Performance
Directed by Donald Cammel and Nicholas Roeg
Written by Donald Cammel
UK/1970
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
Turner: I’ll tell you this: the only performance that makes it, that really makes it, that makes it all the way, is the one that achieves madness. Right? Am I right? You with me?
Take heaping helpings of bloody violence, couple these with psychedelic weirdness and you get a movie I just don’t like.
Psychopath Chas (James Fox) enjoys his work as hit man/enforcer for the mob. He always thinks up the most spectacular and terrifying ways of collecting debts. One day he slips up and kills a couple of guys who were sent my the management to kill him. He is now on the run for his life.
His travels cause him to more or less force his way into the flat of artist Turner (Mick Jagger) and his two girlfriends. This is where the sex, drugs and rock and roll come in. After a large dose of psychodelic mushrooms Chas is in Turner’s hands. Their personalities and appearances finally merge. I am not clear why,
After the gratuitous gore of the first part of the movie, I more or less didn’t care what happened in the second part. As far as I am concerned it was completely missable.
I will say James Fox gave it his all in a performance well outside his usual range.
Yeah, this was a strange movie. I did not catch the point either. Maybe I did not eat enough mushrooms.
There are so many better movies that could have subbed for this one. Maybe it’s there because of Roeg? But they only had to wait a year for Walkabout.
For no other reason than the fact that I like the song, I offer you E=MC2 by Big Audio Dynamite. The song is about Roeg’s films, and there is a verse about Performance. Other films included in the lyrics are Walkabout, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Insignificance, and Don’t Look Now.
“Took a trip in Powis Square, pop star dyed his hair
No fans to scream and shout when mobsters came to flush him out
Gangland slaying underground; new identity must be found
On the left bank for a while, insanity Bohemian style”
Thank you! That made my day!