Performance

Selected by Todd Haynes

“The manic, disjunctive editing rhythms that distinguish this devilish late-’60s psychological drama shocked viewers in 1970 nearly as much as did the film’s subject: the strange, tense cohabitation of a London gangster (James Fox) with a self-medicating pop star (Mick Jagger) and his two steady female companions (Anita Pallenberg and Michele Breton). With its fractured narrative logic and polymorphous sexual dynamics, the film would become a key reference point for glam movies as early as Roeg’s own The Man Who Fell to Earth and as late as Haynes’s Velvet Goldmine.”
— Film Society of Lincoln Center

“Roeg’s debut as a director is a virtuoso juggling act which manipulates its visual and verbal imagery so cunningly that the borderline between reality and fantasy is gradually eliminated.”
— Time Out

“Mick Jagger? In a Brit gangster classic? Believe it. And believe that Performance is much, much more. Uncorked in 1970, it’s a shocking crime thriller, a time-capsule of Swinging ’60s London, and a fizzy intellectual headtrip all whisked into one astonishing film.”
— Time Out

Film Details

Country: UK
Language: English
Year: 1970
Running time: 105 min
Format: 35mm
Directors: Donald Cammell, Nicolas Roeg
Screenwriter: Donald Cammell
Producer: Sanford Lieberson
Cinematographer: Nicolas Roeg
Editors: Antony Gibbs, Brian Smedley-Aston
Source: British Film Institute

Films and schedules may be subject to change.

Modern Cinema’s Founding Supporters are Carla Emil and Rich Silverstein. Support is provided by Nion T. McEvoy and the Susan Wildberg Morgenstein Fund. This season of Modern Cinema is generously supported by James C. Hormel and Michael P. Nguyen.