Performance
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Movie Reviews of Performance
Movie Review: "Nothing is true, everything is permitted"
Summary: 5 Stars
What a watchng experience! "Performance" is overwhelming in the way of how much it has to offer to its audience. Gangster melodrama, the ultimate chronicle of Swinging 60s London, the essential Rock movie merges with the surreal bizarre nightmarish journey of switching and adopting personalities not unlike in Bergman's "Persona" to which Donald Cammel's - Nicolas Roeg's film openly refers more than once. A hunted sadistic hit man Chas (James Fox) who enjoys his job and has been called a "performer" switches identity with a rock star Turner (Mick Jagger in his screen debut) who used to be big but then lost his "inner demon". Turner believes that "The only performance that makes it, that makes it all the way, is the one that achieves madness". While the gangster's and the rock star's personalities merge, so do their worlds. Turner seems to be able to re-sparkle the creative madness. As for Chase...well, at least he was introduced to the magic mushrooms by Anita Pallenberg.
The film is amazing. There is so much to be fascinated with. Mick Jagger in his first film is a revelation. Watching him, I thought that it was for reason that Stanley Kubrick considered him for Alex aka A Clock Work Orange, and Werner Herzog began filming "Fitzcarraldo" with Jagger as an important supporting character. Both projects went in different directions without Jagger but both distinguished directors apparently saw Jagger's potential and his undeniable charisma and screen presence. Jagger also composed the soundtrack for the movie AND he left "Memo from Turner" in the performance that is not only the highest point of the movie but could've been among his very finest. James Fox is equally brilliant as Chase. Before playing the character, Fox spent time with real East London gangsters to help prepare for the role in which Fox became so emotionally involved that he did not make another movie for ten years. Complex, sophisticated, sexy, sensual, disturbing, quintessentially the 60s yet way ahead of its time love it or hate it "Performance" is and always will be a Cinematic Event.
Movie Review: Pristine Transfer
Summary: 5 Stars
The print used for the DVD transfer is bright and clear without a trace of dirt or scratches*, the best this film has looked in years or decades. Although the slight graininess of the original 16 mm print is visible in this digital restoration, as is the slight hiss from the 37-year-old soundtrack, neither detracts from enjoyment of this classic tale of debauchery and image shifting in swinging London. Like "Blow Up" and "Morgan!" it documents a time of endless experimentation in life and the arts, and it's fun just to revisit these old haunts in my dotage.
The extras on the disc are pretty neat too: an original trailer from Warner Bros. (who had absolutely NO IDEA how to market this film), a period hagiography of Jagger full of misinformation about him, the film and the "Moooog synthesizer" [sic], and a 24-minute featurette of recent interviews. Included are Pallenberg (who DOES show some "dirt and scratches"...), professor/producer/movie critic Colin MacCabe, 'Performance' producer Sanford Lieberson, associate producer David Cammell (brother of the late co-director Donald Cammell), editors Antony Gibbs and Frank Mazzola, cameraman Mike Molloy, Jack Nitzsche's son and Fred Weintraub from Warner Bros. Their reminiscences and analyses are illuminating.
In all it's been an arduous, unaccountably long wait but the result is pretty wonderful. "You're going to look funny when you're 50..."
* - Except for the scene under the covers, which might be by design?
Movie Review: So Relieved to have a DVD
Summary: 5 Stars
I am thrilled to have a DVD version of this creative piece of genius with the commentaries included, particularly those by the late Donald Cammell and his brother. It's shocking to see Anita Pallenberg remembering that Keith Richards sat outside of the Powis Square house nervously waiting for Mick and Anita's love scenes to be finished. In 1970 I was part of the Billie B Shears Film Group which brought PERFORMANCE to Milwaukee to be shown at a church hall resulting in my viewing it 35 or so times. Through some cosmic joke this then high school teacher from the midwest began to personally connect with individuals involved in the film: Sandy Lieberson walking into my locked hotel room in Toronto in 1972; on a whim calling the Monte Martre and speaking with Donald Cammell who then sent me a copy of an early version of the screen play--very different ending; reading all of Jorge Luis Borges' works and then hanging with him on 2 of his visits to the US--one in which he regained his eyesight and commented that it was so he could see my face.... I use to say "Everything relates to PERFORMANCE" and everything still does...The DVD is more than worth waiting for.Movie Review: HOW DID WE MAKE IT THIS LONG????
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm here to tell you that the wait is over. The day has finally arrived that "Performance" has now been released on an official Warner Bros. DVD and you can rid your shelf of the bootleg you bought on Ebay. Yes, Ebay. Home to many bootleg sellers whether they like it or not. While not the Criterion Edition we all hoped for, this release will do just fine. The extras include the great trailer that I must have seen a million times on the "Z" Channel where "Performance" was shown in 1978. There is a new documentary including interviews with individuals technically involved with the film AND THEN THERE'S ANITA. Pallenberg, that is. We may never see a "definitive" version but this documentary does shed some light on the rumors of multiple editors and with Mr. Cammell ending his own life in 1996 this DVD will have to do. The print used for this release is gorgeous and superior to the version shown on IFC. The actor playing Harry Flowers has his original voice in the film and NOT DUBBED like in the American version. I won't spoil anything else. BUY IT.Movie Review: I WAS THEN, BUT I WISH I WAS THERE TOO . . .
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie brings together very unlike lifestyles, concepts, graphic styles and - well, everything to one degree or another. Don Cammel was a brilliant, bizarre genius who burned out early, probably because his lifestyle was as jolting as PERFORMANCE.(Look for his bio/documentary and be amazed that his life hasn't been made into a movie.)
I've seen it so many times in so many states; it stays remarkable and provoking and superb every time. Actually, in some ways it gets better with multiple viewings.
And then there's Jagger. For me, this movie matches his incredible stage presence. I've seen him perform live and listened to his music often, and
seen his other movies. Always edgy, always intellectual as well as primal, Jagger in this movie does it all in so many dimensions and degrees.
Way ahead of its time, and in some ways ahead of ours, it's a movie that will make you yearn to have been there. In that mansion and in the 60's.