This wonderful documentary is based on a kind of memoir that Anita Pallenberg left after she died. Her words are spoken by Scarlett Johansson.
I had a vague recollection of Anita Pallenberg and her association with The Rolling Stones. I certainly didn't realise she was the girlfriend of Brian Jones for some while, and then the partner of Keith Richards for many years. With Brian we are told about their descent into drugs that effected Brian terribly. When Anita appears in a small film, Brian volunteers to write the music but cannot get his act together, only to be rescued by Keith. Was that because of Anita, as she was devastatingly attractive in those days. We hear about the escape of The Stones when publicity about drugs became too hot, especially a road trip across Europe with Anita, Brian and Keith. Only for Brian to be hospitalised on the way, and Anita and Keith making their way to Tangier. But having fallen for each other on the way.
Brian is back with them at the Cannes Film Festival for that movie but Anita and Keith are now an item. She is making other films including appearing in Barbarella. And in Performance with Mick Jagger, a possible relationship that didn't work out. But Keith was upset and wrote the brilliant Gimme Shelter. A masterpiece of rock music, forget the vocal, just mesmerising guitar riffs. One of my alltime favourite recordings. Anita back with Keith and on their way with Mick and Marianne Faithful on a ship across the Atlantic. Anita becomes pregnant, Marianne leaves Mick, he fails to get back to Anita and writes You can't always get what you want.
Brian has died, a big funeral, and Anita seven months pregnant. She tells us about the last time she saw Brian was when they were making Sympathy for the Devil. Her son Marlon is born and Keith starts off a great father. But he's away on tour so much and Anita's loneliness ends with Heroin and a spell in rehab. A lot of the story is about their relationship with drugs. We do see Mick getting married to Bianca. But why so much spoken by Jake Webber whose father was, apparently, their drug dealer. And how much do we believe. We see some of the young Marlon (the older man is a main contributor in the second half). He talks about their hectic lifestyle and then Angela is born. She too gives us an insight to their lives.
When Anita has a third child, but Tara has problems. When she dies Keith is playing at one of the Stones' concerts. Anita struggles with Keith away, and Angela goes to stay with family in England while Keith, Anita and Marlon are in America. When Anita is once more on her own, Marlon's nanny calls her "a caged animal". She's stuck there in America and (if we are to believe this) the record company even holds her passport. But she does strike up a "friendship" with one of the young guys working at the house. Marlon tells us when he was about ten, his last day at school was 20th July 1979, and he returns home to find this "friend" of Anita has been shot. Apparently acting out a scene from The Deer Hunter that they were watching.
Keith declares that enough is enough and leaves, taking Marlon with him. Anita's drug taking gets worse, and on heroin and drink has a bad fall. Somehow she survives and rehab actually sorts her out this time. Gradually gets a better relationship with Marlon, and they actually both became students. Anita at art college and a recognition of her style. And she starts acting again. So this is all post Keith and The Stones. Anita's notes come to an end and she dies "of natural causes" in 2017. A lovely funeral, and Keith acknowledges "she made a man out of me". What I found out later was that she died in Chichester Hospital, only a stones throw from Keith's house at Redlands. I wonder.
No comments:
Post a Comment