Performance (1970)

Crime, Drama /
6.8/10
85% – Critics
78% – Audience

Performance Storyline

Chas is an East London thug who works for gangster Harry Flowers and his associates (although they don’t use the word gangster to describe themselves). Chas is generally sadistic in his nature and thus revels in his work. But his sadistic nature also pervades his personal life. As such, he will work on his own personal agenda outside of the work for Harry. It is in this vein that an encounter with Joey Maddocks, a man with whom Chas has a history, leads to Chas needing to hide out from Harry and his associates. Ultimately Chas feels he needs to clandestinely leave the country. In the meantime, he, based solely on a private conversation he overhears between strangers, manages to take refuge in the basement of a Notting Hill flat owned by a man named Turner, who lives there with two female companions named Pherber and Lucy. Chas considers their lifestyle bohemian and one of free love, which is outside of his mentality. Turner is an ex-rock musician who has lost his “demon” and thus his desire to be a performer. As Chas makes arrangements for his departure out of England, he gets caught up in Turner’s lifestyle, Turner who is working on his own agenda in spending time with Chas.

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Performance Movie Reviews

Out of control

Donald Cammell was raised in a home “filled with magicians, metaphysicians, spiritualists and demons” and spent his childhood bouncing on the knee of “the wickedest man in the world” Aleister Crowley. Originally a painter, he became a screenwriter before meeting the Rolling Stones through Anita Pallenberg.

Performance was supposed to be a light-hearted swinging ’60s romp, but it ended up being what John Simon of New York Magazine called “the most vile film ever made.” It’s the story of two men*, Chas (James Fox), a brutal street thug, and Turner (Mick Jagger), a rock star who has gone into hiding.

Chas was a member of an East London gang, a man of violence who is prized for his ability to get money for his employer Harry Flowers. However, his complicated past with another gangster and that man’s murder has ostracized him from the gang and put him on the run and into the orbit of Turner and his two women, Pherber (Pallenberg) and Lucy (Michèle Breton).

By the end of the film, fuelled by drugs, cross-cutting techniques, a disjointed narrative and no small amount of magic, the two men have switched identities, with Chas displaying Turner’s face and Turner, well, not having a face any longer.

Warner Brothers thought that with Jagger in the movie they getting a Rolling Stones movie that young people could go see. Instead, they got a movie filled with drugs, sex, violence and ideas about cross-dressing and sex transforming identity that would still be dangerous half a century later.

The behind the scenes events – the house in Lowndes Square used in the film was investigated for drugs, Keith Richards was outside in a car fuming because Jagger and Anita were really having sex, Fox stopped acting for fifteen years to become an evangelical Christian – are just as interesting as the film, but the movie itself is astounding.

It was almost unreleased, as a Warner exec would complain, “Even the bathwater was dirty” and the wife of one of them would throw up at the premiere. Ken Hyman, the leader of Warner Brothers, decided that “no amount of editing, re-looping or re-scheduling would cover up the fact that the picture ultimately made no sense.” The film was shelved for two years until Hyman left and even then, the movie was re-edited and the Cockney accents were redubbed.

Time has been kind to Performance, a movie that points out the juxtaposition between the violent lives of East End with the rock and roll world of London. “A Memo to Turner” predates music videos. Bands from Coil to Big Audio Dynamite and Happy Mondays all referenced or sampled the movie while it’s been an influence on so many directors.

As for Cammell, he struggled against the mainstream after this movie – and with Marlon Brando, who kept asking him to write films and then deciding not to make them – before making Demon Seed, a film that deals with transformative sexuality, just like Performance. He’d make White of the Eye and Wild Side before killing himself with a shotgun. Kevin Macdonald (co-director of the story of his life, Donald Cammell: The Ultimate Performance), said “He didn’t kill himself because of years of failure. He killed himself because he had always wanted to kill himself.”

I held back watching this for years, because I wanted to make sure that I was ready for it. I needed to be prepared for this film, to not use it as wallpaper or background noise. It deserved more than that. And I’m glad I waited. It was worth it.

*It’s directed by two men as well, Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, who would go on to make Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth and The Witches.

Performance

I remember this film as listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die mainly because of the lead singer of The Rolling Stones in a leading role, I was looking forward to seeing what it was like, from directors Donald Cammell (Demon Seed, Wild Side) and debuting Nicolas Roeg (Walkabout, Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth). Basically Chas (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s James Fox) is a thug in the East End of London, who works for gang leader Harry Flowers (Johnny Shannon), he revels in his work with his sadistic nature and intimidation through violence, and he has many many casual and rough sexual liaisons. When a betting shop owned by Joey Maddocks (Anthony Valentine) is to be taken over Flowers forbids Chas from getting involved, as he has history with Maddocks, angry about this ignores him and humiliates Maddocks, and his old rival retaliates wrecking his apartment and beating him, and Chas shoots him and runs away, Flowers refuses to give him protection and now wants him eliminated. Chas initially decides to hide in countryside, but he instead stays in London, he assumes the new name Johnny Dean and he finds the Notting Hill house of reclusive and eccentric former rock musician Turner (Mick Jagger), and moving in he gets close to female inhabitant Pherber (Anita Pallenberg), she and Lucy (Michele Breton) enjoy a non-possessive bisexual sexual relationship. Turner and Chas start off not liking each other much, but slowly influence each other in certain things, and Chas even shows homophobic tendencies, so Turner and Pherber want to understand his conflict and help him in some way, so they give him hallucinogenic drugs and he opens up, explaining a caring relationship, and outgrowing psychological boundaries while functioning as a stereotypical masculine man in a gangster world. The film ends with the gangsters eventually catching up to where Chas has been hiding, Chas for some reasons shoots and kills Turner, while Pherber is hiding in the cupboard, he seems to be welcomed back by his boss Flowers as told by another thug Rosebloom/Rosie (Stanley Meadows), of course this is just a ploy to have him killed, and we see an unknown face through the window of the car that drives away, it is unclear if it is Chas or Turner. Also starring Ann Sidney as Dana, John Bindon as Moody and Allan Cuthbertson as The Lawyer. Fox plays his role as the masochistic gangster going to into hiding well, but to me Jagger stole the show as the odd landlord who still wants to be making small tunes but has perhaps lost his flair, the story is fragmented and may be confusing most of the time, but with the distinctive style, high amount of controversial violence and interesting hallucinogenic material and imagery it is a worthwhile drama. It was nominated the BAFTA for Best Film Editing. Very good!

Faded glitter…subtext without substance

The oddly symbiotic relationship between a British hood hiding out from his cronies and a young, retired pop singer living with his female playthings in a decadent mansion. Cinematographer extraordinaire Nicolas Roeg also served as director (with assist from screenwriter Donald Cammell, who also co-produced); Roeg is mad about digging below the surface to see how things tick, but what’s on the surface should be important to him as well and it isn’t. The conversations between the two protagonists are amplified with visual minutiae, but is this to keep our attention or to distract it? There’s a menacing sexual undercurrent bubbling under the film, but nothing too dangerous comes of this (we see flashes of nudity but no actual fornication). Mick Jagger’s Turner is described as ‘weird’ and ‘kinky’, yet–aside from his androgynous garb and penchant for pouting in close-up like an old-time movie star–we don’t sense this (the follies of his sexual appetite are somewhat muted). James Fox’s gangster offers a bit more punch than Jagger’s celebrity, however both perform under their own intricately stylized bell jar. We hear and see action through the glass but are intrinsically cut off from it. ** from ****

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