. . . when he made PERFORMANCE, or if this inchoate mishmash somehow could be given a meaningful context. The Truth can now be told. The team of prognosticating Cassandras at Warner Bros. have perfectly captured the inner workings of the Rump White House nearly 50 years before the fact with PERFORMANCE. Jagger himself plays Rump, called "Turner" here, since Rump's such a Flip-Flopper (Democrat one day, Repug the next). In the role of Steve Bannon is James Fox. His "Chas" character is Rump/Turner's toughest thug, whether in the White House or not. Extortion Ringleader "Harry Flowers" captures the venality of closet KKK Grand Dragon/U.S. "Attorney General" Beauregard Sessions to a T, with the mendacious sadist "Rosie" playing White House Chief of Staff John "Pinocchio" Kelly to the hilt. Even dismissed FBI director James Comey is shown receiving Beauregard's knife-in-the-back, when Rosie slips it to "Joey Maddocks" as the hapless Fed. Melancholia Rump goes full-frontal in the guise of "Pherber," while Chas/Bannon gets naughty in the bathtub with First Daughter Iwanna Rump (a birthday-suited "Lucy" here). Though Warner's current release GEOSTORM has suggested to some that only a Patriotic Secret Service Agent taking their Constitutional Oath seriously is in a position to end Rump's Madness, an eventually double-crossed Chas/Bannon delivers the Coup De Grace here in PERFORMANCE.

TCM showed the old Mick Jagger cult film Performance tonight at 4am. That's one of the few movies I ever walked out on, during a midnight showing at either the Guild or Fine Arts in San Diego. I usually loved their midnight movies, but maybe we were either too high or not high enough to appreciate Performance. One of the other few movies I ever walked out on was Videodrome, and that was a free ticket I won on the radio - when I tried to re-watch it a couple of years ago, I still hated it. I suspected the same thing would happen again tonight with Performance, but I gave it a shot.I definitely "get" Performance a lot more now. They screened it as part of a Nicolas Roeg marathon (even though Roeg reportedly played a minor role in the actual direction of this one), along with other flicks he did about culture clashes like Walkabout (Brit kids lost in the Australian outback) and the Man Who Fell to Earth. I also disliked Man Who Fell To Earth when I first saw it new in theaters as a teen, and was quite surprised at how much I liked it when I finally gave it another chance a couple of years ago.When I first saw Performance, I didn't really know the context RE filmmaking going all LSD in the late '60s, or even who Anita Pallenberg was (she was living with Keith Richards, but played Jagger's lover in the movie, causing problems that kept the Stones from doing the full soundtrack). I can definitely appreciate what the movie is now - but I still don't think it's very good and would never watch again. Watching it felt like taking the brown acid at Woodstock -- you're glad to be at a great and historic party, except it kinda sucks to be there too --I should say the actual performers in Performance are quite good, even Jagger (before he became a parody of himself). It's just such a dopey script, insanely edited like someone just threw a bunch of film strips on a table and randomly spliced them together. The music is top notch too, I went looking up almost every song -- like Twin Peaks, I'd much sooner enjoy spinning the soundtrack than the actual show!

I remember this film as listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die mainly because of the lead singer of The Rolling Stones in a leading role, I was looking forward to seeing what it was like, from directors Donald Cammell (Demon Seed, Wild Side) and debuting Nicolas Roeg (Walkabout, Don't Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth). Basically Chas (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's James Fox) is a thug in the East End of London, who works for gang leader Harry Flowers (Johnny Shannon), he revels in his work with his sadistic nature and intimidation through violence, and he has many many casual and rough sexual liaisons. When a betting shop owned by Joey Maddocks (Anthony Valentine) is to be taken over Flowers forbids Chas from getting involved, as he has history with Maddocks, angry about this ignores him and humiliates Maddocks, and his old rival retaliates wrecking his apartment and beating him, and Chas shoots him and runs away, Flowers refuses to give him protection and now wants him eliminated. Chas initially decides to hide in countryside, but he instead stays in London, he assumes the new name Johnny Dean and he finds the Notting Hill house of reclusive and eccentric former rock musician Turner (Mick Jagger), and moving in he gets close to female inhabitant Pherber (Anita Pallenberg), she and Lucy (Michele Breton) enjoy a non-possessive bisexual sexual relationship. Turner and Chas start off not liking each other much, but slowly influence each other in certain things, and Chas even shows homophobic tendencies, so Turner and Pherber want to understand his conflict and help him in some way, so they give him hallucinogenic drugs and he opens up, explaining a caring relationship, and outgrowing psychological boundaries while functioning as a stereotypical masculine man in a gangster world. The film ends with the gangsters eventually catching up to where Chas has been hiding, Chas for some reasons shoots and kills Turner, while Pherber is hiding in the cupboard, he seems to be welcomed back by his boss Flowers as told by another thug Rosebloom/Rosie (Stanley Meadows), of course this is just a ploy to have him killed, and we see an unknown face through the window of the car that drives away, it is unclear if it is Chas or Turner. Also starring Ann Sidney as Dana, John Bindon as Moody and Allan Cuthbertson as The Lawyer. Fox plays his role as the masochistic gangster going to into hiding well, but to me Jagger stole the show as the odd landlord who still wants to be making small tunes but has perhaps lost his flair, the story is fragmented and may be confusing most of the time, but with the distinctive style, high amount of controversial violence and interesting hallucinogenic material and imagery it is a worthwhile drama. It was nominated the BAFTA for Best Film Editing. Very good!

James Fox plays Chas, a East London gangster who delights in sadism, sex, misogyny and violence. He works for Harry Flowers (Johnny Shannon), whose orders he disobeys by murdering a low life called Joey Maddocks. Chas is forced to go on the run, the police and Flowers' henchmen hot on his heels. The film is concerned with Chas' chameleon like transformation, as he alters himself in an attempt to remain off the radar. In this regard he dyes his hear, changes his mannerisms and ingratiates himself with the androgynous Turner, played by Rolling Stones front-man Mick Jagger. "I'm determined to fit in. I've got to fit in," he begs, and Jagger obliges, introducing Chas to hallucinogenic drugs, homosexuality, femininity and his fuzzy concepts of "love". End result: Chas drops his previous psycho-sexual, violent, dominative, masculine hangups and becomes a happy drag queen. Think of Jagger as an X rated Deepak Chopra. The film was directed by Nicolas Roeg, whose customarily unconventional editing techniques elevate the film tremendously. Roeg turns the plot into a kaleidoscopic, hallucinogenic identity crisis ("I know who I am," Chas unconvincingly repeats throughout the film), using a non linear, sliding, elliptical editing style to suggest the breaking down and piecing together of Chas' identity. For Roeg, the goal is for anima and animus to collide through technique. His shots are like the drug tainted fragments of a vast mosaic, the final image fuzzy and confusing at first, until each new added piece completes and concretizes the picture. Roeg's editing was breathtaking during this period, culminating in such great films as "Walkabout" and "Don't Look Now". The film ends with Chas transforming into Turner and vice versa, the former adopting a wig, costume and makeup. Chas' face even literally becomes Turner's and Roeg goes so far as to use mirrors and subtle shots to overlay female breasts on Chas' own chest, blurring his psycho-sexual identity. Actor James Fox found the production so disturbing and disorienting that he left acting and fled into religious retreat for nearly a decade. Mick Jagger went on to become a giant sex God.7.9/10 – Hugely influential, but somewhat dated. How do you rate a film that plays like a cross between Guy Ritchie and Catherine Breillat? Incidentally, Roeg's "The Man Who Fell To Earth" presents the flip-side of Chas' transformation, musician David Bowie transforming from androgynous, sexless rock star, to phallus incarnate.