My Cousin Maria Schneider

Cinema's appalling treatment of the French actress Maria Schneider (1952-2011), especially at the hands of director Bernardo Bertolucci, is the subject of My Cousin Maria Schneider, an exceptional memoir written by the actress's cousin Vanessa Schneider, a journalist in France, and translated by Molly Ringwald, who probably knows a thing or two about cinema's treatment of women. Bertolucci cast 19-year-old Schneider opposite Marlon Brando in 1972's Last Tango in Paris. The notorious rape scene was a surprise Bertolucci concocted to get a raw reaction out of unsuspecting Schneider. Her response to that trick, for which Bertolucci remained unrepentant, was to detest him for the rest of her life.

The experience also led to Schneider's battle with heroin and her difficulty finding future roles. Vanessa writes with affection about her cousin and demonstrates that Schneider was far more than the person tabloid journalism insisted on depicting. It's also a portrait of Vanessa's father, a Maoist hoping for revolution, and her mother, whose "skin is dark" and "wears her hair in an Afro that frames her beautiful face." A theme of the book is the difficulty some groups have fitting in with dominant cultures, whether it's "the inequality of men's and women's treatment in the film world" or darker-skinned people like Vanessa going to school with young men who whisper that she's "too dark" for their taste. This memoir is a moving tribute to an actress who deserved better and a cri du coeur for greater tolerance in all aspects of life. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

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