Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell’s Performance (1970) quickly became a cause célèbre when it was released and fifty-five years later retains its reputation as a classic piece of British cinema. I have never been able to understand the appeal of this movie, and believe me, I have tried more than once over the years and decided to give it one more attempt with the recently released Criterion presentation, which is the only time I have ever been able to watch this film from beginning to end.
I am unafraid to say that I still find Performance to be an extremely unpleasant watch and, dare I say it, boring in the extreme. It starts as a not terribly involving thick ear gangster thriller in the Get Carter vein with several actors of the time associated with such material strutting their stuff in an admittedly impressive representation of the London Mobland scene of the early ’70s era. Our main protagonist is Chaz (James Fox), who incurs the wrath of rivals in his game and has to go into hiding for a while. Unfortunately, he finds himself taking shelter in the sleazy abode of the androgynous Turne,r played to the hilt by Mick Jagger, who then, as now, was never a gift to the world of acting.
From this point on the film changes pace as the hard as nails Chaz descends into the sort of pretentious sub Jean Luc Godard world of decadence which permeated cinema at the time; in short Chaz becomes Turner and Turner becomes Chaz in a series of tedious drug-enhanced revels and sexual dalliances with Turner and his two hippy dippy trippy female flatmates which become increasingly yawn inducing until the film reaches its welcome end.
Frankly, I couldn’t care less about the fates of any character involved in this mess, and I believe it to be Roeg’s worst movie (and I’ve seen Bad Timing). Thankfully, the director followed this drivel with the wonderful Walkabout and Don’t Look Now. Co-director Donald Cammell also redeemed himself with the intriguing sci-fi mini classic Demon Seed in 1977.
Performance is impressively presented here in both 4K and Blu-ray, and for those who wish to delve further, there is a wealth of accompanying featurettes and an illustrated booklet that should tell you all you need to know about this staggeringly overrated movie.
PERFORMANCE is now available on 4K and Blu-ray from Criterion.
