On August 3, 1970, about a year and a half after the fact, Performance, which promised the big screen debut of Mick Jagger, had its official premiere. Completed in 1968, the movie was shelved by a nervous studio spooked by its general decadence and envelope-pushing sex, drugs, and sadistic, fetishized violence—not to mention a disastrous Santa Monica test screening which prompted several audience members to walk out in disgust, and (legend holds), one spouse of a studio executive to lose her lunch. Warner Bros. pulled the film back, supervised a new edit, let the movie languish (ceding to Ned Kelly the honor of featuring Jagger’s first movie role), and finally allowed it a quiet release.
Fittingly for a film in which doppelgangers are a central motif, the film had two directors, and it was the first effort for each. Donald Cammell, who wrote the screenplay, brought the project to renowned cinematographer Nicholas Roeg. Coming off an impressive run – Fahrenheit 451 (Truffaut 1966), Far From the Madding Crowd (Schlesinger 1967), Petulia (Lester 1968) – Roeg, who also served as director of photography for Performance, would go on to enjoy a career as an accomplished director, helming, within the next decade, Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and Bad Timing. Cammell, a larger than life character, would subsequently follow a winding path, one that would meet with much frustration and ultimately tragedy.
Performance starts out as a conventional gangster tale—if shot in a super-mod style that situates the movie in the swinging sixties, featuring, as Andrew Sarris put it, “more trick shots and snap transitions than you can shake a cape at.” Initially the story of Chas (James Fox), the ruthless enforcer of a local protection racket who relishes his work, Performance quickly hints at its more ambitious themes regarding the uncertain stability of identity and sexuality. (Interestingly, Fox had mined this general territory previously, opposite Dirk Bogarde in Joseph Losey’s celebrated The Servant.) The plot then turns after a disastrous encounter with one “client” who Chas knew perhaps too well. The fate of this first doppelganger is in retrospect foreshadowing (as is the whipping visited by one upon the other that surely gestures at the furtive homoeroticism purportedly common in British boarding schools).
In any event, yada, yada, yada, Chas is on the run, and ultimately finds refuge in the basement rooms rented out by the enigmatic, reclusive Turner (Jagger). Turner, a onetime rock star who has withdrawn to his labyrinthine estate, spends most of his waking hours consuming drugs and enjoying his ménage a trios, which is rounded out by Pherber (Anita Pallenberg) and the scandalously young Lucy (Michèle Breton). Pallenberg, who had previously appeared in Barbarella and Dillinger is Dead, carries a pivotal role capably; the boyish Breton mirrors the androgynous Jagger’s physique to the extent that at times it is hard to tell them apart, even when she is unclothed. All of which becomes more complicated still as Chas, drawn into the mix, turns the kaleidoscope of enmeshed identities and sexual fluidity.
Performance is not what you’d call linear, but it is visually arresting, distinguished by Jagger’s irresistible charisma (he has a forceful screen presence, as seen 30 years later in The Man from Elysian Fields), and showcases some estimable music. We were familiar with Jagger’s rollicking “Memo from Turner”—but in revisiting the film, the score is a revelation. Composed by Jack Nitzsche and featuring the hypotonic slide guitar of Ry Cooder, the talent on hand included Randy Newman, Lowell George and Gram Parsons.
These attributes did not much move the critics at the time—most reviews were mixed and wary, though there were outliers. Richard Schickel, in Life magazine, denounced Performance as “The most disgusting, the most completely worthless film I have seen since I began reviewing.” Paul Schrader, in contrast, was so impressed by the Westwood premiere that he raced back to the theater the following afternoon for a second screening, and soon put it on the cover of Cinema, the film magazine he was editing at the time; in 2007 he spoke of returning to the movie at least once a year. History has sided with Schrader over Schickel (generally a good rule of thumb) and the movie’s reputation has grown considerably—but we remain closer to Ebert’s original, more cautious take.
Underappreciated then, over-hyped now, Performance is not a great movie. But it has some irresistible back-stories (Keith Richards was said to be quite unhappy with the devotion to extended rehearsal and committed method-acting associated with the sex scenes involving his long time paramour Pallenberg and bandmate Mick)—and despite its limitations is essential viewing for devotees of the seventies film.
Anita, Michèle and Mick (Pherber, Lucy and Turner)
Fox on the Run (James Fox as Chas)
Who’s that guy with Mick?
Chas, Lucy and Turner
Identity Politics
Anita Pallenberg and Mick Jagger (Don’t tell Keith)