what he did not tell Schneider was only that a certain prop (butter) would be used in the scene. In the clip, though, he specifically states that the rape scene was “non-consensual” for Schneider.
Before her death in 2011, Schneider told the Daily Mail that, “I felt humiliated and, to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci.”
While the scene did not involve Brando actually having sex with Schneider, what makes the scene non-consensual is that Schneider was not informed beforehand that there would be feigned sexual violence.
What was so wrong about Bertolucci’s gambit?
It was not, as Chastain’s tweet suggests, the age difference between the actors. It was the absence of informed consent. Unlike other forms of improv (such as Jack Nicholson pulling a real gun on Leonardo DiCaprio in The Departed), keeping the actor in the dark caused serious psychological distress.
Kant and moral agency
What is informed consent? Letting a person, a moral agent, know in advance what the likely outcome of a scheme they are asked to participate in will be and then gaining their agreement prior to moving forward with the scheme. Informed consent protects a person’s autonomy or freedom to choose. Informed consent is, in other words, a basic requirement for exercising moral agency.
According to the Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative, humans are owed a duty to be treated as ends-in-themselves, that is, as autonomous rational moral agents capable of freely choosing how to act consistent with their own ends. Deceiving someone denies the deceived that freedom, treating the victim instead as a tool to be manipulated for others’ purposes, not as an end-in-oneself.
Clearly, Bertolucci deceived Schneider, thereby violating Kant’s Categorical Imperative and denying her moral agency. While making art for art’s sake is one thing, undermining a moral agent’s autonomy for art’s sake is quite a different—and I might add, unethical—matter altogether.
Bertolucci’s defense
Could Bertolucci have defended his actions in some other way? Was Brando equally to blame because he knew of Bertolucci’s deception?
For those who value moral agency and informed consent, the scene represents a major lapse in ethical judgment by the film’s director. It could also implicate others (actors, producers, etc.) who were complicit in the director’s duplicity.
Perhaps the morally problematic nature of the Last Tango‘s rape scene is the secret to the film’s lasting appeal. Nevertheless, its classic status should not exempt it from ethical scrutiny.
What’s hard to deny is that the rape scene challenges our moral sensibilities and, for that reason, it is a philosophically rich piece of film history.
Shane Ralston, Ph.D., is a Teaching Fellow and Dean of Wright College, Woolf University. He is the author of two monographs: John Dewey’s Great Debates—Reconstructed (2011) and Pragmatic Environmentalism: Towards a Rhetoric of Eco-Justice (2013). He also edited the collection Philosophical Pragmatism and International Relations: Essays for a Bold New World (2013). He has authored over fifty articles, book chapters and popular essays on topics ranging from the philosophy of film to philosophical pragmatism to the history of American political thought.
