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Donald Cammell:
Performed
Donald Cammell
By Jon Hewitt

When Donald Cammell’s Glock blew a 9mm hole through his brain on 24 April 1996, the curtain raised on the final act of a transcendent filmmaker’s lifelong obsession with violence and death as ritualistic work of art.

In the 45 minutes it took him to die he saw the face of Jorge Luis Borges (just like we did when James Fox blows a hole in Mick Jagger¹s brain in PERFORMANCE) and contemplated his death mask in a mirror (just like a victim of David Keith¹s psycho in WHITE OF THE EYE).

Cammell, a super-talented-manic-depressive-model-gorgeous-nutcase Scottish painter, completed only four films in a 62 year life devoted to art and cinema - and three of these are on the list of all-time faves. Sure it’s a big list, but that¹s an incredible strike-rate for a filmmaker who had to fight for every frame of every project, even after death.

PERFORMANCE (1968) is a breathtaking fever-dream, a super-swinging drug-fucked rock’n’roll gangster epic decades ahead of its time starring a bona-fide rock God in a bravura role that¹s still out-there 30 years on!
9pm Tues 25 Sept ROOFTOP CINEMA.

WHITE OF THE EYE (1988) is an astonishing serial-killer-as-artist chiller made well before silent lambs turned it cliché, appealing as much to the brain as the spleen and featuring a knockout performance from a criminal underrated actor David Keith. Also starring Cathy Moriaty
7pm Mon 24 Sept Revolver.

WILD SIDE (1994) is a deliriously fractured psycho-sex-drama only delivered in its true Cammellian shape after Don’s suicide gave its craven producer an angle to make money out of a ‘restored director¹s version’. Anne Heche gives the performance of any lifetime as the bi callgirl swinging between Joan Chen and a nutzoid Christopher Walken.
Midnight Sat 22nd Sept Glitch.

DEMONSEED (1977) Don’s classic 70’s horror that explores the metaphysical ramifaications of being fucked by an alien. Thi is a truly tripped out sci-fi horror that is a mini masterpiece. Alien insemination uber alles. Starring 70s sex bomb Julie Christie.
7pm Tues 25 Sept ROOFTOP CINEMA.


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