31 Films That Give Me the Willies

by Kimberly Lindbergs | October 14, 2007

Categories | News, Horror, Mario Bava, Pupi Avati, Lucio Fulci, Roger Vadim, Nicolas Roeg

Top: House with Laughing Windows (1976), Deep Red (1975)
Middle: The Seventh Victim (1942)
Bottom: Black Sabbath (1963), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

I wasn’t going to participate in Ed Hardy’s 31 Flicks That Give You the Willies List due to suffering massive list-making burnout following the recent Favorite Foreign Language Film poll (which I still want to write about in more detail), but at the last minute I decided to send him a list of nominees. As I’ve mentioned before, horror is far and away my favorite film genre so I had an incredibly hard time narrowing down my list of favorite films to a mere 31.

I will confess that I cheated a bit since I deliberately left off any film that I knew had already gotten 3 votes and wouldn’t need mine to make the final list of nominees. Some of those films included Suspiria (1977), Martin (1977), The Wicker Man (1973), Dellamorte Dellamore aka Cemetery Man (1994), The Shining (1980), The Exorcist (1973), Psycho (1960) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). With that confession out of the way, here is my own list of…

31 FILMS THAT GIVE ME THE WILLIES (Listed by release date)

1. Frankenstein (1931; James Whale)
2. The Seventh Victim (1942; Mark Robson)
3. The Uninvited (1944; Lewis Allen)
4. Night of the Demon (1957; Jacques Tourner)
5. Blood and Roses (1960; Roger Vadim)
6. The Brides of Dracula (1960; Terence Fisher)
7. The Innocents (1961; Jack Clayton)
8. Night Tide (1961; Curtis Harrington)
9. Carnival of Souls (1962; Herk Harvey)
10. The Haunted Palace (1963; Roger Corman)
11. Black Sabbath (1963; Mario Bava)
12. The Haunting (1963; Robert Wise)
13. Castle of Blood (1964; Antonio Margheriti)
14. Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971; Piers Haggard)
15. Daughters of Darkness (1971; Harry Kumel)
16. Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971; Lucio Fulci)
17. Short Night of the Glass Dolls (1971; Aldo Lado)
18. Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971; Armando de Ossorio)
19. All the Colors of the Dark (1972; Sergio Martino)
20. Don’t Look Now (1973; Nicolas Roeg)
21. Deep Red (1975; Dario Argento)
22. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975; Peter Weir)
23. The Tenant (1976; Roman Polanski)
24. House with Laughing Windows (1976; Pupi Avati)
25. Full Circle (akak The Haunting of Julia, 1977; Richard Loncraine)
26. The Brood (1979; David Cronenberg)
27. Possession (1981; Andrzej Zulawski)
28. Zeder (1983; Pupi Avati)
29. The Reflecting Skin (1990; Philip Ridley)
30. Cure (1997; Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
31. Audition (1999; Takashi Miike)

After sending Ed my list I was surprised and annoyed with myself since I managed to forget to include Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960) and lots of early Japanese and Spanish horror films that I love. I also neglected to include any films with Peter Lorre, Christopher Lee and Klaus Kinski, who have all appeared in some of my favorite thrillers. Where did my head go?

Some conclusions I came to after making my list:

1. Sexually repressed women, ghosts, the supernatural, vampires and devil worshipers/cults give me the willies. Since I’m not a religious person, I find it extremely amusing that so many satanic horror films made my list, but I think it’s more about the esoteric elements of these films and the constant mystery of the unknown then the actual “devil” that give these types of movies their edge.

2. Only four American born directors made my list. British and Italian directors dominate it. This isn’t a surprise since I really don’t care for American horror films all that much.

3. 1960 and 1971 were truly the most amazing years for horror cinema in my humble opinion. At some point during the list making process I had six or eight films from each of those years on my list.

4. The only director that has more than one film on my list is the greatly under-appreciated Italian director Pupi Avati who I think makes some of the most fascinating and chilling films I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately I’m clearly in the minority since none of his movies made it on the final list of 180 Nominees and as far as I know, I’m the only person who nominated any of his films for inclusion.

Last but not least…

I plan to write about some of the lessor seen films mentioned above that didn’t make the Official Nominee List in the coming days.

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James Fox - Subverting Sexual Identity & Social Class in British Cinema

by Kimberly Lindbergs | February 20, 2007

Categories | Actors, British Cinema, Dirk Bogarde, James Fox, Donald Cammell, Nicolas Roeg, Joseph Losey, Gay Interest

Young James Fox in 1950 and an older James Fox in 1968

THE EARLY YEARS

When critics discuss the movies James Fox starred in during the ’60s and early ’70s, his costars often seem to overshadow him. This is somewhat understandable since Fox’s greatest films from that period feature amazing talents from the decade such as actor Dirk Bogarde and musician Mick Jagger, but James Fox is an extremely talented actor who possessed the uncanny ability to brilliantly portray young men of various backgrounds wrestling with their sexual identity and social class as the sexual revolution of the ’60s was still taking shape.

James Fox was born William Fox in London in 1939 to an upper class British family and he started acting when he was a just a child. His father Robin Fox was a theatrical agent and his mother Angela Fox was an actress who gave birth to two other sons, the talented actor Edward Fox and producer Robert Fox. Out of the three Fox children it seems that William, who was the middle child, was the only one who started his career in show business at such a young age.

His first film role appears to have been Toby Miniver in the British WW2 drama The Miniver Story (1950) which was a follow-up film to the Oscar winning classic Mrs. Miniver. Fox was only about 10 years old at the time that he made The Miniver Story, but his performance must have been memorable because he soon began to act in other films like The Magnet (1950).

Fox took a 10 year break from acting in 1952 to focus on his education, but he changed his name to James and returned to acting again in 1962, and what a return it was! James Fox showed incredible versatility as a young actor who was able to deliver exceptional performances in gritty British dramas like The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) as well as lighthearted comedies like Tamahine (1963).

In 1963 James Fox really got to show off his acting chops after taking a starring role in the critically acclaimed dark drama, The Servant (1963) directed by Joseph Losey. Fox was only 24 years old at the time that The Servant was made, but his performance in this pivotal film is incredibly impressive and it’s a role that would shape his career for the rest of the ’60s.

SUBVERTING SEXUAL IDENTITY & SOCIAL CLASS IN BRITISH CINEMA

In The Servant James Fox stars as the handsome, carefree and hard-drinking British aristocrat Tony, who has just bought a new home in London and hires a man servant named Hugo (Dirk Bogarde) to care and cook for him. The relationship between Tony and Hugo becomes more and more complicated as the film progresses. There are class differences between the two men as well as an underlying sexual tension that threatens to surface throughout the entire film. Their blossoming friendship is tested when Tony’s ill-mannered girlfriend Susan (Wendy Craig) seems to become annoyed as well as jealous of Hugo, while Hugo seems equally annoyed and jealous of Susan. Susan finally asks Tony to get rid of Hugo, but he refuses. Soon after Hugo hires his “sister” Vera (Sara Miles) to help clean and care for Tony. At first Tony seems extremely disinterested in Vera, but Hugo finds various ways to force them together. When Tony finally decides to consummate his relationship with Vera it’s nearly impossible to not wonder if Tony was only attracted to Vera because he thought she was Hugo’s sister. If Vera was just any girl, would he pay her much attention? After Tony discovers the truth about Vera he fires them both, but soon afterward Tony hires Hugo again.

Together Hugo and Tony resume playing house together and act more like an old married couple than master and servant. This facade hides the fact that Hugo wants Tony’s privileges and wealth, and Tony seems to desperately want Hugo’s acceptance and companionship. Hugo begins using his powers of persuasion over Tony, and soon Tony becomes a prisoner in his own home; trapped by Hugo’s domineering personality as well as his own reliance on alcohol. As their relationship becomes more and more codependent a simple game of hide & seek between the two men suddenly becomes something much more sinister and subversive. A complex struggle for power and class hierarchy, as well as sexual domination seems to be taking place between them as Hugo taunts Tony with veiled threats of, “You’ve got a guilty secret!” while Tony hides like a petrified child terrified of incomprehensible demons he is unwilling to face.

James Fox is absolutely astonishing in the complex role of Tony and he brings a lot of depth to a role that could have easily become something mundane in another actor’s hands. His emotional performance makes Tony’s downfall at the end of the film all the more painful to watch. Fox received the 1964 BAFTA Award (British Academy of Film and Television Art) for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles for his outstanding performance in The Servant.

James Fox & Dirk Bogarde in The Servant

After his demanding role in The Servant, James Fox showed his versatility once again by taking on the role of a British pilot in the fun filled action packed comedy Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), but later that same year he returned again to dramatic roles in director Bryan Forbes’s King Rat (1965), a hard-hitting prisoner of war story.

In King Rat James Fox plays a British Royal Air Force Officer named Peter Marlowe who’s trapped in a Malaysian prisoner-of-war camp run by the Japanese during WW2. In the film Peter or “Pete” is taken under the wing of an American Corporal called “King” (George Segal) after he spots Peter conversing with locals and speaking Malay. King thinks Peter could be useful to him, so he gives him some cigarettes and a meal with the hope that Peter will join his motley crew of con-artists who are running the camp almost as much as the Japanese soldiers are. Soon the British Officer Peter is being ordered around by the low ranking Corporal King. It’s easy to simply view King Rat as a brutal WW2 buddy movie or prison film about men trying to survive anyway they can in terrible circumstances, which it is. But underlying that is the complex relationship between Peter and King, which is at the center of King Rat and seems to transform the film into something much more sublime.

James Fox gives a pitch-perfect performance as the educated British Officer Peter Marlowe. Peter easily stands out among the dirty prisoners with his good manners, easy-going attitude, bright blond hair and clean-shaven face as he wanders around the camp wearing a sarong-style skirt and sandals. The rest of the prisoners seem extremely rugged, desperate and plain ugly in comparison. Throughout the film Peter develops a relationship with King that is clearly much deeper then the relationships the two men share with the other prisoners. It’s obvious that Peter admires King’s bravado as well as his ability to survive and thrive under such dire circumstances, while King clearly admires Peter’s class and dignity in a situation that has turned other men into monsters or “rats.” Peter and King are an odd pair but their bond seems genuine until the war comes to an unexpected end. When they’re finally rescued from the prisoner-of-war camp Peter finds himself in a highly emotional and codependent relationship with King and he seems unaware of how to behave as a free man in a free world. King on the other hand is upset about his sudden freedom because it means he will loose control of his “kingdom” and be forced to return to civilian life.

When Peter confronts King in a fit of desperation at the end of King Rat and asks, “Don’t you remember what we had?” it brings deeper meaning to the relationship between these two men of different backgrounds, class and rank. At the end of the film, Peter runs through the camp in a desperate attempt to see King one last time before he leaves with his American comrades, but Peter never gets to say goodbye. The silent and stoic pain James Fox manages to manifest for his role after his character realizes that he probably won’t ever see King ever again is hard to watch. Peter’s identity, much like Tony’s in The Servant, seems to have been shaped by his own disregard of social class within the confines of the prison camp, as well as his deep emotional attachment to another man. At the end of King Rat James Fox is left adrift once again, unsure of his place in the world and where he stands.

James Fox & George Segal in King Rat

After a small but memorable role in the interesting dramatic film The Chase (1966), James Fox returned to lighthearted roles in comedies like Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) and Arabella (1967), until taking on the role of Chas in Performance (filmed in 1968, but not released until 1970) where Fox would once again play a man struggling with his social conditioning as well as his sexual identity.

THE END OF A DECADE

As the 1960s were coming to a close, James Fox was becoming a major British film star. He was also indulging in the excesses of the decade such as alcohol and drugs, long before he took the role of Chas Devlin in Performance (1968/1970).

Fox had met Performance co-director Donald Cammell on the set of the crime film Duffy (1968), which they both worked on. James Fox had also become friendly with Mick Jagger who he had met backstage at a Rolling Stones concert in Rome in 1967. Fox’s friendships with Cammel & Jagger seem to be the initial reason why he was considered for the role of Chas in Performance.

Before Performance Fox had mostly played refined upper class British gentlemen, but it’s also obvious that in previous roles Fox had played characters who were in some ways redefining class roles in British society as well as re-examining their sexual identity. I think Donald Cammell probably saw a little of these qualities in Fox’s previous film’s too, which would have made James Fox rather perfect for the complex role of Chas Devlin in Performance even if it’s been reported that Marlon Brando was the director’s first choice for the role.

To prepare for his role Fox moved to South London and immersed himself in British gangster life for 2-3 months before filming started. He also worked directly with the dialogue coach David Litvinoff who had come in contact with British criminals and knew the notorious Kray twins firsthand. Litvinoff offered Fox an insider’s look into the British gangster lifestyle that would lend his character, as well as the film, a grittiness that previous British crime films often seemed to lack.

In Performance Fox plays the sadistic British gangster Chas Devlin who “performs” violent acts of terror for his boss Harry Flowers. When Chas finds himself on the run after killing a childhood friend and fellow criminal, he ends up hiding out at the home of an androgynous ex-pop star named Turner (Mick Jagger) who was also a “performer” once and Turner’s lovers, the beautiful and fun-loving Pherber (Anita Pallenberg) and the boyishly cute Lucy (Michèle Breton). Turner’s home is a little too bohemian for the seemingly conservative Chas, but he manages to forget about his hang-ups when Pherber feeds him some psychedelic mushrooms. While Chas tries to figure out why he’s suddenly feeling so odd, Turner and Pherber have fun playing mind games with him. In the process Chas finds himself questioning his sexual identity and the role he has carved out for himself in the brutal crime world he inhabits outside of Turner’s home. As the film comes to it’s violent conclusion, Chas’ feelings for Turner take a complex turn and he seems to loose himself completely as he and Turner merge into one “performer.” Much like his character Tony in The Servant as well as Peter in King Rat, at the end of the film Fox’s Chas is left with his identity in tatters but this time his transformation is so complete that the audience no longer recognizes him.

Fox is utterly brilliant as Chas. He brings so many subtle character quirks to his role that they’re hard to notice at first glance but Fox knows that a simple twitch of the eye or a bite of the lip can bring a character to life in ways that are barely noticeable and extremely powerful. James Fox becomes Chas Devlin so completely that it’s hard to know where his own performance begins and ends.

James Fox & Mick Jagger in Performance

Unfortunately for film audiences, Performance would be the last movie James Fox would make until his return to acting in the late 1970s. After the filming of Performance ended Fox suffered a breakdown brought on by the sad death of his father and his heavy drug use. When Fox finally recovered he didn’t want anything to do with acting anymore and devoted himself entirely to religious studies for 10 years.

It’s been rumored that his breakdown was caused by his experiences on the set of Performance, but Fox had started to use drugs before shooting the movie and he had also openly expressed interest in studying scripture before filming began. It seems he was going through a lot of personal turbulence in the late sixties and in his biography Comeback: An Actor’s Direction (1983) Fox writes that before filming Performance he was, “Not only in a guilty muddle about drugs, but my sexual imagination was also in complete turmoil.” It’s no wonder that he brought so much realism to characters such as Chas.

Thankfully James Fox seems to have sorted himself out after his 10 year sabbatical and he returned to acting regularly in the 1980s. Within the past 25 years he’s shown that he’s still capable of taking on complex roles in films that examine sexual identity and class structure. Some interesting examples of this include his role as the gay British spy Anthony Blunt in A Question of Attribution (1992) and his role as the British aristocrat Lord Darlington in The Remains of the Day (1993). Hopefully we’ll continue to see more interesting and daring performances from James Fox in the future.

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Performance VHS vs. DVD

by Kimberly Lindbergs | February 14, 2007

Categories | Movie Reviews, British Cinema, James Fox, Donald Cammell, Nicolas Roeg

Since I recently watched my 1985 Warner video of Performance as well as the new Warner DVD last night, I thought I’d share my first impressions and compare the new DVD to my old VHS tape. My 1985 video is the same print I saw playing in theaters in the early 1980s and I’m going to assume that it’s probably the same version of the film that most people have seen.

First of all, the new DVD looks great and the widescreen print is beautiful. The image quality is definitely an improvement! Most scenes in the film look a lot brighter so you can make them out better. My video is really dark and the film always looked really dark when I saw it in theaters. I was also happy to see that the voices of the mob boss Harry Flowers (Johnny Shannon) and the little girl Lorraine (Laraine Wickens) are no longer dubbed and sound a lot better now. On the other hand, it seems that Warner must have decided to remix the music or at least a song or two into the film since it doesn’t seem to flow as well as it does in the VHS version, but it does sound great. Tim Lucas pointed out one particularly glaring moment when Mick is singing “Memo From Turner” where there is now no audio for Mick saying “Here’s to Old England!” even though you can clearly see him mouthing the words in the film.

I was really disappointed to see that the Warner DVD was only one minute longer then my 1985 video. Supposedly - depending on what information you read - 15 to 20 minutes of footage is missing from the film. Where is it? From most accounts I’ve read or heard, this extra footage seems to mainly contain scenes between Turner (Mick Jagger) and Chas (James Fox) which may have showed them being more intimate including sharing an on screen kiss, as well as a more explicit sex scene between Turner, Pherber (Anita Pallenberg) and Lucy (Michèle Breton). Of course this is all speculation on my part at this point. Performance has so many myths & legends surrounding it that it’s a bit hard to separate fact from fiction. I guess we’ll never know unless Warner plans on digging up the old footage and releasing the DVD again in the future. I don’t think anyone knows for certain what footage has gone missing except the cast and crew of the film since I don’t believe a longer version of the movie with an additional 15-20 minutes of footage has ever been released to the general public.

As for the extra minute of footage that is on the DVD, you’ll find that it’s most obvious in the violent scene where Chas (James Fox) is beaten and then kills his childhood friend Joey (Anthony Valenti). The beating Chas gets from Joey and his band of thugs goes on much longer then it had previously and in turn we get to see more of his destroyed apartment as well as various torn photos on the ground and the word “POOF” (written on the wall in red paint) is shown more often. There is also a bit more dialogue between Joey, Chas and the other two thugs.

Joey’s death is also longer and in turn seems a bit more brutal. Chas even has a brief “flashback” (created with spliced footage from another film) to a childhood scene of little boys beating on one another, which is obviously supposed to represent Chas remembering his childhood relationship with Joey. The most interesting addition to the new print of the film available the DVD is the quick flash of what I assume to be Mick Jagger’s back in place of James Fox’s back as seen by one of Joey’s thugs when he’s is in the bathroom. This quick cut, which replaces Turner with Chas for only a brief moment early in the film, is so important to the narrative and flow of the movie that it seems like the worst omission from previous releases of Performance that I’ve seen. Last but not least, there are also brief flashes of various things throughout the whole first half of the movie that make it more clear that Harry Flowers and some of his gang seem to prefer boys over girls. * (please see additional comments below)

The extras on the DVD include a nice featurette called Influence and Controversy which has some of the cast and crew talking about making the film, but it’s a shame that Nicolas Roeg, Mick Jagger and James Fox didn’t participate. It also has an old short called Memo from Turner about Mick Jagger and the music of Performance which is really light on content, but a nice inclusion all the same. It’s a shame that Warner didn’t (or was not able to) include the 1998 documentary film about Donald Cammall called Donald Cammell: The Ultimate Performance. I haven’t seen it myself, but by all accounts it seems to have been really interesting and informative and it probably would have shed a lot of light on the film.

The latest DVD is a nice effort by Warner, but I hope we might see a more complete edition of the film released in the future.

* Flickhead was kind enough to let me know that these scenes were in the American theatrical print he saw and they were also in the version released to cable TV in America in the mid-1980s. This must mean that Warner released at least 2 different theaterical versions of the film in the US since the version I saw in the early 1980s (pre-1985) was the same one on my VHS tape (both were rated “R”). He also let me know that the black and white scene of the kids playing is from Carol Reed’s film Odd Man Out (1947).

There’s been a lot of great articles written about Performance over the years. Here’s some links to ones that I found online which were especially interesting:

Cinema Obscura: Ruminations on Donald Cammell & Nicolas Roeg and Performance by Ray Young

Donald Cammell: Shoot To Kill by Tom Dewe Matthews

Cast Into Darkness by Michael Holden

Cinema Sex Magick: The Films of Donald Cammell by Chris Chang

The Acid House by Rebekah Wood

Performance (Review) by Mike Sutton

The original trailer for Performance

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The British are Coming to DVD Feb. 13th!

by Kimberly Lindbergs | February 12, 2007

Categories | News, Rants & Raves, British Cinema, DVD of the Week, James Fox, Donald Cammell, Nicolas Roeg

My DVD pick of the week is the ground breaking British film Performance (originally filmed in 1968 and finally released in 1970) and an honorable mention must go to The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), which is another great British film finding it way onto DVD this week. Both movies are being released by Warner Home Video.

My 1985 VHS Tape . The New 2007 DVD
From the original text on my old Warner video:

Chas Devlin (James Fox) is a young man with a talent: in cold blood, he can scare you half to death. In British underworld terms, he’s a “performer” - a specialist in violent intimidation and a master of his craft, running errands of terror and doing the dirty work for a notorious racketeer.

Turner (Mick Jagger) is another kind of performer. A one-time rock-’n'-roll superstar, he has retired to a cavernous, crumbling house in a shabby London neighborhood. He lives with two beautiful women in dreamlike suspension, waiting for the universe to give him a sign. When Chas and Turner meet, their worlds collide - and the impact is both exotic and explosive.

Performance holds a very special place in my movie loving heart. Way back in 1985 when I was a rebellious young thing of 15 going on 16, Performance became the first movie I ever bought on video.

I grew up in a home with a black and white TV, and going to see a double feature at the local Drive-In on the weekends was a special event. When my family finally got a color TV in the late 1970s I was amazed by the thing, and when the video age arrived and we got a VCR in the mid-1980s, I was simply astonished. The ability to watch just about any movie at any time in the comfort of your own home totally blew my mind and frankly, it still does. In these current times of giant plasma TVs, DVDs and home computers where access to just about anything you can think of is only a mouse click away, 1985 seems like a lifetime ago.

Before buying the video version of Performance, I had already seen the film a few times in the early 1980s and owned the terrific soundtrack on vinyl. The movie would play as a midnight double feature in local theaters alongside other films starring pop stars and bands from the same era such as The Man Who Fell to Earth with David Bowie and The Who’s terrific musical Tommy. As much as I loved the the other movies mentioned, Performance really captivated my imagination and I fell in love with the film’s odd mix of gangster crime drama combined with rock musical. As a young teenage girl I was also deeply drawn to the ideas about sexual identity and androgyny that Performance explores. I wasn’t buying into the clear cut ideas about sex and identity that were being forced down my throat at school and society. Performance offered me other ideas which I eagerly absorbed. Around that same time I was also starting to experiment with drugs, so I’m sure the rather old-fashioned idea of psychedelics being used to “open my mind” probably fueled my interest in the movie as well. Last but certainly not least, I loved The Rolling Stones and like many girls and boys over the years I developed a mad crush on Mick’s Jagger’s androgynous character in the film.

Performance managed to become my favorite movie by the time I was 15 so when I found myself at a local video store in the mid ’80s and overheard the owner explaining to another customer how he could order any movie for them on video if it was available, I immediately asked him if he could get a movie called Performance for me. He pulled out some big catalogs and after about 10 minutes of looking through them he told me yes. It had just become available from Warner Home Video but it would cost me around $65. The amount was enormous at the time, but the idea of owning a movie that I loved which I could now watch over and over again seemed priceless to me so I had him order it on the spot. I spent the next few weeks eagerly awaiting its arrival while I scraped together all the extra money I could to pay for the video by doing odd jobs around the house and breaking open my piggy bank.

When I got the call that my Performance video had finally arrived I can remember begging my mom to drive me to the video store so I could pick it up and I walked to the counter with exactly $65 in my hand. The man hadn’t mentioned the word “tax” to me when I ordered the video so when the total came to about $68.03, I had to run outside and ask my mom to lend me $3 to cover the cost. She got a bit pissed and said something like, “I really hope this movie is worth all the fuss and money!”

Thankfully I grew up with very liberal parents so when I got back in the car and showed my mom the X Rated VHS tape that I had just spent weeks waiting for (Rated R for the 1985 Warner video release), she didn’t bat an eye. As a matter of fact she didn’t care at all what movie it was and I don’t believe she ever bothered to watch it herself since she was a Beatles fan who thought the Stones were a bit too “grungy”, but it seemed to make her happy that I was so thrilled about buying my first movie on video.

It’s some 22 years later and I still own that Warner video that I first purchased back in 1985. Warner must be congratulated for making a video tape that could stand up to numerous viewings over 22 years. I’ve watched Performance countless times and even watched it again last night. I now appreciate many things about the film that I didn’t really notice much back in 1985 such as Nicolas Roeg’s intimate photography and the brilliant acting of James Fox who I now “crush on” just as much as Mick Jagger. In some ways Performance has become more then just another one of my favorite movies. It’s become a film that I often compare all others too. It changed the way I see movies as well as the world around me, and it has shaped my love for cinema.

Part of me is really excited about the DVD release of Performance and I can’t wait to see it. I’m sure the movie will look 5x better then it does on my old video tape and I’m looking forward to seeing any additional footage which may have been restored, but I’m also feeling a little nostalgic about replacing my old video tape with a brand new DVD. I think I’ll be keeping both copies of the movie for reference as well as for the memories that the old Warner video conjures up in my movie-loving mind.

I hope to share a few more thoughts about Performance as the week progresses so don’t be surprised if this week Cinebeats becomes somewhat of an ongoing tribute to the first movie I ever bought for myself.

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