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76 of 83 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Influential, important breakthrough in filmmaking, March 16, 2005
Every time I hear Quentin Tarrantino claim to have invented non-linear story-telling, I want to scream. Nicolas Roeg (who photographed and co-directed) went on to make many, many non-linear films, starting with this one in 1969, as did many other directors from the 70's up to now (Steven Soderbergh, Terrence Mallick, to name just two), so please, Quentin, shut up. "Performance" was perhaps the most influential film in my own development as a director; film is a sculptural medium, and never illustrated more so than in this brilliant piece film which moves through time and space so gracefully, or jarringly, as required, while exploring identity, performance (of all sorts), spirituality, freedom from the prevailing standards of society--I could go on for pages, but will spare you. It can be found on video tape, mostly in "used" bins, and as it was shot in regular 35mm, you don't miss much of the frame, as it's close to your TV's format anyway.
Shot mostly hand-held, with Roeg using dissolves, double-exposures, color alteration, freeze-frames, and other Optical Printing techniques, as well as stunning sound design, the mind is assaulted by an abundance of images that you just have to sit back and absorb and allow them to tie themselves together later, when you have time to think about it. In order to tie characters and relationships together, one will start a sentence while another, in an entirely different place and situation, will finish it. This is used to both connective and ironic effect. "Performance" also contains the first "Rock Video" and a Rap Song (in 1969) by a group of drumming poets. The music, by a young Jack Nietshze and his wife, Buffy Sainte-Marie, features Ry Cooder, the extraordinary vocals of Merry Clayton and her choir, and is both a driving force in the film and an eerie reflection of the psychological situations we're in. And that's really true: that we're in. You get as close to being in this film as any you're likely to see. It's more experienced than viewed.
Donald Cammel was fascinated by Borges, a philosopher popular in the 60's, was a friend of Jagger's and Marriane Faithful's, as well as Anita Pallenberg, who plays Jagger's lover in the film, but who was in real life, Keith Richard's partner. In turn, the aristocratic James Fox was fascinated by the Bohemian wildness of Mick and Marianne, and in a stroke of genius, Cammel switched their real-life situations, making Jagger the artist-in-exile aristocrat, and Fox the on-the-lam gangster. Drugs really were used, the sex was real; in actual life relationships were smashed, with Fox taking a 10-year hiatus from film, life, and pretty much everything in order to explore his blown mind. This film, brilliant and important in film history, raises the perennial question all artists face: which is more important, real lives, or art? I found it interesting that the dissimilar-in every-other-way recent film, "Girl with Pearl Earring" actually brings up the same issue, though more subtly and only within the context of the film itself.
The plot is almost beside the point as "Performance" is about so many, many things having nothing to do with "plot", but quickly, it's structured in two halves. Chas (James Fox), a soldier for a small organized crime group in London, has been attacked and taken his revenge on his attacker. Now he needs to run, as all turn on him, so he hides on the Left bank of the river, using the name "Johnny," in Notting Hill (looking nothing like the recent film of its name), in the home of a reclusive ex-Pop star, Turner (Jagger) and his German lover, Pherber (Anita Pallenberg) and a French waif, Lucy (Michelle Breton in her only screen role). In the second "half," the externally frenetic pace of the first part is replaced by the externally peaceful but internally chaotic challenging of all of Chas' perceptions through hallucinagetics, mind-games--the intentional dismantling of Chas' personality so that Turner can get the stimulation he needs in order to end his creatively "stuck" situation. The process was so thorough that poor James was unable to function for a decade. It was through this role, though, that Mick Jagger, a very banal, middle-class sort of guy (who never did drugs on any serious level) emerged with a persona to go on through his career with. (Check out Marrianne Faithful's memoirs for more...) The film forces its characters, and if we want it to, us, to ask, "Who am I?" on a level that most never even approach. How much of "me" is performance, and how much my true self? And, "Can I really merge my identity completely with another's?" The "who am I, truly?" is the exploration of the film, and the exploration that those of us who stand by its "unusual" structure and sensory over-load, are generally involved in. It is intense, but if you want it to affect you, just let it, and think more and more deeply as you watch it again and again. Personally, I don't know anyone who has seen it less than a dozen times.
Cammel didn't work much after this, as Roeg did. He (Roeg) went on to make some of the most important films of our time: "Walkabout," "Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession," "Insignificance," "The Man who Fell to Earth," "Castaway" (not "THE Castaway" with Tom Hanks, but "Castaway," based on Lucy Irvine's book about her glorious but nearly fatal year on a desert island with a man who'd advertised for a companion in the experiment). Nicolas also proved that one can "fail" ("Eureka," "Track 29") without being less than brilliant at the same time. His "failures" are more interesting than most directors' "successes," and new filmmakers can learn more from them than from a thousand Speilbergs.
I do wish they'd release this film on DVD, as my tape is so worn from years of re-viewing and showing everyone. It sometimes shows up at Rep Houses, should you be fortunate enough to have one in your city (ours is gone), where you can see it on the big screen, as intended.
And a final note: the last shot is NOT your imagination, and it sums up the entire film. Don't over-think it, just accept it, and enjoy one of the greatest cinematic rides of all time.
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Performance Cinema Re-release seen in Notting Hill London, May 14, 2004
Donald Cammell"If Performance does not upset audiences," he explained, "then it is nothing." My friend Neil and I have been waiting for some time to see this film at the cinema. It hasn't been widely available on video for some time and has not yet been released on DVD.
So we were overjoyed to see it was being shown at the Electric Cinema a wonderful recently revamped cinema in Notting Hill Gate, not a hundred yards from Powis Square, one of the main locations in the film. Performance was financed by Warner Brothers in the late 60's, though it was not released for two years after its completion due to WB demanding recuts and probably hoping the whole sordid little film would be forgotten about.
Thankfully it wasn't, and has over the years become something important and special to many people.
Performance starts as a seemingly straightforward East end gangster film, typical of the period. However when Chas, played to perfection by James Fox, takes refuge in the bohemian lair that is Turners (Jagger) Powis Square townhouse, the pace and the feel of the film change dramatically.
Turner is a retired rock icon who is wallowing in in a filthy corner of his psyche while he decides whether to try and recapture his mojo or continue his hermit like existence. However the hermit tag only applies to Turners lack of contact with fresh air, not many hermits have two pretty free spirits in the form of Pherber (Anita Pallenberg ) and Lucy (Michele Breton) roaming naked around their self imposed prisons.
Pallenberg is the wild blonde who was probably didn't find it too hard to get into character, at the time of filming she was actually Keith Richards's girlfriend, and tales of a jealous Richards watching over the set are abound.
For me the most interesting character and also seemingly someone who probably wasn't acting is Breton. A very pretty boyish French Girl who was said to be a runaway. I have read that she died shortly after the film which seems like a sad but not surprising end for such a free spirited child of the sixties. I would love to have been able to tell you more about Breton, but a search on the internet will turn up very little. She would seem to me like a leaf that breezed into swinging London and was swept away like so many others.
Jagger is convincing as Turner and this is undoubtedly his best, if not his only good, film.
As Turner takes over control of the film from Chas we are treated to a feast of decadence and weirdness that never strays too far from reality for its own good. The film is tied down to a solid base by the continuing gangster film thread humming silently in the background.
Since 1970 many an apocryphal tale has surfaced surrounding the making of Performance, ranging from nervous breakdowns to suicide and drug overdoses. I am always skeptical about such tales, but, unfortunately most of these tales would actually seem to be true. Certainly writer and co director Donald Cammel shot himself and James Fox was disturbed enough not to make another film for many years afterwards. As I waited for my friends to come out of the Electric Cinema, I overheard many a reaction to the film from other patrons. On the whole it would seem that people seemed disappointed or confused or even annoyed. Thanks god for that. Thank god it has not been tamed by age and become a safe little piece of 60's nostalgia.
Performance does upset audiences. It IS something.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
stars don't really work for this movie, April 10, 2007
This is a classic; the movie goes beyond the "stars" in more ways than I can list. It has a late 60's art film style driven by Nicholas Roeg ; it could be a legtimate work of art but to me it's more important as a major cultural statement. Mick Jagger playing what -let's be honest- most of of thought he might become. This was before the Rolling Stones became "the world's greatest rock 'n roll band" . Anita Pallenberg was Brian Jones' girlfriend or had she just become Keith's ?
Anyway there is some homage to the Krays: England's psychopathic, gangsters .. maybe some real insight in to their peculiar world. A touch of the old ultra-violence, and most of all sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll.
Who knows what it did to James Fox's career. Mick wouldn't get out of the makeup for more than a decade after this film.
Memo from Turner- is the best Rolling Stone's song Mick never did with the stones, The Last Poets perform the world's first rap song. Ry Cooder's guitar work was never hotter. Randy Newman, Buffy St Marie, Jack Nietchze - who was the engineer on on early Stones records that were done in the States puts together a maybe the greatest Rock movie sound track including Tommy
Didn't I see you down in San Antone in 1965? well didn't I ? A little William Burroughs stirs up the pot.
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