Sunday, July 28, 2013

Vice and Versa in PERFORMANCE

"The only performance that makes it, that makes it all the way, is the one that achieves madness."


Gangsters, rock stars, violence, mushrooms, lipstick - all mix and merge in the British film Performance (1970).  Co-directed by Donald Cammell and Nicholas Roeg,  starring Mick Jagger and James Fox, it's a unique movie that you'll never forget once you've seen it.  I remember first seeing it many years ago in college, at a midnight campus show, and if I remember correctly, I think I was high and drunk at the time.  The movie, which unwinds like a hallucination, stunned me.  And I realized that I most certainly should not have taken anything before the movie to get buzzed.  PERFORMANCE itself is an intoxicant.  It is also, among other things, a great and unique gangster film, and I wrote about it for Criminal Element as part of my Gangster Cinema, British Style series. 

You can check the piece out here: PERFORMANCE.



 

No comments:

Post a Comment