Parachute Women by Elizabeth Winder

Author:Elizabeth Winder [Winder, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2023-07-11T00:00:00+00:00

Anita began filming on September 2. Donald rented a house on Lowndes Square, suffused with dilapidated grandeur, stuffed with dusty Dutch paintings and forgotten Magrittes. He needed it transformed into “something mysterious and beautiful and unexpected, exotic and voluptuous and far away from pedestrian; some hint of earthly paradise.” Chrissie Gibbs threw himself into the task, gathering Persian rugs, exotic tapestries, and seventeenth-century Japanese dishes to tile a spacious octagonal bath. At the center, a sumptuous four-poster bed piled with velvets shipped from Morocco (Chrissie wanted to mimic “The Princess and the Pea”).

The décor of Courtfield Road was Donald’s other inspiration, and Anita helped furnish the set with artifacts from her own life. For silks she shopped at Chelsea Antiques. Maracas from Brazil, a tapestry from their bedroom, a fur-lined cape that once belonged to Brian. In this way and so many others, Performance was Anita, made piece by piece from her very cells—her hash, her records, even the script itself—blessed by Artaud, dipped in Saint-Tropez, still crusted with salt and her Bain de Soleil.

At its core, Performance was about discord—male versus female, dreams versus reality, London hood rat versus louche superstar. For maximum friction, he needed them trapped, hermetically sealed No Exit–style. Every cranny blocked, all windows cloaked in heavy blackout drapes. Drugs galore, no natural light. Dr. John’s “I Walk on Guilded Splinters” playing on repeat. As one camera technician remembered the set: “You took one breath and you were stoned.”

With the actors trapped in that insular world, strong personalities would clash and ignite. As a director, his key methods were isolation and disorientation.

“Donald Cammell,” Keith claimed years later, “was more interested in manipulation than actual directing.” He wasn’t wrong. Anita’s costar, Michèle “Mouche” Breton, was one of Donald’s victims. A vulnerable teen from Brittany’s backwaters, Mouche had been banished from home by abusive parents and thrown into the world with a hundred francs.

Young, vulnerable, uneducated, androgynous-looking girls were Donald’s “number one obsession,” according to an ex-girlfriend, and Mouche had the curveless thin limbs he preferred. Instead of a vulnerable child, Donald saw a potential “sexual catalyst”—the missing ingredient for his film. So he flew her to London, forging a work permit to clear her with Warner Brothers. “Besides,” Donald offered by way of justification, “she was already destined for a bad end.”

Keith couldn’t have anticipated how far Anita would go, all in the name of gory realism. Drug-lacing, coffee-spiking, shooting up on-screen, and an eight-minute sex scene involving Mick, Mouche, and Anita herself. Lit by two enormous spot lamps shining through pink and red scarves, filmed on a 16 mm portable Bolex entirely under the covers. Donald, Nick Roeg, and even the actors themselves took turns filming.

Even for the intrepid Anita, filming Performance was “never much fun.” Despite seeming like a sensual bacchanal, filming was strained and difficult. “It was an absolute nightmare,” said Anita years later. “Donald was a real prima donna—going into fits of fury, screaming, shouting and trying to put all of these mad, deviant, perverted sexual scenarios into the movie.

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