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Performance: Bloomsbury Pocket Movie Guide 6
Bloomsbury Movie Guides are A to Z companions to some of the greatest, most memorable films ever made. The books feature scores of entries on all aspects of the making and meaning of movies, and include historic, cinematic, and literary references; profiles of the actors and directors; and interviews. Nicholas Roeg's Performance , starring Mick Jagger, is a feast for the mind and senses—a film that simultaneously explores the nature of identity, violence and creativity, sex and death, amorality, power, drugs, and rock and roll. Now Mick Brown explains why it may be one of the greatest British films of all time.
- GenresFilmNonfictionHistory
208 pages, Paperback
First published September 27, 1999
39 people want to read
About the author
Mick Brown
19 books9 followersMick Brown (born 1950 in London) is a journalist who has written for several British newspapers, including The Guardian and The Sunday Times and for international publications. For many years he has contributed regularly to The Telegraph. He is also a broadcaster and the author of several books
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 25, 2017
I wish I could explain why this teeny little book is worth five stars and is essential reading for anyone interested in 60s British counterculture, just as the movie Performance is essential viewing. I could spend three hours writing a lovely long long review but you know and I know that your eyes would glaze over – they’re probably glazing right now at the very idea. So let me just quote a couple of funny bits (and one really horrible circumstance) and leave it at that.
(Yesterday pretty much all I did was watch the movie and read this - delicious!)
This film was very controversial. There is a long scene with Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg and 17 year old very androgynous Michelle Breton in bed together and they’re not doing crosswords either. The next day they all have a bath together (I should think they needed one). Warner Brothers freaked out and ordered a lot of the sex stuff to be cut. Outtakes of the sex stuff were then put together into a ten minute short film called Performance Trims which was shown at the Wet Dream Festival in Amsterdam in 1970. A columnist in Frij Nederlands wrote:
The revealed appearance of the king of the Rolling Stones got much applause, but also disappointed people because Jagger’s cock, of course, isn’t different from other cocks.
Some of the actors playing East End thugs were the real thing. John Bindon, for instance.
In the same year that he made Performance, Bindon won the Queen’s Award for Bravery, after rescuing a drowning man from the Thames, although it was later alleged that Bindon himself had pushed the man in the water, and only jumped in to save him when a policeman appeared.
Performance jinxed quite a few people. Nic Roeg, co-director, was okay - he followed it up with the fabulous Walkabout and The Man who Fell To Earth and others. Douglas Cammell who was the main creative force pissed away his next 30 years doing virtually nothing in Hollywood and ended up committing suicide. Anita Pallenberg became a junkie for the next ten years. Michelle Breton never acted again and also descended into drug madness. James Fox, at that point one of the hottest British actors, became a Christian and retired from acting for ten years.
The people involved in this movie have so many connections with like…. everything. I’ll give one example. Most of the interiors were filmed at 15 Lowndes Square, Knightsbridge, very posh, a house owned by a certain Captain Leonard Plugge “a colourful and eccentric ornament to British public life”, one time member of parliament, expert ice skater, and alleged inventor of the car radio. The Captain’s daughter was Gale-Ann Benson. She got involved with a Black Power leader called Hakim Jamal (a cousin of Malcolm X) and changed her name to Hale Kimba. She went to Jamaica with Jamal where they joined up with a guy called Michael X who was an interesting 60s figure. He started life in Trinidad as Michael de Freitas, moved to London in 1957 and worked as an enforcer for a famous slum landlord. Then he discovered politics and renamed himself Abdul Malik and later Michael X (after Malcolm X). He was the first person to be prosecuted in Britain under the Race Relations Act which was created to prohibit racism against minorities, but as he was stating that white people have no souls and advocating murder of white people in certain situations, he got 12 months in 1967.
When he got out he set up in London the Black House (in opposition to the White House!) which was supposed to promote black consciousness and anti-racism. John and Yoko cut off their long hair at the end of 1969 and auctioned it off to support Michael X and the Black House. In 1971 the Black House burned down, no one found out how. He went back to Trinidad and started up a second Black House. In February 1972 that burned down too. When police investigated the site they found two graves of former commune members. They had been hacked to death. One of them was Captain Plugge’s daughter. There was a murder trial and Michael X was found guilty and hanged on 16 May 1975.
This was my short review. Imagine what my long one would have been like.... I think you dodged a bullet there.
(Yesterday pretty much all I did was watch the movie and read this - delicious!)
This film was very controversial. There is a long scene with Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg and 17 year old very androgynous Michelle Breton in bed together and they’re not doing crosswords either. The next day they all have a bath together (I should think they needed one). Warner Brothers freaked out and ordered a lot of the sex stuff to be cut. Outtakes of the sex stuff were then put together into a ten minute short film called Performance Trims which was shown at the Wet Dream Festival in Amsterdam in 1970. A columnist in Frij Nederlands wrote:
The revealed appearance of the king of the Rolling Stones got much applause, but also disappointed people because Jagger’s cock, of course, isn’t different from other cocks.
Some of the actors playing East End thugs were the real thing. John Bindon, for instance.
In the same year that he made Performance, Bindon won the Queen’s Award for Bravery, after rescuing a drowning man from the Thames, although it was later alleged that Bindon himself had pushed the man in the water, and only jumped in to save him when a policeman appeared.
Performance jinxed quite a few people. Nic Roeg, co-director, was okay - he followed it up with the fabulous Walkabout and The Man who Fell To Earth and others. Douglas Cammell who was the main creative force pissed away his next 30 years doing virtually nothing in Hollywood and ended up committing suicide. Anita Pallenberg became a junkie for the next ten years. Michelle Breton never acted again and also descended into drug madness. James Fox, at that point one of the hottest British actors, became a Christian and retired from acting for ten years.
The people involved in this movie have so many connections with like…. everything. I’ll give one example. Most of the interiors were filmed at 15 Lowndes Square, Knightsbridge, very posh, a house owned by a certain Captain Leonard Plugge “a colourful and eccentric ornament to British public life”, one time member of parliament, expert ice skater, and alleged inventor of the car radio. The Captain’s daughter was Gale-Ann Benson. She got involved with a Black Power leader called Hakim Jamal (a cousin of Malcolm X) and changed her name to Hale Kimba. She went to Jamaica with Jamal where they joined up with a guy called Michael X who was an interesting 60s figure. He started life in Trinidad as Michael de Freitas, moved to London in 1957 and worked as an enforcer for a famous slum landlord. Then he discovered politics and renamed himself Abdul Malik and later Michael X (after Malcolm X). He was the first person to be prosecuted in Britain under the Race Relations Act which was created to prohibit racism against minorities, but as he was stating that white people have no souls and advocating murder of white people in certain situations, he got 12 months in 1967.
When he got out he set up in London the Black House (in opposition to the White House!) which was supposed to promote black consciousness and anti-racism. John and Yoko cut off their long hair at the end of 1969 and auctioned it off to support Michael X and the Black House. In 1971 the Black House burned down, no one found out how. He went back to Trinidad and started up a second Black House. In February 1972 that burned down too. When police investigated the site they found two graves of former commune members. They had been hacked to death. One of them was Captain Plugge’s daughter. There was a murder trial and Michael X was found guilty and hanged on 16 May 1975.
This was my short review. Imagine what my long one would have been like.... I think you dodged a bullet there.
June 13, 2008
An engaging, intelligent companion piece to the mind-blowing film.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews