Wringing the ethos out of the vestige of beatnik and swinging 60s, Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's hallucinogenic cult film PERFORMANCE (which marks both filmmakers’ directorial feature debut), was made in 1968 but mothballed by the studio for two years due to its obscene sexual contents and explicit violence.
For a new audience, it is fairly natural to get dumbfounded by the film’s frenetic editing of montages from the very start, amalgamating graphic sex sequences between our protagonist Chas (Fox) and his casual bedmate Dana (Sidney) with manifold clumps of irrelevant scenes which later rig up a flimsy narrative, it is a sharp, disorientating gambit, but seems too divisive by half (it is a post-production last resort to mitigate the smutty images at the expense of its own impetus and coherence as a dauntless cause célèbre by this reviewer’s lights).
Chaz is an aggro-prone tearaway working for the gang of Harry Flowers (a corn-fed Johnny Shannon), but before long he needs to lie low after rubbing out an attacker of bad blood out of self-defense, since Harry wants him vanish as well. So he hangs his hat in the basement of a decrepitresidence owned by a former rock star Turner (Mick Jagger’s acting debut), who has lost his demon in what he does and secludes himself from the outside world, co-habits with his lover Pherber (the late Pallenberg, a là Warhol’s Factory Girl) and a young French girl Lucy (a tomboyish Breton), the equilibrium of their boho ménage-à-trois will dutifully be ruffled (not exactly challenged as we tend to surmise judging by its cover) by Chaz, an unbidden outsider under the pseudonym of Johnny Dean.
The premise sounds promising for making a heavy weather of the underlying discrepancy/assimilation between two male ids: Chaz’s macho/gangsta make-up and Turner’s androgynous and lackadaisical stagnation, but in reality, however visually psychedelic the film looks (Dutch angles, a distorted God’s viewpoint shot, mesmeric mirror images, that creepy identity-shifting moment in the end, just to name a few), the fundamentals are only scratched skin-deep, often to one’s aggravation, instead, it evolves into a dashing and dazing shindig of excesses (nudity rather than sex)and a madcap platform for Turner/Jagger’s superstar glamour (who performs the theme song MEMO FROM TURNER in the MTV style, avant la lettre).
Notorious for its under-the-influence verité carried out during the filmmaking (there is literal acid involved in the plot where Chaz and co. terrorizing a hapless chauffeur), PERFORMANCE ultimately comes off as a short-range stunner and an experimental novelty which cannot elevate its own perversity and subversion into something significantly revolutionary and groundbreaking, although James Fox is arguably in his most absorbing and ambiguously sensual form here. At odds with the state of those participated, PERFORMANCE is more stultifying than stupefying from the POV of a first-time viewer in the 21st century, that ship has long sailed, save for its skirling soundtrack, operatively transmitting those signs of bygone times into one’s nostalgic delirium.
referential points: Nicolas Roeg’s BAD TIMING (1980, 7.5/10), DON’T LOOK NOW (1973, 8.3/10); Joseph Losey’s THE SERVANT (1963, 8.3/10).
这部电影中别出心裁的部分成功吗？我们必须弄清立场：它们不成功。这警示着我们现在的别出心裁在五十年后看上去可能的样子。全心全意支持罗伊格电影的人必然是做作的人。然而这部电影坏吗？它不坏：其中不好的部分[2]，可以想象，如果我们在片场就能凭着当代眼光轻易地修正。然而即使是这样剩下来的东西，也渗透着不合时宜、局促而仿佛难堪的做作。显然这有其吸引人之处：这像是一套室内游戏（a set of indoor games），作为剪辑、混音成品的电影仅仅是某种围绕着它被悬空的神秘结果（以及愉悦）所附带的纪念品，而某种回放般的难堪[3]（和上文一样是主动态，并非“令人难堪”）是它的签名。另外：题目好。林奇元素：开头Chaz背上的小伤痕和结尾有关系吗？注意最后不是一次置换，更像一次渗入。我总觉得Lucie虽然可爱但临近结尾的感情非常无趣，并且那天晚上和Chaz在一起的完全应该是Turner；不过也许1968-70年的发行商不会允许这样。
Wringing the ethos out of the vestige of beatnik and swinging 60s, Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's hallucinogenic cult film PERFORMANCE (which marks both filmmakers’ directorial feature debut), was made in 1968 but mothballed by the studio for two years due to its obscene sexual contents and explicit violence.
For a new audience, it is fairly natural to get dumbfounded by the film’s frenetic editing of montages from the very start, amalgamating graphic sex sequences between our protagonist Chas (Fox) and his casual bedmate Dana (Sidney) with manifold clumps of irrelevant scenes which later rig up a flimsy narrative, it is a sharp, disorientating gambit, but seems too divisive by half (it is a post-production last resort to mitigate the smutty images at the expense of its own impetus and coherence as a dauntless cause célèbre by this reviewer’s lights).
Chaz is an aggro-prone tearaway working for the gang of Harry Flowers (a corn-fed Johnny Shannon), but before long he needs to lie low after rubbing out an attacker of bad blood out of self-defense, since Harry wants him vanish as well. So he hangs his hat in the basement of a decrepitresidence owned by a former rock star Turner (Mick Jagger’s acting debut), who has lost his demon in what he does and secludes himself from the outside world, co-habits with his lover Pherber (the late Pallenberg, a là Warhol’s Factory Girl) and a young French girl Lucy (a tomboyish Breton), the equilibrium of their boho ménage-à-trois will dutifully be ruffled (not exactly challenged as we tend to surmise judging by its cover) by Chaz, an unbidden outsider under the pseudonym of Johnny Dean.
The premise sounds promising for making a heavy weather of the underlying discrepancy/assimilation between two male ids: Chaz’s macho/gangsta make-up and Turner’s androgynous and lackadaisical stagnation, but in reality, however visually psychedelic the film looks (Dutch angles, a distorted God’s viewpoint shot, mesmeric mirror images, that creepy identity-shifting moment in the end, just to name a few), the fundamentals are only scratched skin-deep, often to one’s aggravation, instead, it evolves into a dashing and dazing shindig of excesses (nudity rather than sex)and a madcap platform for Turner/Jagger’s superstar glamour (who performs the theme song MEMO FROM TURNER in the MTV style, avant la lettre).
Notorious for its under-the-influence verité carried out during the filmmaking (there is literal acid involved in the plot where Chaz and co. terrorizing a hapless chauffeur), PERFORMANCE ultimately comes off as a short-range stunner and an experimental novelty which cannot elevate its own perversity and subversion into something significantly revolutionary and groundbreaking, although James Fox is arguably in his most absorbing and ambiguously sensual form here. At odds with the state of those participated, PERFORMANCE is more stultifying than stupefying from the POV of a first-time viewer in the 21st century, that ship has long sailed, save for its skirling soundtrack, operatively transmitting those signs of bygone times into one’s nostalgic delirium.
referential points: Nicolas Roeg’s BAD TIMING (1980, 7.5/10), DON’T LOOK NOW (1973, 8.3/10); Joseph Losey’s THE SERVANT (1963, 8.3/10).
第十章 意识形态-同性恋解放：
【缘起】来自20世纪60年代许多革命性团体的启发：女性主义、黑人解放运动。这之后同性恋主题电影逐渐普遍，尤其是美国和欧洲。部分愿意你是因为好莱坞工业界的制作法规被新的分级制度取代而废除，这类同性恋电影都把同性恋视为歇斯底里、性执迷和自我鄙夷的角色，结尾常不外乎是自杀。当然，也有如《热天午后》、《歌厅》、《另一家园》、《血腥的星期天》、《 我美丽的洗衣店》、《上班女郎》、《 迷幻演出》、《一笼傻鸟》、《蒙娜丽莎》、《长久伴侣》和《费城故事》等片。此外，法斯宾德和阿莫多瓦的电影对同性恋角色有多层次塑造。
①故事：黑帮成员男主在一次帮派争斗中杀了个与自己有过节的同帮派人（电影前30分钟）。为了逃避自己黑帮老大追杀，他一方面化名，进入一个地下室暂时躲藏，并在这里和一男两女体验了一系列波西米亚式生活（电影后面部分的大多数内容都是关于这些波希米亚式生活）；另一方面他联系朋友，请求他帮忙弄一个美国护照从而让他逃离美国。然而在见面交接美国护照这天，他朋友却只带来了追杀他的黑帮老大一行人，于是他只能束手被捕。
②电影充满了致幻迷离的气氛，营造这种气氛的视听手法包括但不限于：随意跳跃时空，并且并不像如《去年在马里昂巴德》那样用旁白/配乐/各种手法来串联起时空，而是任由他们支离破裂（换句话说，就是转场肆意跳跃，不说明时间是往前还是往后，也不去维持不同时空的连贯性，只是单纯的转场到另一个location）、奇异的交叉剪辑（开头的性爱+黑帮开车、男主洗手+一个人用垃圾桶砸商店、男主被鞭打+做爱+黑白照片+墙上的血、给墙喷油漆+男主在车里染头发）、颜色的突然变化（“一群人一开始在法庭，颜色变换后变成了在电影院”那段）、男主开枪打死人那段（以男主脸为焦点zoom out+子弹出膛后的闪光灯+被击中的人所处的画面全部变红）、后半段室内营造妖艳迷离感的调色（比如红色布景和衣服、昏黄光线、绿色打光【如红发男主第一次室内和那金发女性聊天】）、镜子本身的梦幻质感（如男主戴上假发后各种照镜子）和营造雌雄同体感（具体段落是金发女子和戴假发的男主上床时，以镜子反射一个人的身体部位，并用镜子遮住另一个人相应的身体部分，从而表现雌雄同体的感觉。营造这种雌雄同体的原理就是将镜子反射的东西与另一个东西契合地并置。这种雌雄同体感本身也是一种充满了致幻感的感觉）、多重角度抓取（比如影片最后男主准备打死地下室的那个男性时摄影机用不同的机位把子弹上膛拍了三遍）、子弹射入人体后的子弹主观视点镜头，通过最终穿透画面来转场（即影片最后男主打死地下室的那个男性的那段）。
③罗杰.伊伯特说的有一点我比较同意，这个电影的前30分钟的pacing（或者说画面切换的速度）有点太快了，导致影像的情绪冲击力没有被充分释放。不是只有快节奏才能产生致幻感。
清晰的三幕结构。第一幕由标准的罗伊格卷积构成——我不知道人们为什么喜欢称其为“意识流”，也许他们对“意识”有一种元层次的理解——并花哨、极富间离效果（我指的是难看程度）地介绍了故事背景：说实话，片头字幕应该在Chas看到81号的瞬间之后才出来；第二幕像是迈克尔·鲍威尔[1]执导的保罗· 奥斯特小说；第三幕（连接点微妙地不平衡、太轻柔以至于突兀）像是嗑药不够多的卢·里德改编的大卫·林奇仙境。
这部电影中别出心裁的部分成功吗？我们必须弄清立场：它们不成功。这警示着我们现在的别出心裁在五十年后看上去可能的样子。全心全意支持罗伊格电影的人必然是做作的人。然而这部电影坏吗？它不坏：其中不好的部分[2]，可以想象，如果我们在片场就能凭着当代眼光轻易地修正。然而即使是这样剩下来的东西，也渗透着不合时宜、局促而仿佛难堪的做作。显然这有其吸引人之处：这像是一套室内游戏（a set of indoor games），作为剪辑、混音成品的电影仅仅是某种围绕着它被悬空的神秘结果（以及愉悦）所附带的纪念品，而某种回放般的难堪[3]（和上文一样是主动态，并非“令人难堪”）是它的签名。另外：题目好。林奇元素：开头Chaz背上的小伤痕和结尾有关系吗？注意最后不是一次置换，更像一次渗入。我总觉得Lucie虽然可爱但临近结尾的感情非常无趣，并且那天晚上和Chaz在一起的完全应该是Turner；不过也许1968-70年的发行商不会允许这样。
原创配乐只用一架钢琴，好。Henry Flowers的《尤利西斯》梗优于所有笨拙的博尔赫斯生搬硬套。
B/B+
[1] 主角，我指的是拍主角的镜头，充满了《偷窥狂》气质。
[2] 巴洛克枪杀以及幻想说唱：举两个明显的例子。
[3] 这也会伴随着如今的音乐视频（罗伊格看上去是其一大模仿对象）存在吗？