MovieChat Forums > Performance (1970) Discussion > The Ending. . . The Beginning (SPOILERS)

The Ending. . . The Beginning (SPOILERS)


Just noticed-

At the finale, Chas gets into the back of Flowers' white car, morphs into Turner, and the car drives down a long country road. "Gone Dead Train" starts up and plays through the credits, but cuts out before the song has finished.

At the beginning, a jet shrieks past, "Gone Dead Train" bursts onto the soundtrack already midway through, and a black car cruises along a country road.

We never do see who is inside the black car at the beginning - I guess it could just be the chauffeur who gets his head shaved, but the whole thing feels like a deliberately elliptical way to open and close the film and play with viewers' heads e.g. opposite color cars, same song abruptly cutting in/out, same setting. The only difference is the direction the cars are headed in - feels intentional.

Is this identity then? Eternal recurrence? Samsara? When will we merge with the world soul and break the cycle? It seems Chas-Turner are caught in a loop, each the other's demon - one twisted spirit denied liberation.

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Hm. Just saw this last night with James Fox introducing, and noticed the black car/white car doubling for the first time. On one level it could be as simple as birth/death, but I like the idea of Chas and Turner as a sort of Moebius strip of character.

The way the film opened and closed actually reminded me rather of Bunuel's later work. The jet motif appears at various points elsewhere in the film; there's a model jet on Harry's desk I think, so it must have significance.

There's so much in this film. I'd actually forgotten about the Borges references - particularly to "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", a story about an invented world which contains the phrase "mirrors and copulation are abominable, since they both multiply the numbers of men." Plenty of both in this film :-)

I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

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Also the concept of a former rock star who has "lost his demon" fascinates me.


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