Installment#2
Casting as Life and Art
Beckwith Patterson Beckwith as David Bowie
 
Patterson Beckwith is one of the first students I ever had. He was enrolled in my criticism course at Cooper Union, sometime in the early 1990s. I had to give him an 'F.' Shortly after the semester ended, and I had flunked him, I saw him on Avenue A at 3am and asked him to please write the required papers, so that I could pass him in the course. But he never did. I think the College of Art just eliminates the bad grades I give, because none of the students ever seem bothered by not passing my course.

Patterson is also a member of Art Club 2000, the collaborative team of former Cooper Union students developed and exhibited by Colin de Land (see Robert Fraser). Danny McDonald, who works with American Fine Art (see Colin de Land) is also in Art Club 2000: he loaned us some of his jewelry line, Mended Veil, for The Anita Pallenberg Story.

For the initial round of shooting, from March to June 1999, we hadn't scripted a David Bowie scene, although Leslie and I had talked about doing one. Mick and David had a really hot sexual affair. They didn't meet until the early 70s, when Mick was already famous and Bowie's career was just beginning: and Mick was by all accounts fascinated by Bowie, not the least for the gay explicit personae that Bowie cultivated and Mick merely skirted around. Even though the moment for David and Mick was in 1973 and the time for The Anita Pallenberg Story is established as circa 1968, we don't take dates and time very seriously, having learned that from Shakespeare. (Bowie's birth name, by the way, is, like Brian's, "Jones". David changed it to a word which, like "Jagger", means knife.)

In February 1999, we had already cast and scripted our film but hadn't yet shot anything. At the end of the month I went to the New York Armory Show to go to dinner with Christian Nagel (see Cosima von Bonin, her art dealer). I stopped at the booth of American Fine Art (see Colin de Land), to leave a copy of the script for Colin. Patterson Beckwith was sitting at the desk. He seemed even tinier than I remembered him - he is really little - and his hair was died red. I thought he was looking like Iggy Pop, and I said so. He didn't disagree with me and agreed to give Colin the script.

Later when I was walking around the art fair, I passed Colin's booth again. This time I noticed some framed photographs leaned against the wall. They were by Alex Bag and featured reproductions and alterations of David Bowie as he appears on his album "Aladdin Sane". I looked closely at the image and realized it was Patterson - I had been wrong, he wasn't looking like Iggy, he was doing early '70s red-haired Bowie.

Since he was already Bowie for Alex, it was natural that Patterson would be David again for us.


Norton Peter Norton as the Pizza Delivery Boy
Yau John Yau as John Yau
Force Yvonne Force as a groupie
Jones? Where's Brian Jones ?
New York New York is the star of the film
Cottingham How I came to be Mick Jagger
von Bonin Cosima von Bonin as Anita Pallenberg
Eisenman Nicole Eisenman as Keith Richards
Brown Gavin Brown as Andrew Loog Oldham
Nanney Chuck Nanney as Kenneth Anger
Parrino Steven Parrino as Hell's Angel
Ganahl Rainer Ganahl as the Vogue Photographer
Amer Ghada Amer as a Rolling Stone Reporter
Theobald Stephanie Theobald as Julie Burchill
Cobett Aaron Cobett as Aaron, the Band's Make-Up Artist
Michael Lucas Michael as François de Menil
de Land Colin de Land as Robert Fraser
Dalrymple Clarissa Dalrymple as Tony Sanchez, the Band's Drugdealer