American Cinematographer - November 1998 - 122

WRAP SHOT
trapped in a cave filled with flying bats."
By this time, Roeg had already
established himself as a uniquely
talented

cameraman

included

Roger Corman's77?e Masque of

the Red Death,

with

a resume

that

Francois Truffaut's

Fahrenheit 451, John Schlesinger's Far
from the Madding Crowd and Richard
Lester's Petunia. Nevertheless, Warner
Brothers executives found Performance's
radical visuals

-

nonlinear narrative

not to mention its

perplexing that
held up for
nearly two years after its completion
while the powers-that-be re-edited the
picture.
Roeg also did double duty on
-

so

its theatrical distribution

was

another 1970 release, Walkabout, a tale
of two children lost in the lusciously

photographed Australian outback. Soon

Above: Devlin

(James Fox)
finds himself

submitting to
the seductive
wiles of
Pherber (Anita

Pallenberg).
Right: Turner
(Mick Jagger)
dashes off
musical

a

memo.

"Do you

Notting Hill district.

1970 film Performance, a bizarre excur¬

seeks sanctuary in a basement flat
owned by washed-up pop icon Turner

know who you are?" is the query
repeatedly posed to seemingly macho
gangster Chas Devlin (James Fox) in the
sion to

There, the beleaguered thug

Swinging London which was co¬
by Donald Cammell and
Nicholas Roeg, BSC. Roeg doubled as
director of photography to lend the
picture its amazing array of trippy Techni¬
color images.
A distant cousin to Michelangelo
Antonioni's Blow-Up(1966), Performance

(played with amoral gusto by Rolling
Stone frontman Mick Jagger, right), a fey
androgyne coping with the loss of his
creative muse by indulging in a sordid

tracks Devlin's descent from London's

friend of

directed

seedy criminal scene into a Dionysian
netherworld populated by rock 'n' roll
hedonists. The sadistic Devlin is

"performer"

British mob lingo for an
day he takes his love
job just a bit too far. Shirking the
-

enforcer-but
of the

a

one

orders of bookie boss Harry Flowers
(John Shannon), Devlin murders a rival

racketeer and former friend. On the lam
from

the coppers and his corrupt
colleagues, Devlin flees to the funky

120 November 1998

sabbatical of
In the

sex

and substance abuse.

larger frame shown above, Devlin

gets the night-nurse treatment from
Pherber (Anita

Pallenberg, then the girl¬
Rolling Stone guitarist Keith
Richards), who, along with French waif
Lucy (Michele Breton) participates in the
film's madcap menage a quatre.
After Pherber garnishes Devlin's
dinner with a magic mushroom, Roeg
lets loose with some truly abstract
images. His deft mix of psychedelic hues,
quick cuts, shallow focus, superimposed
shots and quease-inducing zooms led
one reviewer to remark, "Witnessing
Roeg's unruly visual style is like being

after, he helmed two more adventurous
efforts, Don't Look Now and The Man
Who Fell to Earth. The latter film, a sci-fi
allegory about alienation, starred
pansexual poster boy David Bowie,
whose onstage antics as glam-rocker

Ziggy Stardust would, along with Perfor¬
mance,
eventually influence Todd
Haynes's Velvet Goldmine (see feature
story on page 30).
Andrew 0. Thompson
-
American Cinematographer - November 1998

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