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“The Linguine Incident,” a low-budget ’90s film directed by Richard Shepard and starring Bowie and Rosanna Arquette, will arrive on Blu-ray with a director.
By Jason Bailey
Even the biggest David Bowie enthusiasts would probably be unaware of his solitary foray into romantic comedy, and for a clever reason: The film was only recently released in 1992 and has been virtually unwatchable ever since. Now its director has restored, rescued and re-edited the film in question, “The Linguine Incident,” which was released on Blu-ray this week.
Richard Shepard was just 25 years old when he directed this original New York-based independent film, which was his first solo feature film (he directed a previous film, “Cool Blue,” opposite Mark Mullin). At the same time, the small budget came from several sources. “The whole movie was financed in a very weird way,” Shepard said in a Zoom interview. “We had cash for the internal video, cash for sales, and mystery cash — a lot of money. “mysterious cash. “
His first casting success came early, when he landed Rosanna Arquette, who was already a star with “After Hours” and “Desperately Looking Susan” on her resume. So what made her take a chance on this young rookie? “I enjoyed the script,” Arquette said in a telephone interview. “I just thought it was well-written and funny. . . and then, lo and behold, we had David Bowie, so it was exciting. “
Shepard sent the script to Bowie as a joke, with the concept that he and rock legend Mick Jagger could play the film’s flamboyant restaurateurs. “We naively sent them the piece to play those little roles, without offering them money or anything,” Shepard recalls. “We got this note from Bowie saying, ‘I’m interested in your film, but I don’t need to play this supporting role. ‘I would like to play the leading role.
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