Performance (1970)
Chas, a violent and psychotic East London gangster needs a place to lie low after a hit that should never have been carried out. He finds the perfect cover in the form of guest house run by the mysterious Mr. Turner, a one-time rock superstar, who is looking for the right spark to rekindle his faded talent. (imdb)
Cast and Information
Directed By: Nicolas Roeg, Donald Cammell
Written By: Donald Cammell
Starring: James Fox, Mick Jagger, Kenneth Colley, Allan Cuthbertson, Anita Pallenberg, Anthony Valentine, Johnny Shannon, John Bindon, Stanley Meadows, Anthony Morton, Michèle Breton, Ann Sidney
Country: UK
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Performance belongs to 59 collections
1. 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (collaborative: moderated by kozan26 - 234 stars)
2. boobs (collaborative: moderated by Pickpocket - 51 stars)
3. Certified weird (collaborative: moderated by Dreamer - 47 stars)
4. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2008 revision) (collaborative: moderated by Scottathon - 39 stars)
5. Jonathan Rosenbaum's Top 1000 Movies (collaborative: moderated by PeaceAnarchy - 38 stars)
6. Empire's 500 Greatest Movies Of All Time (public: Ross - 36 stars)
7. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2010 revision) (collaborative: moderated by MMAlpha - 32 stars)
8. The Guardian's 1000 films to see before you die (collaborative: moderated by PeaceAnarchy - 30 stars)
9. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2014 revision) (collaborative: moderated by Jehan - 27 stars)
10. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2012 revision) (collaborative: moderated by PeaceAnarchy - 25 stars)
11. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2017 revision) (collaborative: moderated by iconogassed - 22 stars)
12. The Story of Film: An Odyssey (collaborative: moderated by rant1229 - 20 stars)
13. Edgar Wright 1000 Favorite Movies (Aug 2016) (collaborative: moderated by Aron Ericson - 17 stars)
14. Drugs (collaborative: moderated by iconogassed - 16 stars)
15. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2013 revision) (collaborative: moderated by rant1229 - 16 stars)
16. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2011 revision) (collaborative: moderated by PeaceAnarchy - 14 stars)
17. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2020 revision) (public: djross - 14 stars)
18. Sight and Sound 2012 (collaborative: moderated by DavidB - 13 stars)
19. Harvard University's Suggested Film Viewing List: Narrative Films (collaborative: moderated by dardan - 12 stars)
20. Sight and Sound 2002 (collaborative: moderated by PeaceAnarchy - 9 stars)
21. The Bfi 100 (collaborative: moderated by nexus - 8 stars)
22. BFI Film Classics (collaborative: moderated by MMAlpha - 7 stars)
23. David Thomson's 1000 Films (collaborative: moderated by MMAlpha - 7 stars)
24. London (collaborative: moderated by djross - 5 stars)
25. Filmsite.org - Sex in the Movies, An Illustrated History (collaborative: moderated by afx237vi - 5 stars)
26. 500 essential cult films (not seen) (public: cayh - 5 stars)
27. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2007 revision) (collaborative: moderated by Scottathon - 4 stars)
28. Steamy Gay Movies & TV (collaborative: moderated by moviepatrick - 4 stars)
29. edkrak films to see (public: edkrak - 4 stars)
30. Canon Fodder by Paul Schrader ~d~ (public: 5Z5qjRCfM2 - 4 stars)
31. Directed collaboratively (collaborative: moderated by djross - 3 stars)
32. TimeOut Magazine's 100 best British films (collaborative: moderated by PeaceAnarchy - 3 stars)
33. Movies with acting musicians (collaborative: moderated by comepelicula - 3 stars)
34. Cult Movies (Danny Peary) (collaborative: moderated by iconogassed - 3 stars)
35. Mods & Rockers Movies (collaborative: moderated by Hailey - 2 stars)
36. List: Empire's 100 Best British Films (collaborative: moderated by KasperL - 2 stars)
37. Cinematography by director (collaborative: moderated by iconogassed - 2 stars)
38. Unravelling the Narrative (public: lillakniven - 2 stars)
39. Village Voice Critics Poll: 100 Best Films of the 20th Century (collaborative: moderated by MMAlpha - 1 star)
40. List: Empire's masterpiece picks (collaborative: moderated by KasperL - 1 star)
41. A Year of Essential Cinema (collaborative: moderated by Ibetolis1 - 1 star)
42. Moviedrome: Alex Cox (collaborative: moderated by Ag0stoMesmer - 1 star)
43. British director (collaborative: moderated by iconogassed - 1 star)
44. Cinetheque (public: allegreller - 1 star)
45. toucé (public: rnest - 1 star)
46. Leaving Criterion Channel 4/30/20 (public: owen1218 - 1 star)
47. Homosexual subtext (collaborative)
48. NME's 100 Greatest Rock 'N' Roll Films (collaborative)
49. Nicolas Roeg (cinematographer) (collaborative: moderated by Ag0stoMesmer)
50. Referenced in Zeroville (collaborative: moderated by iconogassed)
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52. Age of Aquarius (collaborative: moderated by davidysteph)
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Browse the full list of collections
| Stars | User | Rating | |
| 3 |  |
Spunkie | 65 76th |
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A sincere and as always alienated effort from Roeg. The film takes a wild turn from professional megalomaniac bullying to 60ies go with the flow drug induced life style. It was hard to survive the first half hour but it was visually interesting most of the time.
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| 3 |  |
Henrik | 80 80th |
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Highly original and inventive stylistically - and undeniably odd. Perhaps its (over)agressive, constant pounding on everything conformist - whether it's filmic conventions or society's traditional performative sex roles - seems a bit dated today, but Cammell and Roeg's visual and auditive bombardement is fascinating and difficult to take your eyes (and ears) off.
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| 2 |  |
MartinTeller | 60 17th |
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Too much a product of its time, it gets weighed down by hippie romanticism, tedious fiddling with gender roles, and pompous literary references. There was some stuff I liked, especially the bold editing, but even a lot of the best bits were borrowed from Persona and Blow-Up. Roeg never really gets me or pushes my buttons, even though I think he makes some very interesting choices. I've been trying to decide if either half of the movie would have worked better on its own, but I don't think so.
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| 2 |  |
Moribunny | 60 54th |
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A touch of crime drama, a touch of Roger Corman (The Trip especially), a touch rock musical, and some of Nicolas Roeg's groundbreaking cinematography and editing techniques, but in essence it's hard to say what this is. It meanders and lacks focus most of the time. Strangely, it's still pretty decent.
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| 2 |  |
AFlickering | 3 38th |
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document of the way identity directly results from sexual repression, and in retrospect the difficulty of rebuilding the identity of the west after the hippie era brought it all tumbling down in order to shoot its collective load (or its uber-metaphorical bullet, in our protagonist's case). it holds performance - by extension, cinema - up as a cornerstone of this rebuilding process, for good or ill.
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| 2 |  |
Neonman | 91 93rd |
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It's many things at once -- an art film, a rock 'n' roll film, a gangster flick, a progressive piece of counter-culture material, a meditation on identity, a test of patience, a wacky narrative exercise, and also something of a portrayal of man's fantasy -- and it manages to be all this quite successfully. The narrative style, the haphazard editing, and loud visual compositions give this film a drug-induced hazy atmosphere without feeling tenuous given the story's comments on acting and self.
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| 2 |  |
witzelsucht | 6 19th |
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A fascinating oddity in which gangsters and naked women play second fiddle to Mick Jagger's distractingly sumptuous pillow lips.
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| 2 |  |
TrixRabbi | 72 35th |
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Hard to say. I enjoyed the first half hour a lot, but once Jagger shows up the films becomes too chaotic to really makes heads or tails of what's happening. It's an awkward mess filled with some amazing photography that keeps you going with it. Some great moments, but a lot of bullshit to accompany it. The old sound mix also made it hard to follow the dialogue at times, but I won't hold it against the film itself, but it probably hurt my enjoyment some.
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| 1 |  |
eveelun | 67 35th |
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Aggressively stylish, with some incredible shots and edits. But feels very dated and hollow much of the time; I can't say that I feel the need to see this again.
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| 1 |  |
terrymac | 75 72nd |
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Starts off bring one thing, a rather "of the time" gangster drama, and then quite quickly becomes something different. I like the notion of a "performer" that is examined within the film, and how that is resolved at the end, but there was probably a lot of other stuff that went over my head. It does meander a bit at times, but remains interesting, beautifully shot and with a very odd use of sound. Oddness is a key theme throughout, frankly, in a (generally) good way.
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| 1 |  |
PeaceAnarchy | 83 72nd |
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Wierd and flawed, but it's still very enjoyable thanks to the intense performances and the film's visual style.
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| 1 |  |
alanstrang | 78 71st |
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Much more imaginative and free-spirited than many of the 21st-century cinema. Unconventional cinematography and editing show us who Guy Ritchie was taking an example of.
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| 1 |  |
overrated | 27 18th |
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An obnoxious and dumbed down ripoff of Persona, after an initial gangster plot that Guy Ritchie obviously studied. Harrow alumni Fox is unbelievable as a cockney thug, Jagger is all too believable mumbling about psychedelics and kundalini or something.
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| 1 |  |
snallygaster | 74 83rd |
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Not sure why I like it so much, but I do. Something about the meeting of two opposing lifestyles which find some common ground through their rejection of bourgeois society. And also the way the narrative is pretty random yet the photography and editing somehow makes perfect sense.
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| 1 |  |
loc42 | 80 79th |
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A film about avant-garde, revolutionary act, being an artist and creating an event which is poetic; in opposition to the Apollonian ideal of stoic reason and the instrumental gesture of accumulation. The gang of 'businessmen' is that Apollonian ideal not reluctant to sacrifice trivialties for future gains; Mick Jagger is pure expenditure, non-exchangable experience. Chas is a character oscillating in between. "To change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly" (Bergson).
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| 1 |  |
Yiannos | 35 3rd |
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A tedious, piss-poor take on Persona.
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| 1 |  |
NathanBates | 40 5th |
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Hard to believe somebody said, "Hey, let's take a gangster film, then mash it up with some free-love, drug-induced trippy commentary on sex and gender. Fun for the whole family!" The film school part of me says it's pretty daring on so many levels. The "films are to be enjoyed" part of me is filled with repulsion.
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| Average Percentile 53.68% from 502 Ratings |  |