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BlissQuote
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Swayed1967
I find the ending rather disappointing. Up to point when Chas shoots Turner in the head I’m completely riveted by Turner’s androgynous, druggy lifestyle even if there are times when I struggle to process the madness of it all but when I see Turner’s face in the car I realize I’ve been duped – left with the feeling that, damn, after all this was nothing but amateurish avant-garde silliness.
The movie starts out like SUNSET BLVD. with Chas (like William Holden's character) seeking refuge in a reclusive star's decadent and bizarre household. The ending works beautifully for me, because like SUNSET BLVD. it descends into madness.
By the end, Chas has become everything he despised in Turner, his peer by generation only. He's also watched Turner effortlessly step into Chas' world and control the mobsters who run the record business. Chas being seduced by a decadent life as he loses himself is one thing, watching Turner best him by one-upping the older generation's hardened mobsters/businessmen is too much for Chas to bear.
Chas descends into paranoid schizophrenia as he already feels he's become two different people and thereby compromised his already compromised principles (after all, the gangster's thug judged the decadent rock star as his moral inferior). Now, in his delusion, he believes Turner has stolen his old persona from him.
Turner and his women have seduced and victimized Chas, the very feeling a street thug is supposed to protect himself from by his command of violence. Now Turner has proven himself stronger in Chas' world than Chas could ever be for Turner controls the room as the Performer while Chas is a soldier at best and expendable at worst. Turner makes him realize all soldiers are expendable and has exposed his belief that violence is power to be self-deception.
Turner, as a truly Satanic figure, embraces madness because his world is chaos over order, darkness over light. So in an effort to restore the perceived imbalance, Chas kills Turner, but in Chas' mind this completes the transference and he retreats into Turner by performing his murder.
Chas accepts that the one thing stronger than the illusion of violence as power is the belief that madness and chaos control the world. It doesn't matter that Chas is being driven off as a condemned man prepared to meet his fate, in his mind he is now Turner and has won by escaping reality forever. The performance achieves madness.
In its own messed-up way, it's a logical and nearly flawless film.
Fantastic analysis and summary.
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Bliss
My own take on Anita was that she was a very elevated kind of groupie. Unfortunately, she had a strong self-destructive streak and took others down with her.
But I give her credit for four things:
1. She overcame her worst demons, drugs and alcohol, and managed to survive to her mid-70s.
2. She completed a very competitive and demanding professional course in fashion design at the prestigious Central St. Martins, at an advanced age.
3. She retained the loyalty of her son, Keith and many friends throughout her life.
4. She never seemed bitter or blamed others in any of her interviews.
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mickschix
Thanks for your support, ROCKY DIJON, and I must say I enjoyed your analysis of Performance. It is a complex film on quite a few levels and it's a film that should be viewed several times. I know that I had to see it about 4 times before I figured it all out...or at least felt satisfied with my take on it. After reading some of the opinions here, I must say I've had to rethink a few things! Question: when did the word " WHORE" become so off-limits...on a STONES SITE no less!? When did STONES FANS become so easily offended? I never knew that Anita had such a fan base! LOL!!!
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Bliss
Fixed it for you.
>>>5. Never felt the need to write a kiss and tell autobiography in exchange for lifetime financial support from Keith and/or the Stones org.
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angee
Ha, good point on the murderer.
You're probably old enough to remember too when name-calling was not automatically broadcast in writing to thousands of people with one click.
I have to think about that promiscuous gold-digger label. Hmm, just for an example, Patti (Richards) was at Studio 54 but I doubt if too many ever called her that. I could be wrong.
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Bliss
^^^ He'd have done well to pay off Spanish Tony too.
But then we would have missed what is probably the most accurate, atmospheric, and exciting 1st-hand account of the Stones at their peak.