Performance (1970)

Taglines: Vice. And versa.

Performance movie storyline. Chas is an East London thug who works for gangster Harry Flowers and his associates (although they don’t use the word gangster to describe themselves). Chas is generally sadistic in his nature and thus revels in his work. But his sadistic nature also pervades his personal life.

As such, he will work on his own personal agenda outside of the work for Harry. It is in this vein that an encounter with Joey Maddocks, a man with whom Chas has a history, leads to Chas needing to hide out from Harry and his associates. Ultimately Chas feels he needs to clandestinely leave the country. In the meantime, he, based solely on a private conversation he overhears between strangers, manages to take refuge in the basement of a Notting Hill flat owned by a man named Turner, who lives there with two female companions named Pherber and Lucy.

Chas considers their lifestyle bohemian and one of free love, which is outside of his mentality. Turner is an ex-rock musician who has lost his “demon” and thus his desire to be a performer. As Chas makes arrangements for his departure out of England, he gets caught up in Turner’s lifestyle, Turner who is working on his own agenda in spending time with Chas.

Performance is a 1970 British crime drama film directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, written by Cammell and photographed by Roeg. The film stars James Fox as a violent and ambitious London gangster who, after killing an old friend, goes into hiding at the home of a reclusive rock star (Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones).

The film was produced in 1968 but not released until 1970, as Warner Bros. was reluctant to distribute the film, owing to its sexual content and graphic violence. It initially received a mixed critical response, but since then its reputation has grown in stature; it is now regarded as one of the most influential and innovative films of the 1970s, as well as one of the greatest films in the history of British cinema. In 1999, Performance was voted the 48th greatest British film of the 20th century by the British Film Institute; in 2008 Empire magazine ranked the film 182nd on its list of the 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.

Directed by: Donald Cammell, Nicolas Roeg
Starring: James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, Michele Breton, Ann Sidney, John Bindon, Stanley Meadows, Allan Cuthbertson, Anthony Morton, Johnny Shannon, Anthony Valentine, Ken Colley
Screenplay by: Donald Cammell
Production Design by: Kevin Kavanagh
Cinematography by: Nicolas Roeg
Film Editing by: Antony Gibbs, Brian Smedley-Aston, Frank Mazzola
Art Direction by: John Clark
Music by: Jack Nitzsche
MPAA Rating: R for sexual content, nudity, drug material and some violence.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: August 3, 1970