Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg: reexamining the life of a 1960s icon

Catching Fire – a documentary that enters the tricky terrain of ‘historical reclamation’ of an under-recognised woman – is drawn from the actress Anita Pallenberg’s unpublished memoir, which she said she would never write, but which was found after her death. She was partner to Brian Jones and later Keith Richards, and obituaries in 2017 led with her ‘vital role’ as a muse to the Rolling Stones, inspiring their aesthetic (big furs, paisley-patterned kaftans, floppy hats) and hit songs. Catching Fire shows her as a 60s thought leader, connecting the Stones to what Marianne Faithfull called the “wayward jeunesse dorée”.

Scarlett Johansson voice’s Anita’s words, a distracting choice, especially when we hear her real pan-European accent. The film skims over Pallenberg’s childhood in German-occupied Rome and years in New York’s downtown scene (“Ginsberg collected pubic hair from famous people – he didn’t ask me”) but has welcome insight on her early film career. There are clips of her beatnik femme fatale in Performance (1970), and her lead role in Volker Schlöndorff’s downbeat thriller Degree of Murder (1967) – a source of friction in her violent relationship with Brian Jones, who was so jealous of her new gig he tore up the script and insisted on doing the score. The bulk of the film, though, takes Pallenberg’s perspective on life with Richards, with whom she spent a decade and had three children. Directors Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill make liberal use of 8mm home movies, which capture some of Pallenberg’s mischievous power – she had the smile of a woman who’d will you to skinny-dip then run off with your clothes. They also bring a lysergic playfulness to the footage: Pallenberg’s headscarf, blown away by the wind, morphs into a seagull. 

We watch as hedonism crashes against convention; Richards and Pallenberg cling to a debauched freedom, but it’s Pallenberg who is expected to relent. Her career is left in the contrails as she facilitates Richard’s lawless creativity, running a “castle of dissolute men” while struggling with motherhood and drug addiction.

Anita’s son Marlon Richards approached the directors with her manuscript (an echo of Poly Styrene: I am a Cliché, 2020, which was narrated by Poly Styrene’s daughter Celeste Bell). On camera, he is generous with memories of an at times destructive childhood, giving a view of his mother that is never villainous or hagiographic. A 110-minute documentary cannot reclaim a life, but Catching Fire gives us Anita Pallenberg in long form. 

► Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg is in UK cinemas now.