Performance (film)

Plot

Chas (James Fox) is a member of an East London gang led by Harry Flowers (Johnny Shannon); his specialty is intimidation through violence as he collects pay-offs for Flowers. He is very good at his job, and has a reputation for liking it. His sexual liaisons are casual and rough. When Flowers decides to take over a betting shop, owned by Joey Maddocks (Anthony Valentine), he forbids Chas to get involved, as he feels Chas' complicated personal history with Maddocks may lead to trouble. Chas is angry about this and later humiliates Maddocks, who retaliates by wrecking Chas' apartment and attacking Chas. Chas shoots him, packs a suitcase and runs from the scene.

When Flowers makes it clear that he has no intention of offering protection to Chas but instead wants him eliminated, Chas decides to head for the countryside to hide but instead winds up hiding out in London, requesting that Tony (a trusted friend he refers to as 'Uncle') helps him get out of the country. He assumes a new name, Johnny Dean, and appears at the house of Turner (Mick Jagger), makes a clumsy attempt to ingratiate himself with Pherber (Anita Pallenberg), one of the female inhabitants, and moves in. Turner is a reclusive, eccentric former rock star who has "lost his demon", and who lives there with his female friends Pherber and Lucy (Michèle Breton), with whom he enjoys a non-possessive and bisexual ménage à trois, and their child maid Lorraine (Laraine Wickens).

At first, Chas is contemptuous of Turner, and Turner attempts to return the rent paid in advance, but they start influencing each other. Chas also enjoys intimate moments with Pherber, during which he shows his bisexual tendencies. Pherber and Turner understand his conflict and want to understand what makes him function so well within his world. To speed up the process, Pherber tricks him by feeding him a mushroom (Amanita muscaria), and Chas then accuses her and Turner of poisoning him. After that evening, Chas opens up, and he begins a caring relationship with Lucy.

Flowers and his henchmen track Chas to Turner's flat. They are appalled by the loose clothing and feminine wig that Chas now wears, and allow him to go and collect his things upstairs. Chas discusses his options with Turner and Pherber, then shoots Turner in the head. Pherber hides in a closet. As he is led to his death, Chas still wears his feminine clothes and wig, but his face is identical to Turner's.

Cast

Development

Performance was initially conceived by Donald Cammell as "The Performers" and was to be a light hearted swinging '60s 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. James Fox, previously cast in rather upper crust roles, eventually took the place of Brando and spent several months in South London among the criminal underworld researching his role.

As the project evolved the story became significantly darker. Cammell was influenced by the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (a portrait of Borges on a book cover can be seen at a crucial moment in the film), as he redrafted the script to create an intense, intellectual film dealing with an identity crisis. Artaud's theories on the links between performing and madness also influenced Cammell. Cammell and co-director Nicolas Roeg (mainly responsible for the 'look' of the film) 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.

It was intended that the Rolling Stones would write the soundtrack but due to the complicated nature of the various relationships on and off-screen, this never happened. It was widely rumoured that Mick Jagger and Anita Pallenberg – then in a relationship with Keith Richards – played out sexual scenes in the film 'for real' (out-takes of these scenes apparently won a prize at an Amsterdam adult film festival). When Richards heard the rumours, he apparently took to sitting in his car outside the house where the film was being shot. Needless to say, this didn't do much for the Jagger–Richards musical chemistry and the soundtrack came together from a number of sources.

Post-production and release

The film has gained notoriety due to the difficulties it faced in getting on screen. The film's content was a surprise to the studio. It has been reported that during a test screening, one Warner executive's wife vomited in shock. Nic Roeg notes in Richard Lester's TV series Hollywood UK: British Cinema of the Sixties (originally broadcast on 3 October 1993 and repeated on BBC Four in 2005 and 2006) that a Warner exec said of the scene depicting Jagger in a bath with Pallenberg and Breton, "Even the bath water was dirty." 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, dubbing of Cockney accents and changes in Warner's administration. Different edits were shown around the world. Home video versions of the 1990s used the US edit. A commemorative event was held at London's ICA on 18 October 1997, incorporating a talk by film theorists (including, in the audience, Colin MacCabe, who went on to write a guide to the film), a screening of the uncut UK edition and finally a question and answer session. Those in attendance included James Fox (and family), Pallenberg, set designer Christopher Gibbs and Cammell's brother, who introduced part of a video interview with Donald Cammell, shot just before his death. Mick Jagger was originally to appear but was committed to the Rolling Stones' Bridges to Babylon Tour.

The Region 1 DVD was released on 13 February 2007 and elsewhere soon after. Although the film has undergone significant restoration, one famous line of dialogue – Jagger's "Here's to old England!" heard during the Memo from Turner sequence – has been removed. This is because at this crucial stage of the film (the music sequence) one of the stereo channels has been used on both channels. Other music and sound effects are also missing from this scene on the DVD release (some drums, the throbbing sound as Turner plugs a lead into his music generator and the shrieking sound at the climax of his fluorescent light tube dance). These sounds, the dialogue and the music are all audible on other releases of the film. The voices of Harry Flowers and the young maid in Turner's mansion, have been restored to the voices of the original actors. When the film was first released in the United States and also on the VHS releases, their voices were dubbed because the studio had feared that Americans would find their Cockney accents difficult to understand.

Critical reputation

On its release the film received mixed reviews. 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." In the late 1970s and 1980s, Performance gradually acquired a cult following on the late night and repertory cinema circuits. By the 1990s, the film had undergone a critical reappraisal. In 1995 Performance appeared at number 30 in a Time Out magazine "all-time greats" poll of critics and directors. After Cammell's death in 1996, the film's reputation grew still further. It is often cited as a classic of British cinema.

In the September–October 2009 issue of Film Comment, Mick Jagger's Turner was voted the best performance by a musician in a film.

In his 15-hour documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey, Mark Cousins says: "Performance was not only the greatest seventies film about identity, if any movie in the whole Story of Film should be compulsory viewing for film makers, maybe this is it."

It holds a 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 32 reviews.

Influence

Several aspects of the film were novel and it foreshadowed MTV type music videos (particularly the 'Memo from Turner' sequence in which Jagger sings) and many popular films of the 1990s and 2000s.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack album was released by Warner Bros. Records on 19 September 1970. The album features Mick Jagger, Ry Cooder, Randy Newman, The Last Poets, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Merry Clayton.

Paperback novelization

A novelization of Donald Cammel's screenplay was published in 1970 under the by-line William Hughes (the publishing identity of Hugh Williams, a British author who seems never to have written under his own name, nor to have written anything but a diverse catalog of screenplay novelizations). It was released by Tandem Books in the UK and Award Books in the US.