Tag Archive: Nicolas Roeg


Mirror Visions 4 : Performance – A Change of speed, a change of style

Filed under: Books, British identity, Gender, Movies — Leave a comment
November 9, 2025

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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Bowie Is …. in Bologna

Filed under: Gender, Italy, Modern Art, Movies, Music — Leave a comment
July 23, 2016

MAMbowieI was frustrated to miss the V & A Museum ‘Bowie Is’ exhibition in London three years ago so was delighted that it has been temporarily relocated to a city to my home in Emilia-Romagna. It is on at Bologna’s MAMbo until 13th November 2016.

Of course, the death of David Bowie earlier this year casts a black star over the event but this also puts into true perspective the enormous contribution he made to the fields of music, fashion and art. Continue reading →

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DONALD CAMMELL’S DEMON SEED

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January 10, 2012

220px-demon_seed_1977I’m currently on a Sci-Fi roll which drew me to the 1977  movie , Demon Seed,  based on a novel by Dean Koontz and directed by Donald Cammell.

The central paradox of the story is the dehumanization of the scientist, Dr. Alex Harris (Fritz Weaver) in direct contrast with the humanization of a recently invented supercomputer.

All of human knowledge is stored on Proteus IV  with the initial idea that its vast intellect will benefit mankind. The financiers and corporations see its potential in less altruistic terms. They want to exploit its knowledge to start mining for precious metals in the ocean. Proteus refuses to comply stating that it will not assist in the rape of the earth.

The machine has been programmed to think but what the boffins don’t foresee is that this will lead to it to making choices based on ethics and reason. Seeing that the plug is about to be pulled to end its ‘life’ in the box, Proteus takes over the computerised security and domestic service in the home of Harris’s estranged wife Susan (Julie Christie).  It devises a cunning plan to insert a synthetic sperm into her womb so she will give birth to the computer in human form.

The impregnation sequence is accompanied by a psychedelic montage which resembles a cheap Pink Floyd video. This is just one of the many scenes which date the movie. It is no masterpiece but the premise behind it is interesting and pleasingly subversive. Despite the title, the seed planted in the woman has no demonic purpose. The movie ends with the Proteus baby saying “I’m alive!” which made me think that this is a story that is crying out for a sequel.

Mick Jagger and Donald Cammell

It is one of only four full length movies the Scottish born director made; a short list which most famously includes Performance (1970), a film which is generally (and unjustly) credited to Nicolas Roeg.

Cammell was less than satisfied with Demon Seed which was based on a screenplay by Roger Hirson & Robert Jaffe , He vowed thereafter never to make a movie that he hadn’t also written. This uncompromising stance meant that the only two other full length films he completed were  White Of The Eye (1987) and Wild Side (1995) . He disowned the latter after it was re-edited by the studio and he committed suicide in April 1996 (Wild Side was posthumously restored by editor Frank Mazzola).

It’s tempting to regard Cammell as the victim of a narrow-minded, conservative system but he was a precocious talent who never made life easy for himself.  Keith Richards is particularly scathing in his autobiography, describing him as “a twister and a manipulator whose only real love in life was fucking other people up”.

Cammell came from a bohemian background (his father wrote a book about the controversial occultist Aleister Crowley) and this doubtless planted the (demon) seeds of his anti-establishment values. There’s a strong sense that he got a kick out of challenging what he saw as the hypocrisies of mainstream culture. He deliberately chose taboo subjects which led to his fascination with the gang violence, drug use and wild sex that we can see enacted in Performance.

A good insight into his life can be found on You Tube in the 1998 documentary: ‘Donald Cammell: The Ultimate Performance’ directed by Chris Rodley and Kevin MacDonald.  The revealing interviews in this include ones with Cammell himself, his widow China Kong , Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, Nic Roeg, and , perhaps best of all, James Fox whose experiences seem to endorse the assessment of Keith Richards.

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