By JAY GLENNIE (Coattail Publications; 2018)
One of five handsomely designed hardcovers by the UK’s Jay Glennie, who in a short period appears to have become the premiere chronicler of what occurred behind the scenes of our favorite movies (including TRAINSPOTTING, THE DEER HUNTER, RAGING BULL and ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD). The subject here is PERFORMANCE (1970), the alternately praised and reviled debut of Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, a film whose brutal, kaleidoscopic and altogether bizarre depiction of gangsters and rock stars in Swinging London remains unique.
This book, intended to coincide with the film’s 50th anniversary (but actually appearing two years in advance), followed several other books about PERFORMANCE, and stands out due to its author’s no-nonsense approach. It’s not a “biography” of the film (as Paul Buck’s 2012 tome on PERFORMANCE purported to be), nor an alphabetized guidebook (the form taken by Mick Brown’s 1999 publication PERFORMANCE: THE ULTIMATE A-Z), offering just what the title promises: the making of a classic.
As in his other books, Glennie constructs his narrative from extensive interviews with the film’s main players, who in PERFORMANCE consisted of James Fox, Mick Jagger and Anita Pallenberg (the girlfriend of Jagger’s bandmate Keith Richards). Cammell, who committed suicide in 1996, obviously wasn’t available to be interviewed, but Roeg (who in general spoke very little about PERFORMANCE) was, as were many of the crewmembers and supporting players.
The ups and downs of the production, which included a debauched set that mirrored the onscreen shenanigans and heavy post-production editing by Warner Bros., are well known, but Glennie’s treatment is lively and authoritative (if lessened somewhat by the fact that the participants are so old their recollections are suspect). Revelations include quite a few negatives about Cammell, who as recalled here was a sexist egomaniac, and the true nature of his collaboration with Roeg, which was apparently more harmonious than is generally claimed, with only Mick Jagger appearing to disagree—speaking of Jagger, he was apparently not playing himself in the film, as has been widely assumed.
One complaint I’ll make about this book is the unconscionable amount of typos and mistakes (the name David Cammell, for starters, is often used interchangeably with that of his brother Donald), which didn’t ruin the reading experience, but did make me wish that Glennie and Steve Wilkin, who run Coattail Publications, had hired a better proofreader.