I first (and second and third) saw Performance at a midnight showing at the Film Forum in Atlanta (later Ellis Theater) soon after it came out. As you can imagine, the Film Forum showed all kinds of funky stuff at midnight: Jorodowsky’s El Topo, the movie version of The Ruling Class with Peter O’Toole, Greaser’s Palace (Robert Downey, Sr.’s western about Jesus), and Lord knows what else. The manager would come out before each showing and ask us not to burn the theater down (smoking substances of all kinds were tolerated at the midnight movie).
The co-director and cinematographer for Performance was Nicholas Roeg, who seemed to have a knack for working with musicians (David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth; Art Garfunkel in Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession). And his direction and filming of the “Memo from Turner” sequence of Performance was apparently a major influence on the whole genre of music videos. So a lot of other people were clearly sitting in smoky theaters late at night watching this stuff.
Here are some bright, airy midday news/views treats:
* Latest assault on Planned Parenthood: a hack of its databases and employee files.
* Really smart: white police officer pepper sprays crowd at #blacklivesmatter summit.
* At Slate, Jamelle Bouie discusses all the reasons to be skeptical about last week’s state-level Quinnipiac polls showing HRC tanking.
* Loophole in background reporting allowed Louisiana theater shooter to legally acquire murder weapon.
* At the Plum Line Paul Waldman suggests the old happy talk from Republicans about how cool it was to have this huge presidential field is about done.
And in non-political news:
* 35 women discuss their involuntary sexual experiences with Bill Cosby; New York Magazine, which published this article, subjected to serial hacks.
As we break for lunch, in the continuing effort to stay away from Classic Rock, here’s the Rolling Stones with “Citadel” from the unsettling (to parents!) 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request.
