The first time I saw Maria Schneider on screen was in or shortly after 1975 in Professione: reporter (or The Passenger ). I was dumbfounded by her beauty, never before I had seen a more attractive woman. However, it was not only the perfectly shaped face and figure. The
gentleness, the gaiety, the joy of life she radiated, certainly added to the spell she arose in me. I felt great sympathy - if not love - for that girl, who, by the way, was only five years younger than I.
In 1979 the dutch film Een vrouw als Eva appeared. I’m not sure whether I saw it on TV or in the cinema, but Maria - though still very attractive - had grown a bit fatter. The ’message’ of the film, viz. lesbian love, may have been an issue at the time, but the acting and dialoges
by far didn’t have the quality of Antonioni’s film.
I had not yet seen Last Tango in Paris. I remember that Tango was a hype in 1972 or ’73 in Amsterdam, and everybody spoke about it. But my passion is more for music than for film, and hypes hardly ever stimulate me, rather repulse me. It must have been in the 1980s that
I first saw the film. Of course I was delighted to see Maria Schneider again, even more so seeing her wonderful naked body. And seeing weird Brando is always a delight too. But the ‘story’ didn’t make much sense to me, nor was the dark filming itself very attractive. I forgot
most of it, in fact only two persons in a small appartment having sex - including of course the ’butter scene’ - and the tango scene were kept in my memory.
It was not before 1996 that I saw her again, on screen. Zeffirelli is an important name in the field of Opera, so I was interested in his Jane Eyre as well. I forgot whether it was on TV or in the cinema that I saw it. But only at the end, during the closing credits, I realized that
Maria Schneider had been on screen, in the role of Bertha. She had, of course, grown older, and I had not recognized her during the play.
A similar experience I had in or about 2005, when I saw Maigret en meubl´e. I like this TVseries, with Bruno Cremer in the title role. A number of good directors and actors contributed to it. Schneider does a very good job as Mme. Boursicault. But watching the movie I did
not recognize her.
This year, 2016, I saw it again.
I also saw Tango and Professione: Reporter again. The last one did not fail to move me once
more very deeply, and again I was struck by her beauty and radiance.
It triggered me to look for her on the internet and then I found that she had passed away five years ago, after a long illness. Finding many articles about her but no biography, I composed a fact sheet with data about her life, and decided to make a website.
I never met her in person, but reading about her life, my sympathy and admiration only increased.
Lou de Boer
Rotterdam, 2016-7-30