Performance

Donald Cammell and Nicholas Roeg's 1970 classic Performance is the kind of film which divides the critical opinion to the extremes. Richard Schickel in Time called it "the most disgusting, the most completely worthless film I have seen since I began reviewing" and the cranky critic John Simon thought it was "indescribably sleazy, self-indulgent and meretricious." At the same time estimable British film critic Colin MacCabe considers it "the greatest British film ever made." (All quotes from this review of Colin MacCabe's book on the film from the BFI classics series.) I personally thought it was awful but in a totally sui-generis way. In fact it is the kind of awful film we can't have enough of, specially in these times when we get only generic kind of awful films. Even the so-called artistic films feel generic and predictable.

In the first half of the film we follow the daily routine of an ultra-violent young gangster and a thug Chas (James Fox in an extremely impressive and solid role) as he goes on his regular work of beating and shooting people. After he disobeys one of the orders he is himself very brutally roughed up and when he kills off one of his assailants he is forced to flee from both the police and the boss. He finds shelter in the apartment of a has-been rock star played by Mick Jagger (who like the film itself defines his own category of awfulness) and his two female concubines. It is very hard to summarize what happens in the second half of the film, although it is advisable that one should take some psychedelic drugs or at least be a little high to really appreciate all the mind-bending stuff that goes on.

I won't hazard a guess as to what really happens and what it all means actually but at a general level it is pretty obvious. As the title clearly indicates the film is about the idea of human identity as a performance. Who one is, is really all about impersonation and role playing and this includes one's gendered identity too. This was also one of the main elements of counterculture ethos. The idea that one has to shed one's socially imposed identity and search for a new self, taking help from sex and drugs on the way. Further, the film seems to point out a line of continuity between the public persona of a gangster and a rock star, and by analogy between creativity and violence. "The only performance that makes it, that really makes it, that makes it all the way, is the one that achieves madness" as one of the key lines of the film has it.

The film is full of references to other art-forms. Borges seems to the pre-eminent deity of the film. His portrait appears at a key moment in the film as a bullet goes through it. Cammell also mentioned that idea of the film came from reading Vladimir Nabokov's Despair. In any case, the idea of psychological double, identity crisis and identity switching is not so uncommon in films or literature. The most famous of all might be Bergman's Persona. I also love Robert Altman's 3 Women which is similarly mind-bending exercise in identity switching.

What gives Performace its special status is the accuracy and intimacy with which it captures the look and feel of the "swinging London." These people wake up to a good casual threesome sex. Soon after the girl injects some drug into her bottom as nonchalantly as if she were taking morning tea. In one scene all three are in the bath tub and Jagger asks the two girls to smell his hair and see if it needs washing! I don't know, I had my anthropological eye open that's what kept me going in a serious way.

It was also the first film in which Roeg used his trademark cut-up technique of extreme non-linear editing. It is extremely effective here, much more than it is in his later films (I have seen only Don't Look Now and Bad Timing). I sometimes wonder why this hasn't become so common, specially since it is such a powerful and effective way to represent subjectivity, stream of consciousness and a process of thought in cinema. When in fact films do use it they make it look more a like a music video or an advertising commercial. Mainstream narrative cinema still unfortunately seems to be stuck in the linear cause and effect sort of editing.

As expected the film feature a truly avant-garde musical score composed by fantastically named Jack Nitzsche. Mick Jagger also sings a song called "Memo from Turner". It is a pretty strange song, and it gets even stranger in the film. The set-design, specially in the second half is also excellent. The background is full of references to surrealistic paintings and other art works, most of which will require many repeat viewings to actually pin down.

In short, Performance is a thoroughly unique (and depending on context questionable) experience. Definitely deserves a wider renown, much beyond its cult reputation. Senses of Cinema has an article on Donald Cammell which also has some insightful remarks about the film. Cammell's career never really took off and he tragically took his own life in 1996 at the age of 62. Nicholas Roeg went on to make a bunch of classics, which though mostly reviled and lambasted by establishment critics have managed to garner cult reputation. Jim Hoberman also has some interesting things to say about the film.