# Performance (film)
*Performance* is a 1970 British crime drama directed by Donald Cammell and [Nicolas Roeg](https://www.edgepedia.org/nicolas-roeg), in which a London gangster on the run takes refuge in the [Notting Hill](https://www.edgepedia.org/notting-hill) home of a reclusive rock star, and the two men's identities begin to merge under the influence of drugs and psychological games.[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/03c8e59c-e315-56aa-97b3-b4ccec910926/performance) It was the directing debut of both men: Roeg was already a top-rank cinematographer, and first-time director Cammell was obliged to work with him in tandem.[2](https://www.labiennale.org/en/agenda/classici-fuori-mostra-performance) The film stars [James Fox](https://www.edgepedia.org/james-fox) as the gangster Chas and Mick Jagger, making his acting debut, as Turner.[3](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/performance-locations-mick-jagger-nicolas-roeg-donald-cammell)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Directors | Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg; screenplay by Cammell; produced by Sandy Lieberson[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/03c8e59c-e315-56aa-97b3-b4ccec910926/performance) |
| Cast | James Fox (Chas), Mick Jagger (Turner), Anita Pallenberg (Pherber), Michele Breton (Lucy)[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/performance) |
| Production and release | Shot in 1968; Warner Bros shelved it for two years; US release August 3, 1970, UK release January 7, 1971[2](https://www.labiennale.org/en/agenda/classici-fuori-mostra-performance) • [4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/performance) • [5](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/401176/) |
| Running time | 102 minutes per BFI; 105 minutes per Cineuropa and Criterion[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/03c8e59c-e315-56aa-97b3-b4ccec910926/performance) • [5](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/401176/) • [6](https://www.criterion.com/films/30003-performance) |
| Music | Score composed and arranged by Jack Nitzsche, conducted by Randy Newman, with Ry Cooder and Jagger among the musicians; includes Jagger's "Memo from Turner"[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/03c8e59c-e315-56aa-97b3-b4ccec910926/performance) • [7](https://moviearchive.phase9.tv/movies/performance.shtml) |
| Reception | 81% Tomatometer from 36 reviews and 78% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes; Metascore 69 on Metacritic[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/performance) • [8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/performance/) |
| Restoration | Restored in 4K by Warner Bros in 2024; Criterion released a 4K UHD edition in 2025 with the original UK-version soundtrack[2](https://www.labiennale.org/en/agenda/classici-fuori-mostra-performance) • [6](https://www.criterion.com/films/30003-performance) |
## Spoilers
### Plot and premise
Chas is a violent [East London](https://www.edgepedia.org/east-london) gangster who works for boss Harry Flowers (Johnny Shannon). After a killing, he must flee both the law and his own associates, and he hides out in the house of Turner, a one-time rock superstar living with his companions Pherber ([Anita Pallenberg](https://www.edgepedia.org/anita-pallenberg)) and Lucy (Michele Breton).[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/performance) • [5](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/401176/) Chas and Turner initially clash, but Turner becomes fascinated with Chas's life as a criminal; through drugs and psychological battles, Chas emerges a different man.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/performance) The Venice Biennale program describes the two men's identities merging and their sexuality becoming ambiguous under the influence of hallucinogenic mushrooms.[2](https://www.labiennale.org/en/agenda/classici-fuori-mostra-performance)
The film sets a confrontation between the brutal criminal world of East London and the counterculture decadence of [West London](https://www.edgepedia.org/west-london), an idea that came from Cammell, a successful portrait artist before filmmaking.[2](https://www.labiennale.org/en/agenda/classici-fuori-mostra-performance)
## Style and influences
**Fractured form.** BFI credits *Performance* with introducing the fractured storytelling and editing style of Roeg, a cinematographer-turned-director, and notes its debt to [Ingmar Bergman](https://www.edgepedia.org/ingmar-bergman)'s *Persona* (1966) and the films of [Alain Resnais](https://www.edgepedia.org/alain-resnais).[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/03c8e59c-e315-56aa-97b3-b4ccec910926/performance) The editing is credited to Antony Gibbs and Brian Smedley-Aston, with cinematography by Roeg himself.[5](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/401176/) Reviewers have singled out the vivid use of color and the disorienting editing; a Time Out review described how the film manipulates visual and verbal imagery until the borderline between reality and fantasy is gradually eliminated.[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/03c8e59c-e315-56aa-97b3-b4ccec910926/performance) • [8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/performance/)
The film's subject is performance itself: it uses the gangster-on-the-run framework to stage an inquiry into identity and the porous boundary between self and role, using fractured editing, dissonant sound, and deliberate ambiguity.[9](https://film.briefs.cloud/performance/) Scholarly work has read it as an attack on any essentialist concept of a unitary identity, exploring the double and the androgynous through its ambiguous characters.[10](https://doaj.org/article/2be35831c5cd4457a3baf19526e2ad31)
## Production, censorship, and release history
The production, backed by Warner Bros., was fraught. Filmed in the summer and autumn of 1968 on the streets of post-swinging London, the film so outraged the studio that it was shelved for two years.[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/03c8e59c-e315-56aa-97b3-b4ccec910926/performance) • [7](https://moviearchive.phase9.tv/movies/performance.shtml) The surreal extremes of pleasure and pain pleased neither executives nor censors, and the film went through a long editing process before a subdued initial release in the United States in August 1970, where mainstream critics loathed it.[2](https://www.labiennale.org/en/agenda/classici-fuori-mostra-performance) • [7](https://moviearchive.phase9.tv/movies/performance.shtml) The UK release followed on January 7, 1971.[5](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/401176/)
The released versions differ. The US version involved dialogue overdubbing, including re-voicing of authentic Cockney accents, and censored juxtapositions of sex and violence; only in recent years has the film been securely restored to its original release version, with those cuts returned to full length and the re-voicing removed.[2](https://www.labiennale.org/en/agenda/classici-fuori-mostra-performance) Warner Bros restored the film in 4K in 2024, and Criterion's 2025 4K edition specifies the original UK-version soundtrack and includes material on the US overdubbing.[2](https://www.labiennale.org/en/agenda/classici-fuori-mostra-performance) • [6](https://www.criterion.com/films/30003-performance)
## Locations
The film's London locations were documented by the BFI on the fiftieth anniversary of the shoot. Turner's mansion exteriors were filmed at 25 Powis Square in Notting Hill, then a place of bohemian dereliction rather than the affluent area it later became, while the interiors were shot at the far more upmarket 23 Lowndes Square in [Knightsbridge](https://www.edgepedia.org/knightsbridge).[3](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/performance-locations-mick-jagger-nicolas-roeg-donald-cammell) Other locations include Old York Road in [Wandsworth](https://www.edgepedia.org/wandsworth), a betting shop on Fulham Road, Queen's Gate Mews near the Natural History Museum, and [Lincoln's Inn Fields](https://www.edgepedia.org/lincolns-inn-fields); the film also begins and ends with shots of Surrey countryside near The Black Swan pub.[3](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/performance-locations-mick-jagger-nicolas-roeg-donald-cammell)
## Reception and legacy
**From reviled to cult classic.** Critics hated the film on release, and Warner Bros. barely saw fit to release it, but *Performance* has endured as a cult favorite.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/performance) Contemporary aggregation reflects the reversal: Rotten Tomatoes records 81% positive among 36 critics, and Metacritic's 69 Metascore from 14 reviews includes 100 scores from the [Chicago Tribune](https://www.edgepedia.org/chicago-tribune) and BBC alongside a 30 from the New York Times's John Simon.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/performance) • [8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/performance/) Alexander Walker, writing in *Hollywood England* (1986), called it "perhaps the last genuinely exotic fruit produced by the bizarre mutations of British society in the 1960s."[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/03c8e59c-e315-56aa-97b3-b4ccec910926/performance)
Its influence is broad: BFI names *Sexy Beast* (2000), which also features James Fox, as standing out among the many films it influenced.[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/03c8e59c-e315-56aa-97b3-b4ccec910926/performance) Cammell directed only three more features before his death in 1996.[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/03c8e59c-e315-56aa-97b3-b4ccec910926/performance) For Jagger, the film remains what [Criterion](https://www.edgepedia.org/criterion) calls his most magnetic narrative-film performance.[6](https://www.criterion.com/films/30003-performance)
## References
1. [Performance (1970), BFI](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/03c8e59c-e315-56aa-97b3-b4ccec910926/performance)
2. [Classici fuori Mostra: Performance, La Biennale di Venezia](https://www.labiennale.org/en/agenda/classici-fuori-mostra-performance)
3. [Performance: in search of the locations for the Mick Jagger classic, 50 years later, BFI](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/performance-locations-mick-jagger-nicolas-roeg-donald-cammell)
4. [Performance, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/performance)
5. [Performance, Cineuropa](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/401176/)
6. [Performance (1970), The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/films/30003-performance)
7. [Performance, Movie Info Archive, phase9](https://moviearchive.phase9.tv/movies/performance.shtml)
8. [Performance Reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/performance/)
9. [Performance, Film Briefs](https://film.briefs.cloud/performance/)
10. [L'altro e lo stesso sulle scene di Performance (1968), DOAJ](https://doaj.org/article/2be35831c5cd4457a3baf19526e2ad31)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 1970s films*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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