Performance (film)

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Performance
Performance VHS cover
Directed by	Donald Cammell Nicolas Roeg
Produced by	Sanford Lieberson
Written by	Donald Cammell
Starring	James Fox Mick Jagger
Music by	Jack Nitzsche
Cinematography	Nicolas Roeg
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	1968 (U.K. release) August 3 1970 (U.S. release)
Running time	105 min
Language	English
Budget	£750,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile

Performance (1968) is a British film directed by Donald Cammell and Nicholas Roeg.

1 Plot
2 History
3 Critical Reputation
4 Influence
5 External links
6 Further Reading

[edit] Plot

Chas (James Fox) is a "performer," an ultra-violent enforcer for an East London gang (lead by Harry Flowers (Johnny Shannon). Chas begins to enjoy his work a little too much, culminating in the murder of an associate. He goes on the run, both from the police and from his former colleagues. Chas finds himself "a perfect little hidey hole" in the basement of a house owned by a reclusive, eccentric rock star named Turner (Mick Jagger) who lives there with his female friends Pherber (Anita Pallenberg) and Lucy (Michele Breton). Chas and Turner are initially repelled by each other, but come to see that the worlds of the rock star and the gangster are not as different as they first appear.

[edit] History

Performance was initially conceived by Donald Cammell as "The Performers" and was to be a lighthearted swinging 60's romp. At one stage, Cammell's friend Marlon Brando (with whom he later collaborated on the posthumously published novel "Fan Tan") was to play the gangster role which became "Chas". At that stage the story involved an American gangster hiding out in London. As the project evolved the story became significantly darker. Cammell was heavily influenced by the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (a portrait of Borges can be seen at a crucial moment in the film) as he redrafted the script to create an intense, intellectual film dealing with issues of identity crisis. Cammell and co director Nicholas Roeg also benefited from a lack of interference from Warner Bros studio executives, who believed they were getting a Rolling Stones equivalent of the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night (1964). Instead, Cammell and Roeg delivered a dark, experimental film which included graphic depictions of violence, sex and drug use.

Performance has gained notoriety due to the difficulties it faced in getting on screen. The film's content was a complete surprise to the studio. It has been reported that during a test screening, one Warner executive's wife vomited in shock. The response from the studio was to deny the film a cinematic release. It has been claimed that at one stage Warner Bros wanted the negative to be destroyed.

Performance was finally released in 1970 after several recuts and changes in Warner's administration. The success of hippy road movie Easy Rider is also believed to've convinced the studio to release Performance.

According to Amazon.com, "Performance" will finally be released on DVD February 13 2007.

[edit] Critical Reputation

On its release the film received mixed reviews to say the least. Most reviewers focused on the graphic sexual elements. One reviewer (Richard Schickel) described it as “the most completely worthless film I have seen since I began reviewing.” Throughout the late '70s and '80s Performance gradually acquired a cult following on the late night and repertory cinema circuits. By the 1990s the film had undergone a complete critical reappraisal. In 1995 Performance appeared at number 28 in an "all-time greats" poll of critics and directors. After Cammell's death in 1996 the film's reputation grew still further. It is now frequently cited as a classic of British cinema.

[edit] Influence

When Performance was released, several aspects of the film were extremely innovative, and historically it can be seen as a precursor to MTV type music videos and many popular movies of the 1990s and 2000s.This movie has a soundtrack with The Rolling Stones, Ry Cooder, Randy Newman, The Last Poets, Buffy Ste. Marie, Merry Clayton.

Performance was the first feature film to employ the cut-up technique. Directors Cammell and Roeg also went on to use this technique in their following movies, much before it become commonplace in popular cinema.
The gangster aspect of Performance has been imitated by many popular directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie, Jonathan Glazer and more.
Performance pushed boundaries by featuring extremely explicit sex scenes and use of drugs, both which have been rumoured to be real instead of simulated. Although Andy Warhol's (and other underground filmmakers') films had featured such behaviour before Performance, it was unheard that such things appeared in a major studio production.
Big Audio Dynamite's song "E=MC²" included the following dialogue samples from Performance
- "I don't like music"
- "Why don't you play us a tune pal?"
- "Comical little geezer. You'll look funny when you're fifty."
- "You know I don't think I'm going to let you stay in the film business"
- "Things have changed"
- "I like a bit of a cavort, I don't send 'em solicitor's letters. I apply a bit of pressure."
- "Who do you think you are, the Lone Ranger?"
- "You're Jack the Lad"
- "Putting a little stick about. Putting the fire into those flash little twerps"
- "He's an ignorant boy. An out of date boy"
- "United we stand, divided we're lumbered"
- "The man's dead, and who's left holding the sodding baby?"
- "They're a bunch of liars and wrigglers. Give 'em a bit of stick."

Happy Mondays'' second album, Bummed, features several songs inspired by the film, including 'Moving In With', 'Performance', and 'Mad Cyril'. 'Mad Cyril' is explicitly inspired by the film and included the following dialogue samples