Film Review: Performance (1970)

Reaching the zenith of one’s career, particularly at a young age, often invites a desire to explore new creative horizons—a natural impulse even for icons. By the late 1960s, Mick Jagger, the magnetic frontman of The Rolling Stones and a global symbol of countercultural rebellion, found himself in precisely such a position. Eager to capitalise on his superstar status, he ventured into film acting, a pursuit that yielded mixed results. Among these experiments, Performance, the 1970 British crime drama co-directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, stands out as his most intriguing endeavour. Though now enshrined as a cult classic, its reputation hinges less on Jagger’s involvement than on its audacious fusion of genre subversion, psychosexual themes, and avant-garde aesthetics—a cocktail that bewildered contemporary audiences but later cemented its status as a boundary-pushing artefact of its era.

The film’s nominal protagonist is Chas Devlin (played by James Fox), a ruthless London gangster employed by mob boss Harry Flowers (played by Johnny Shannon). Specialising in intimidation, Chas thrives in his role but is undone by personal vendettas, notably a feud with bet shop owner Joey Maddocks (played by Anthony Valentine) that culminates in Maddocks’ murder. Forced into hiding from both the police and his former employer, Chas stumbles upon a bohemian household in Notting Hill, masquerading as a juggler named Johnny Dean. The residence is owned by Turner (played by Jagger), a reclusive, decadent rock star who shares his space with two women: the sultry Pherber (played by Anita Pallenberg) and the androgynous Lucy (played by Michèle Breton). Initially antagonistic, Chas and Turner gradually form a symbiotic relationship. Under the influence of psychedelics and Turner’s hedonism, Chas begins to shed his hyper-masculine façade, while Turner, fascinated by Chas’s violent profession, indulges in a vicarious thrill of danger. This dynamic blurs the boundaries between their identities, setting the stage for the film’s surreal, disorienting climax.

Like many films now hailed as visionary, Performance was met with hostility upon release. Critics derided its narrative incoherence and explicit content, while audiences stayed away, unprepared for its challenging style. Yet, over time, a vocal minority—comprising cinephiles, academics, and countercultural figures—championed it as a misunderstood masterpiece. Its reputation was further mythologised by the tragic 1996 suicide of co-director Donald Cammell, whose battles with studio interference (notably on his final film, Wild Side) cast a retrospective shadow over Performance’s own troubled production. The film’s journey from reviled oddity to cult totem underscores how cultural reassessment can anoint works initially deemed unpalatable.

The production history of Performance is a case study in creative dissonance. Commissioned by Warner Bros. in 1968, the studio anticipated a whimsical romp through “Swinging London,” akin to A Hard Day’s Night’s buoyant portrayal of The Beatles. Instead, Cammell and Roeg delivered a lurid, disjointed narrative steeped in violence, sexual explicitness, and psychedelic surrealism, edited with the fragmented verve of the French New Wave. Warner executives, expecting a marketable vehicle for Jagger’s star power, were horrified; the film was shelved for two years, released only after a regime change at the studio. This friction between commercial expectation and artistic ambition permeates Performance—a work that defiantly resists categorisation, even as it suffers from its creators’ uncompromising vision.

The film’s most glaring flaw is its bifurcated structure, which grafts a gritty gangster thriller onto a psychodrama about artistic dissolution. The first half, tracking Chas’s criminal exploits, adheres to generic conventions, albeit with a nihilistic edge. The second, set in Turner’s claustrophobic mansion, abandons linearity for a hallucinatory exploration of identity and desire. While the latter segment is undeniably more daring, its late introduction deprives Turner’s character of depth, reducing him to a cipher of faded glamour. For Jagger, the role offered a provocative mirror: Turner is a ghost of the rock star’s future, a washed-up relic in a culture that venerates perpetual youth—a notion inconceivable to the era’s eternally youthful Boomers. Yet, this thematic richness is undermined by the film’s jarring tonal shift, leaving both narratives feeling underdeveloped.

Jagger’s casting, while commercially astute, exposes his theatrical inexperience. His screen presence—all louche magnetism and serpentine physicality—suits Turner’s decadence, but he struggles to convey emotional nuance. His musical talents, central to his fame, are underutilised, save for the haunting “Memo from Turner” sequence. Here, Jagger, clad in gangster attire, croons a dystopian blues number amid surreal imagery—a scene later hailed as a proto-music video. Yet, this moment feels less like character development than a contractual obligation to showcase the star’s musical pedigree.

If Jagger’s performance leans on persona, James Fox’s is a masterclass in immersion. Known for playing aristocratic roles, Fox trained with ex-boxer Johnny Shannon (who later played Harry Flowers) to inhabit Chas’s brutish physicality. He frequented London’s underworld haunts, absorbing the mannerisms of gangsters—a commitment that exacted a psychological toll. After filming, Fox retreated from acting for nearly a decade, citing spiritual exhaustion. His portrayal oscillates between menace and vulnerability, capturing a man unmoored by his own duality. Fox’s intensity anchors the film, compensating for Jagger’s uneven contributions.

Anita Pallenberg, a muse to The Rolling Stones, lends Pherber an air of enigmatic sensuality, though her role prioritises atmosphere over depth. The production’s hedonistic aura—allegedly encouraged by Cammell and Roeg—has become legendary, with rumours of unsimulated sex and rampant drug use. Most notoriously, Jagger and Pallenberg’s on-screen intimacy reportedly spilled into real life, exacerbating tensions with her partner, Keith Richards. While these anecdotes amplify the film’s countercultural mystique, they risk overshadowing its artistic merits, reducing it to a relic of ’60s excess.

Later scholars have lauded Performance for its radical interrogation of identity. The fluidity between Chas’s working-class machismo and Turner’s androgynous decadence—a dynamic heightened by their shared LSD trip—challenges rigid class and gender norms. Turner’s dalliance with adopting Chas’s persona (and vice versa) subtly hints at homoeroticism, a subtext daring even for late 1960s. By framing identity as performative and malleable, the film prefigures postmodern discourse, even as its execution remains frustratingly opaque.

Viewed through a contemporary lens, Performance’s once-shocking content feels less transgressive than quaint. Its fragmented editing and psychedelic visuals, revolutionary in 1970, now seem derivative of later, more polished works. While undeniably influential—inspiring filmmakers like David Lynch and Gaspar Noé—its narrative incoherence and self-indulgence test patience. Modern audiences, detached from the cultural context of its creation, may struggle to discern its groundbreaking qualities, seeing instead a disjointed curio elevated by myth.

Performance endures not as a cohesive masterpiece but as a fascinating relic—a collision of creative ambition, studio myopia, and countercultural ferment. Its strengths—James Fox’s riveting performance, its daring themes, and Roeg’s hypnotic cinematography—are diluted by structural flaws and Jagger’s uneven presence. Yet, as a snapshot of a society in flux, grappling with the erosion of traditional identities, it remains compelling. For all its imperfections, Performance captures the chaotic spirit of its era, a time when art, like identity, was a realm of limitless—and often reckless—possibility.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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