#Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg

[sweetpaintedladie]

Keith Richards in Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg (2024)

[littlequeenies]

‘I’ve been called a witch, slut, murderer’: the ultra-creative women dismissed as rock star girlfriends

Despite their artistic skill, Anita Pallenberg, Suzi Ronson and Yoko Ono were cast as mere lovers or muses. They're now being allowed to tell their own stories – even if it's after death-Annie ZaleskiTue 21 May 2024 11.46 CEST

In a 2008 interview, Anita Pallenberg swore she would never write her autobiography. The artist, model and actor was weary of publishers who only wanted to read about her intimate dealings with the Rolling Stones – she dated both Brian Jones and Keith Richards, and had an affair with Mick Jagger. “They all wanted salacious,” she said then. “And everybody is writing autobiographies and that’s one reason why I’m not going to do it.”

Yet when Pallenberg died in 2017, she left behind pages of a neatly typed manuscript, titled Black Magic, that contained her life story. True to form, she characterised these memoirs as “memory images, a traveller’s tale through a landscape of dreams and shadows” rather than an autobiography. But she held little back while chronicling her spirited and frequently tumultuous life, quipping: “I don’t think the lawyers will like it very much.”Read in a narration by Scarlett Johansson, her unpublished words are the backbone of a compelling new documentary, Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg. Kate Moss celebrates her as “the original bohemian rock chick that people still aspire to today” but more valuable is Pallenberg reframing her legacy on her own terms from beyond the grave. “I’ve been called a witch, a slut, a murderer. I’ve been hounded by the police and slandered in the press,” she wrote, before adding, “But I don’t need to settle scores. I’m reclaiming my soul.”Given how much ink has been spilt on the Stones over the years, it’s refreshing to hear Pallenberg share her own perspective on her experiences. She’s not the only high-profile rock girlfriend now getting a chance to tell their own story, asserting their place in, and influence on, male-dominated music culture.

Suzi Ronson, who was married to the guitarist Mick Ronson, just released a candid memoir, Me and Mr Jones: My Life with David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars, that’s a clear-eyed look at rock star mythology. Pattie Boyd, married to both George Harrison and Eric Clapton, was interviewed in 2018 by Taylor Swift for Harper’s Bazaar (“George and Eric had an inability to communicate their feelings through normal conversation,” Boyd said, “I became a reflection for them”) and this year she eloquently reminisced as she auctioned her memorabilia, including love letters from Clapton and handwritten Harrison lyrics, for a staggering £2,818,184. “The letters from Eric – they’re so desperate and passionate, a passion that blooms once in a lifetime,” she said. “They’re too painful in their beauty.”

Tate Modern, in London, is meanwhile celebrating Yoko Ono with a career-spanning exhibition, Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind – a pointed reminder that Ono’s artistic collaboration with John Lennon was only a relatively brief part of her career. It shows how her artistry spans theatre, writing and music, but also how it makes space for her story to change over time – for example, the various performances of Cut Piece across the decades – and for others’ perspectives. Take Ono’s 1964 artist’s book Grapefruit, which uses short, abstract action items (“Imagine the clouds dripping. Dig a hole in your garden to put it in”) to generate a huge potential variety of creative responses.

Among those was Lennon’s Imagine. In a 1980 BBC interview, Lennon said Grapefruit provided “the lyric and the concept” of the song, but Ono didn’t receive a songwriting credit until 2017 even though Lennon was aware of the oversight in his lifetime. “But those days I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho,” he told the BBC, “and I sort of omitted to mention her contribution.”

Pallenberg, too, served as inspiration for Rolling Stones songs such as Gimme Shelter. But Catching Fire reinforces the idea that even if sexism meant she was underestimated by the public, she wasn’t a passive presence or muse. “Neither Anita nor I wanted to be with them because we wanted some of their power,” Marianne Faithfull says in voiceover – she was in the band’s orbit alongside Pallenberg owing to a relationship with Jagger. “We had our own power.”

Faithfull’s power was her own music career; Pallenberg, who spoke several languages and worked as a model, influenced the Stones’ look. (“I started to become a fashion icon for wearing my old lady’s clothes,” Richards quipped in his bookLife.) And she refused to rearrange her life for the Stones. “No girls were allowed in the studio when they were recording,” she said. “You weren’t allowed even to ring. I did other things; I didn’t sit at home.” She maintained an acting career, notably in 1968’s movie Barbarella and 1970’s Performance – though her voice was dubbed out in the former: you wonder whether her “muse” tag meant casting directors underestimated her.

Suzi Ronson, a colour-loving hair wizard who brought David Bowie’s tomato-red Ziggy Stardust coif to life, also took a different path from other women of her time. She left a steady job and went on the road, steering the Ziggy Stardust tour aesthetic by handling hair, makeup, and other tasks.

Me and Mr Jones illuminates her part in helping Bowie crystallise his vision – and shows how fame and rock stardom corrupt. On a Mott the Hoople tour, she seethes while Mick, cozying up to a baroness, orders Suzi to find his hairbrush, treating her like an assistant rather than a girlfriend. It wasn’t the only time she was underestimated. “I’m now the pathetic girlfriend, clinging on to my man, a position I never thought I’d find myself in,” she writes after joining Mick on tour with Bob Dylan for a few days, after not being invited. “I try to be understanding, but truthfully I’m infuriated at being left out.”

These new works also highlight how each woman, at a time when women struggled to “have it all”, cultivated agency through one of the only paths open to them: motherhood. Rather than being something limiting, becoming mothers allowed them to reinvent their lives. Suzi Ronson, long out of Bowie’s orbit and living in England with her parents after giving birth, reflects that “the life I created for myself has disappeared, and my career with it,” she writes, but her daughter brings joy and solace – and encourages her to stay optimistic and keep striving for a unique path. “As I push her around the same streets my mother used to push me, I swear to her: this isn’t going to be it, and I pray I’m right.” Ronson closes the loop by noting that she and Mick return to the US, living in the singer Maria Muldaur’s house and finding equilibrium.

Ono confronted motherhood’s messiness. Her installation My Mommy Was Beautiful used photos of breasts and vaginas to demystify birth and celebrate the strength of the body, and the 1969 song Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking for a Hand in the Snow) – which Yoko wrote for her young daughter Kyoko – conveys primal agony and frustration. “Society’s myth is that all women are supposed to love having children,” Ono said in 1981. “But that was a myth. So there was Kyoko, and I did become attached to her and had great love for her, but at the same time, I was still struggling to get my own space in the world. I felt that if l didn’t have room for myself, how could I give room to another human being?”

Pallenberg also navigates this conundrum. Jake Weber, the actor son of notorious Stones associate Tommy Weber, becomes visibly emotional when talking about how “generous and funny” Pallenberg was to him after his mother died in 1971, during the Stones’ debauched French summer. “She filled a vacuum of a surrogate parent,” he said. “She was lovely like that. Her thing was trying to give us joy.” Catching Fire also visits the agonising fallout of the sudden June 1976 death of Pallenberg’s 10-week-old son Tara.

Pallenberg has the last word in Catching Fire, and her conclusion illustrates the importance of women directing their own narratives. “Writing this has helped me emerge in my own eyes,” she noted. “Reading over what I’ve written, I get a lump in my throat. But it doesn’t need to be a doom and gloom kind of story.” The film makes it clear that Pallenberg’s chief power was, ultimately, resilience, which she needed during an often-challenging life (she lived with various addictions, including to heroin and alcohol) and several tragic events, such as when a 17-year-old shot and killed himself in Richards’ bed.

“I felt like some nasty person who caused death and destruction around her,” Pallenberg said after the 1979 incident, but Catching Fire refuses to let Pallenberg become a tragic figure or cautionary tale. The film ends noting that she got sober, graduated from college, and aged with iconoclastic gusto. The lessons are clear – redemption is possible and we are not our worst moments – while also reinforcing what we miss when women’s voices are silenced or ignored. Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg, directed by Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill is in UK and Irish cinemas now

[oldfilmsflicker]

new-to-me #305 - Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg

[fuckyeahwomenfilmdirectors]

Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg dir. Alexis Bloom & Svetlana Zill

[bitter69uk]

Born on this day: decadent and charismatic German-Italian actress, model, scene-maker, style icon, “Lady Rolling Stone” and ultimate rock chick Anita Pallenberg (6 April 1942 – 13 June 2017). Pallenberg was an alluring occasional presence in art-y bohemian nightlife in early 1990s London. I recall her DJ’ing at the Horse Hospital once, and coming face to face with her when I opened the bathroom door (“I always need to pee!” she cackled). But before that, buried in the listings of Time Out magazine (in the pre-internet days when it was a dense essential bible that we all relied on), I read about a screening of Pallenberg’s old home movies in East London. It announced she would be present, possibly hosting or emceeing. The venue was a palatial industrial loft in Shoreditch (possibly someone’s apartment), just before gentrification went full tilt boogie there. I sat alone in the back and overheard people conferring that a vintage Cadillac had been dispatched to collect Anita. She arrived late and alone - and sat next to me! Pallenberg – looking just like she did in that 1995 Calvin Klein ad by Steven Meisel with that other ravaged countercultural survivor Joe Dallesandro – radiated elegantly ruined glamour. I never got to meet Nico, but this was a very respectable equivalent. We made small talk. As Pallenberg’s friend Marianne Faithfull describes in her autobiography, “She spoke in a baffling dada hipsterese. An outlandish Italo-German-Cockney slang that mangled her syntax into surreal fragments.” Pallenberg glugged red wine and chain-smoked throughout (there’s a theory she was one of the inspirations for Patsy Stone in Absolutely Fabulous). She also kept up a running commentary on what was happening onscreen (mostly images of herself – clad in Ossie Clark and vintage finery – and Keith Richards in the late sixties cavorting on their jet-set travels). At one point, things turned intimate – a seemingly post-coital Anita and Keef canoodling in bed together. The camera zoomed in on her naked breast. “That’s my neeeple,” she declared in her gravelly Marlene Dietrich voice. I can’t wait to see the upcoming documentary Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg. Portrait of Pallenberg by Michael Cooper, 1967.

[chaoticdesertdweller]

Angela (Dandelion) and Marlon Richards discuss their unique monikers. Excerpt from Catching Fire: the Story of Anita Pallenberg.

[billterebenthine]

Journée placée sous le signe d’Anita Pallenberg la sulfureuse compagne des Stones. J’ai commencé la lecture de Exile on main street : Une saison en enfer avec les Rolling Stones,livre agréablement écrit consacré au séjour de Keith et Anita dans une grande villa dans le sud de la France. Au moment d’éteindre l’ordinateur, j’ai vu que le documentaire Catching Fire The Story of Anita Pallenberg était disponible sur YouTube. Le début est à la hauteur des attentes. Belles images de la jeunesse de notre héroïne, un passage à la Factory de Warhol vers 65, brève vision de l’atelier de Jasper Johns, la rencontre avec Brian.  

[lostfunzones]

Catching Fire The Story of Anita Pallenberg - 2023

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Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg (Alexis Bloom, Svetlana Zill, 2023)

[ludmilachaibemachado]

The Rolling Stones true freaks are alerted: May will bring the doc Catching Fire/The Story Of Anita Pallenberg, with interventions from people that knew the sinister dark blonde angel very well, from Keith Richards to Prince Stash🥀🥀🥀

Via Facebook🥀

[haute-lifestyle-com]

Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg, from Magnolia Pictures, presents a unique vibrant portrait that navigated the intensity of 1960s rock star fame, love, and family based on Keith Richard's first wife Anita Pallenberg's unpublished memoir

[sweetpaintedladie]

Keith Richards in a new clip from Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg (2024)

my gifs! credit if reused please :)

[ginalover]

ginagershon Between 2 Hot Super Talented Chicks….(sigh)….. it was my great pleasure and delight to moderate a discussion with @digitalbloom and @detective_zill for the opening of their wonderful documentary Catching Fire: the story of Anita Pallenberg its out! Go see it or find it on one of the many places ro rent- its a recapturing of a soul- a wild and inspired crazy not always glam life lived - #catchingfire #anitapallenberg  @magnoliapics #congrats you ladies did a bang up fantastic job! #rockchicks

[fantastica-daily]

Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg Documentary Review

Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg will take you on a wild ride through the life of a true rock 'n' roll icon. This documentary finally gives the radiant and captivating Anita Pallenberg her well-deserved spotlight as a creative force in her own right. She was a woman of alluring beauty, intelligence, dysfunction, addiction, and yes, an important figure in the world of the Rolling Stones at their peak.

Directors Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill kick things off with a tantalizing glimpse of Anita in all her glory – grainy archive footage of the gorgeous rebel swirling in an orange cape, cigarette in hand, as she utters the provocative words, "I've been called a witch, a slut and a murderer. I've been hounded by the police and slandered by the press." These lines, voiced by Scarlett Johansson (though her monotone, American accent delivery misses the mark), are lifted directly from Anita's unpublished memoir, "Black Magic."

The documentary takes us back to 1965 when Anita, attending a raucous Rolling Stones concert in Munich, fell head-over-heels for founding band member Brian Jones. Their shared enthusiasm for drugs (and fashion, and sex, and the spotlight) ignited a whirlwind romance. As Keith Richards recalls in a new audio interview, everyone found her utterly intriguing. Eventually, Anita rolled from one Stone to another, forming a deep romantic attachment with Keith, who describes himself as "bursting in love" with her. She even shared a fling with Mick Jagger during the filming of Performance, but ultimately stayed with Keith, bearing three children with him.

Catching Fire doesn't shy away from the darker moments, like the tragic crib death of Anita's third child and the reckless Russian Roulette exit strategy by a very young boyfriend after her split from Keith.

The insightful commentary from Keith Richards, Anita's children Marlon and Angela, Marianne Faithfull, her friends, and co-stars, combined with Anita's own voice, paints a well-rounded portrait – a refreshing contrast to the recent The Stones and Brian Jones documentary, wherein she was portrayed as sort of a devil-woman.

But what truly sets this film apart is the treasure trove of footage, including home movies and behind-the-scenes gems, giving us an intimate glimpse into the life of this extraordinary woman. So, get ready to be captivated by the story of Anita Pallenberg – a true rock 'n' roll witch who cast her spell on the world.

= = =

S.L. Wilson

[youcanlearnfrombooks]

Catching Fire: The Story Of Anita Pallenberg - Official UK Trailer.

The documentary will be released on May 3, 2024, and Variety says Scarlett Johansson provides the voice for Anita Pallenberg, based on the words of Pallenberg's unpublished memoir.

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Catching Fire: The Anita Pallenberg Story

Directors Alexis Bloom, Svetlana Zill Stars Marlon Richards, Keith Richards, Angela Richards, Stash Klossowski de Rola, Jake Weber USA 2023 Language English, some French, Italian, German (with subtitles) 1hr 50mins Colour, black & white

Sobering tale of a woman derailed by self-absorbed blokes

If there’s one lesson I took from this film, it’s this: if anyone starts lamenting the loss of danger in rock music, just slap them. And don’t hold back. Because if relatively early in this documentary you’re thinking ‘Wheeeeee! Don’t the ‘60s look glamorous and fun!’ by the final third, it’s become very sobering indeed. Even if Anita Pallenberg’s surviving kids Marlon and Angela Richards seem OK, the fact that they have wildly different accents turns out to be a hint of how deeply screwed-up their childhoods were. 

Pallenberg – if for some strange reason you’re reading this without having heard of her – was a German-Italian model and actress whose promising career* got sidetracked by her successive romantic involvements with Rolling Stones guitarists Brian Jones and Keith ���Keef’ Richards.

She’s absolutely central to the Stones myth, the late ’60s/early ‘70s period when they helped invent the idea of rock music as something separate from pop, and seemed dark and mysterious and full of ambiguity, as opposed to the sturdy old troupers they’ve been since. 

Keith Richards readily credits Pallenberg for his look – his transition from the poloneck-sweater era to scarves and billowing shirts was accomplished by wearing her clothes. She gave the Stones a lot – what she got in return is more in question.

The film is built around Pallenberg’s unpublished memoir, with her words read by Scarlett Johansson (I spent chunks of the film trying to place the voice.) This is woven in with interviews with her friends and family. I’ve watched a lot of documentaries about the 1960s and the survivors from that time have a tendency to be gratingly self-congratulatory and utterly lacking in perspective or any sense of what’s interesting to the rest of the world rather than to them.

Either the directors have done a very good job keeping their interviewees on track, or they picked them well. Even Stash Klossowski de Rola, a bit of a character who apparently is now big on Tik Tok, stays relevant. 

To me, though, the more valuable – if distressing – part of the film is the part covering the 1970s, when Pallenberg, struggling with addiction, firstly had to play host to the making of Exile On Main St in her house and then was instructed to stay home while Keith embarked on never-ending tours.

This is when we hear from Marlon Richards and also from Jake Weber, these days a reliable character actor but in 1971 a kid whose dealer dad brought him along to hang out in the Exile house. Weber is always excellent value talking about this stuff, while it’s just impressive that Marlon Richards emerged as anything other than a total wreck. 

As a piece of film-making, Catching Fire is a reasonably conventional documentary. It benefits from how much is on film – Pallenberg in her actress days and then the whole Stones circle. It does dabble a bit in a psychedelic feel for some of the 1960s stuff, but then settles down to tell a powerful if deeply depressing story. 

Classic rock stars? Bunch of twats.  *Watching the clips from Barbarella, it's weird to think that Pallenberg was actually three years younger than Jane Fonda.