Mick Jagger is actually better known as the singer of the legendary rock band Rolling Stones, but the musician also began appearing in films as an actor in the late 1960s. His first role was in the controversial crime drama Performance, which was once ranked in a survey by the British Film Institute was voted into the top 50 best British films of the 20th century (via BBC).
Now the initially mixed reception but later celebrated cult film has been released for the first time on Blu-ray in the Mediabook you can get it on Amazon *. Bonus material includes two featurettes called Influence and Controversy and Memo from Turner, as well as a booklet by Prof. Dr. Marcus Stiglegger and Stefan Jung.
That’s what performance with rock star Mick Jagger is all about
The tough gangster Chas Devlin (James Fox) is considered a “performer” in underworld jargon who brutally intimidates his opponents. One day, while on the run, he meets the reclusive rock superstar Turner (Mick Jagger). As the two get to know each other better, completely different worlds collide.
This provides both exotic and explosive fuel and events soon take a turn in an eerie way, with not only Chas completely losing his sense of reality, but also Turner’s experimental self-discovery phase leading to an unexpected “performance”.
First film with Mick Jagger initially controversial
The film by Donald Cammell and director legend Nicolas Roeg from 1968 is a fragmented, associatively edited film steeped in rock ‘n’ roll Gangster and drug story.
Owned by Warner Bros., the film was kept under wraps for two years due to its comparative inaccessibility at the time.
Recut again and again, Performance was only released in cinemas in 1970, where it was a very manageable success with mixed reviews. Only years later, especially from the 1990s, did the unusual film become a cult classic and is now considered one of the style-defining films of the 70s. The Moviepilot community also gave the first film with Mick Jagger a remarkably above-average rating of 7.2 out of 10 points.
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