Performance, reinventing a genre and related scribings and encasings…

  • Performance 1970-laserdisc-Mick Jagger-Afterhours Sleaze and DignityThe earlier parts of the 1970 film Performance tend to make you think that you’re largely in for a well done, sharp (if unsettling) late 1960s ganster film ride…

    …but then of course it wanders off somewhere quite different and over the years has gained a somewhat iconic status as a counter cultural document and similar to say The Wickerman, one where the stories that accompany its creation and sending out into the world have come to at least/almost equal the film itself.

    It could well be seen to be part of rather mini-genre (two films?), alongside The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, where British cinema reinvented this particular class of film…

    As I’ve mentioned around these parts before, I have something of a fondness for the artwork, sleeves and packaging that was created for now lost to time media… so, on this page there is one of the laserdisc sleeves that were produced and one of the VHS editions.

    Performance 1970-VHS-Mick Jagger-Donal Cammell-Nicolas Roeg-Afterhours Sleaze and Dignity

    Performance 1970-VHS-Mick Jagger-Donal Cammell-Nicolas Roeg-James Fox-Afterhours Sleaze and DignityIn contrast to those (or vice versa as other artwork that accompanied the film might say) not so long ago Performance re-wandered out into the world on shiny new bluray discs – though not officially yet in the UK, the one that is available is apparently region free, so you shouldn’t need all kinds of software and hardware jiggery pokery to play it on these shores…

    Performance 1970-VHS-Mick Jagger-Donal Cammell-Nicolas Roeg-James Fox-Afterhours Sleaze and Dignity-2Over the years the film has inspired several scribes and tomes: Mick Brown’s A-Z guide is a good, readable overview of the stories and cultural connections of the film… there have also been Collin MacCabe’s BFI Film Classic and Paul Buck’s Performance: The Biography of a 60s Masterpiece which looks like a particular labour of love and is sat on my bookshelves and I expect shall be perused properly once the aforementioned silver disc has also been perused.

    Peruse the films here here and the books here and here.

     

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