Women's rights groups had protested against the screening due to a rape scene that was filmed without the consent of the then 19-year-old actress Maria Schneider. The film is about an older man (Marlon Brando) who meets a young woman in Paris. Schneider said as early as the 1970s that the filming of the simulated rape was done without warning or preparation. She experienced it as an assault.
I felt a bit raped, both by Marlon and Bertolucci, said Schneider four years before her death in 2011.
Bertolucci eventually responded that the scene had not been improvised on the same day as it was filmed, but acknowledged that Schneider had not been informed. He saw it as an artistic decision to film her reaction.
"Wake up dear Cinematek" wrote Judith Godrèche, leading actress in France's #MeToo movement, on Instagram. She was critical of the screening being made without putting the film into context.
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