The above two film stills are from Performance directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg. In the first Chas (James Fox), is in a bathroom and the mirror image he sees is of a hard man, a tough guy. Chas looks too much like the person he is : a gangster on the run. He is not pursued by the police but by the violent mob he has worked for. A loaded gun won’t set him free. His only hope of escape is to change his physical appearance. In the second image he is bewigged and feminized so that he resembles the woman in the hand mirror who is witnessing his transformation.
These scenes take place while Chas is hiding out in a seedy basement flat in North London. His unconventional landlords are bohemian dropouts Turner (Mick Jagger) and Pherber (Anita Pallenberg). At its heart, Performance is a clash of two subcultures: the criminal underclass and the post-hippy subculture.
Studios were uncertain about how to pitch this hybrid film and nervous about the controversy it seemed destined to cause. As a result, its release was delayed for two years. When it did finally reach cinemas in 1970, the promotional posters reflected ambiguities towards the content: “This film is about madness. And sanity. Fantasy. And reality. Death. And life. Vice. And versa.” As this slogan suggests, Performance defies easy categorization.
Although Donald Cammell is credited as co-director, Performance is Nicolas Roeg’s cinematic vision and features his signature cut-up style editing technique. This creates a sense of menace and nervous energy by jumbling up the linear flow of the narrative.
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