Performance (film)

Performance (1970) is a British film directed by Donald Cammell and Nicholas Roeg.

Influence

When Performance was released, several aspects of the film were extremely innovative, and historically it can be seen as a precursor to MTV type music videos and many popular movies of the 1990s and 2000s.

Related Topics:
MTV - Music videos - 1990s - 2000s

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• Performance was the first feature film to employ the cut-up technique. Directors Cammell and Roeg also went on to use this technique in their following movies, much before it become commonplace in popular cinema.
• Although it appears as a scene in a feature movie, "Memo from Turner" segment of Performance may be the first rock video in history as the visuals precede Music Television by 15 years.
• The gangster aspect of Performance has been imitated by many popular directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie, Jonathan Glazer and more.
• Performance pushed boundaries by featuring extremely explict sex scenes and use of drugs, both which have been rumoured to be real instead of simulated. Although Andy Warhol's (and other underground filmmaker's) films had featured such behaviour before Performance, it was unheard that such things appeared in a major studio production.