On screen as lth and taste
Mick Jagger
mystery. The Burnt Orange Heresy,
based on Charles B. Willeford’s 1971 novel, is an elegant, stylish kind of film seldom made anymore, with glamorous actors in a glamorous setting (Italy’s Lake Como).
When Capotondi first met Jagger in London to discuss the part, he was struck by the rock star’s humility. “He said, ‘Look, I haven’t done this in 20 years. I might be rusty,’” recalled Capotondi.
Jagger found ways to shape the character, giving him slickedbacked hair and a slightly menacing Chelsea accent from the 1960s. In the film, Jagger’s art dealer presents Bang’s writer with a kind of Faustian bargain, and things get darker from there. Capotondi considers the character a version of the devil – an apropos role for the writer of Sympathy for the Devil.
“To play the devil is something that can appeal to most actors. It’s such a serpentine character,” says Capotondi. “Given the Rolling Stones discovery, I think it’s quite fitting.”
Jagger is less sure about the connections between The Burnt Orange Heresy and the band’s classic 1968 single, which was partially inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov’s beloved Russian novel about Beelzebub in 1930s Moscow, The Master and Margarita, and a Baudelaire poem.
But Jagger’s art dealer is, for sure, “a man of wealth of taste,” and one that playfully trades on Jagger’s demonic charisma.
“It was in my grasp to do this character. I thought it would be fun to do,” says Jagger. “He basically charms and threatens him to do what he wants. It’s not a lot of screen time but he’s the one who sets off the action.”
Best performance
One of Jagger’s first films remains one of his most celebrated: Roeg’s hallucinatory 1970 film Performance, in which he played a drugaddled, gender-bending rock star. Critically slammed upon release, it’s steadily grown a cult following with Jagger’s performance often ranking among the best by a musician in a film.
He played the title character in Tony Richardson’s Ned Kelly, the ‘bonejacker’ in Victor Vacendak’s cyberpunk Freejack (1992) and a drag queen in Bent. He was an executive producer on the short-lived HBO series Vinyl, and produced the James Brown biopic Get on Up. And then there are the many documentaries that have indelibly captured the Stones, including Gimme Shelter, about the tragic 1969 Altamont concert; Martin Scorsese’s Shine a Light, Brett Morgan’s Crossfire Hurricane and Godard’s intimate but chaotic doc, Sympathy for the Devil.
“I used to say to Jean-luc, ‘What’s the rest of the movie like? Can you explain to me what the rest of the movie is like?’ And he really couldn’t. I don’t think he really knew. It was like: What a genius,” says Jagger.
“When I was really young, I used to watch a lot of foreign cinema,” he adds. “I watched early Roman Polanski movies when I was a student and we used to think ourselves great intellectuals and just watch foreign films and New Wave. We were very in scenes from (top and middle); with Ron Wood, Charlie Watts and Keith Richards performing in Pasadena, California
into that.”
Jagger, who last year had heart surgery, is currently prepping the North American leg of the Rolling Stones’ No Filter tour this summer. His day job, again, calls.
Jagger, of course, is certain to remain a regular soundtrack to cinema. The Stones’ remain an irresistible needle drop to countless filmmakers. (Most recently, Sweet
Virginia lent a luminous lilt to the finale of Knives Out.)
But Jagger acknowledges The Burnt Orange Heresy could be his big-screen swan song.
“If I don’t get offered another decent role, it might be,” Jagger says. Then he laughs. “It’s not planned. If someone offered me something to do in the autumn, I’m sure I’d do it if it was a good part.”