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I hope it's ok to open a thread for this DVD although no official announcement has yet been made.

This being one of my most eagerly awaited DVD releases, I'm hoping that Warner delivers ALL the goods with this one and I mean ALL! If ever there was a title that has written SE all over it, this is it.

As we still don't know what the specs will be, I would like to hear your impressions on the film, its themes, symbologies and meanings and anything really that goes through your mind when watching this puzzle of a movie.

BTW, if anyone has seen more than one version (there were made more than one cut through the years), please share your recollections. I would like to hear them.

I've seen it a couple times on the big screen (thank you, college film series), but have no idea which versions I saw-- or, indeed, if they were different from one another. I did like it both times, though I'm not sure I can say why. I've always sort of adored James Fox, and love watching the madness of Performance and thinking about how he left acting to devote himself to the church (I've heard different things about what exactly he was doing) immediately afterwards. Poor dude-- if he was confused before getting involved with that project, I can't imagine what it was like in his head by the midpoint.

So basically, I have nothing to say, apart from the fact that I'm looking forward to the dvd.

Do you think that the release of this disc will coincide with the Stones fall tour and that the surprise mentioned in the Warner Brothers chat is a commentary by Jagger?

And while you are feeling sorry for Mr Fox going a little nuts after making this film, how do you feel about poor Keef who had put up with the mother of his children Miss Palenberg have an affair with Mick. I'm sure all this would make for interesting talk if Sir Mick wasn't so royally painful these days.

Of course I am still waiting for the Stones mega-corporation let famed photographer/film maker Robert Frank release "Cocksucker Blues" on Criterion (of course). I'm tired of watching my video quality bootleg DVD when this film shows more about touring with the Stone in their heyday than "Gimme Shelter" ever did.

As far as "Performance", the last time I saw the print was almost unwatchable and the sound even worse. So I am waiting impatiently for a release date so I can see and here Jagger sing "Memo From Turner".

I'm hoping that Warner delivers ALL the goods with this one and I mean ALL!

The one extra that any worthy SE of this title must include is the documentary, "Donald Cammell: The Ultimate Performance."

Annie Mall wrote:I hope it's ok to open a thread for this DVD although no official announcement has yet been made.

It is. It really just belongs in the 'General Warner Discussion' forum until an official announcement is made. I don't think it is coming until mid-2006, at the earliest. At the last HTF chat, Warner had a tentative release schedule through the first part of next year, and their response when I asked about Performance was:

We have special plans for PERFORMANCE, but no date.

Sounds like it was in the very earliest stages of production at that time. I'm not sure what their turn-around time is on a project like this; it probably depends on the condition of the elements.

swimminghorses wrote:Do you think that the release of this disc will coincide with the Stones fall tour and that the surprise mentioned in the Warner Brothers chat is a commentary by Jagger?

And while you are feeling sorry for Mr Fox going a little nuts after making this film, how do you feel about poor Keef who had put up with the mother of his children Miss Palenberg have an affair with Mick. I'm sure all this would make for interesting talk if Sir Mick wasn't so royally painful these days.

Of course I am still waiting for the Stones mega-corporation let famed photographer/film maker Robert Frank release "Cocksucker Blues" on Criterion (of course). I'm tired of watching my video quality bootleg DVD when this film shows more about touring with the Stone in their heyday than "Gimme Shelter" ever did.

As far as "Performance", the last time I saw the print was almost unwatchable and the sound even worse. So I am waiting impatiently for a release date so I can see and here Jagger sing "Memo From Turner".

I doubt anything coincides with a Stones fall tour anymore, especially after the 40th very few people outside of actual participants are even aware. Come on. It's not like a Spielberg release or something....good or ill.

as For cocksucker blues: can someone, anyone, help obtane a copy. Just last night I was reading Don DeLillo's Underworld chapter dealing with that film and it pisses me off that I have a dozen hours of legit Stones vid on DVD but not Cock-Blues. I know it's anathema, but DVD-R anyone? This is ridiculous in this day and age. Mick, Keith? The word is out. You guys are loadies. Give us the vid already.

I got mine on eBay but it looks like a rather bad copy of a video, but that hasnt stopped me from watching more than a few times. As I recall it was not more that $15-20 and it was a DVD-R. Kinda funky, but...

Let's hope Warners will use the original audio track of the film - the various re-releases over the years had some characters voices dubbed over - especially, the mob boss, Harry Flowers who suffers the most from Warners' tinkering. I have two copies of PERFORMANCE on tape, the widescreen, UK VHS (under the "Maverick" series) which has the dubbed voices; and the a copy recoreded off BBC2's legendary MovieDrome series, back in 1994, with all the original voices intact....

Any news on this one yet? I was hoping to hear some kind of announcement given the recent release of Demon Seed but...

For a while, it seemed there was talk of a release of PERFORMANCE but things have been quiet lately.
Warners, have done a lot in the last year or so to make me forget the dark days of snappers and fantastic extras like "Jump To A Scene". But I'm hoping that someone over at Warners will put out a SE of PERFORMANCE, grow some guts and put out THE DEVILS and sort out the BLADE RUNNER crisis. Soon !

In the windmills of my mind I seem to remember talk of a BFI restoration and consequent dvd release. Anyone?


Are the different versions just the lack of a flash of the Jagger tackle or does it go any deeper than that?

NABOB OF NOWHERE wrote:In the windmills of my mind I seem to remember talk of a BFI restoration and consequent dvd release. Anyone?

Thankfully, your mind is not yet playing tricks on you. Here's what I was able to dig up from the Mobius Forum:

The last I heard, two competing restoration efforts were under way on either side of the pond - Warners US are supposedly preparing a disc, as are the BFI (although let's hope they don't mistakenly use the US R-rated cut as they did for recent cinema revival showings). No word as to whether either party will have access to Donald Cammell's original cut, currently owned by China Cammell... (Let's hope she's less intransigent regarding her late husband's work than Oja Kodar!)

From the Warner chat:

Performance coming out within a year

Ho and er, hum.

i just got a bootleg version on ebay that is non anamorphic but widescreen and is better than many regular DVD's I've watched. So it will certainly do until this long awaited Warner release comes out.

For two years running Warners has said it would be releasing this and said (I believe) that we would be happy with what they had planned (whatever that means).

Has anyone heard a word about its release. It is now October so I imagine any hope for a before 2007 release is out of the question. What is the hangup, anybody know?

The thing is, for all the praise heaped upon them (most of it deserved) Warner has released some really dull catalogue titles over the last two years, while Performance, O, Lucky Man! and many Ken Russell films languish - is it because they are British films?

Gordon McMurphy wrote:The thing is, for all the praise heaped upon them (most of it deserved) Warner has released some really dull catalogue titles over the last two years, while Performance, O, Lucky Man! and many Ken Russell films languish - is it because they are British films?

You know, I wonder about that, too. I know that the link between the two is fairly tenuous, but I've noticed that many of the British films that TCM shows (e.g., the British films that were distributed in America by MGM, RKO, or Warner Bros.) are often still the edited American cuts rather than the original British version. (For example, I don't think I've ever seen the Carol Reed's The Way Ahead complete -- just the American version retitled as The Immortal Battalion.) As a die-hard anglophile, I'd love to see Warner release more of their rather large catalogue of British films, including some of the very late Ealing movies as well. But perhaps they feel there isn't enough of a market for them. And perhaps they just haven't even bothered to make sure that they've got the original full-length versions.

swimminghorses wrote:Has anyone heard a word about its release. It is now October so I imagine any hope for a before 2007 release is out of the question. What is the hangup, anybody know?

I had heard that WB was bringing in restoration experts to re-cut the film, they want to 'recreate' the original Cammel/Roeg cut that was rejected by WB back in '69 or so (and was then recut by seven different editors before being released several years later)... maybe they've recently located archived material, or something... or maybe they've brought in Roeg to recreate the original film. who knows... let's just hope that this is the reason for the delay, and not lazyness on the part of WB

Let's also hope that if this is the case, they also include the cut we've been watching all these years. Of course WB (Blade Runner) has a better track record in this regard than, say, Universal (Touch of Evil).

although Universal did not include the (two) alternate studio edits due to the threat of a lawsuit by Beatrice Welles (at least that's the rumor)

E-ffing hell! It's official!

From the Digital Bits:

Warner has officially announced the DVD release of more catalog titles, including Blume in Love, The Clock, Crossing Delancey, Miracle in the Rain and A Summer Place for 2/6/07, with The Butcher Boy, Ginger & Fred, Performance and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner following on 2/13.

Fuck me, that's a turn up for the books!

Awesome.

Oh sweet, not only this but Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner? I asked about that in this sub-forum once since Warner released it on VHS but the thread got moved since no one knew whether they still owned the rights. Nice!

I'm more excited about Performance though, because I have never seen it before. I tried to download it off eMule once but after waiting and waiting and waiting for it to finish, I found out it was dubbed in Italian with no subtitles!

edit: Hey, found the old thread!

Awesome... let's just hope the specs look good for this f*cker.

edit: I was, of course, referring to the news that this title was coming out 2/13/07

Features:
Featurette (Includes new featurette: Influence and Controversy)
Interview(s) (Vintage BBC Interview with Mick Jagger)