The “extraordinary” 1972 performance that forced Roger Ebert to say: “I was wrong”

Roger Ebert reconsidered his view of Maria Schneider’s performance in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1972 film *Last Tango in Paris*, eventually writing that he had been wrong to discount her work. His reassessment draws attention to how Schneider’s acting was overshadowed by Marlon Brando’s role and by controversy around the film’s treatment of her.

Schneider was 19 when she starred opposite the 48-year-old Brando as Jeanne, a young Parisian woman in an affair with his character, Paul. She later said she was not told in advance about key details of the film’s notorious “butter scene” and described feeling humiliated and violated during its making. In a 2004 update, Ebert praised her handling of long, complex close-ups and argued that few actresses of the time could have matched Brando on screen.