Alternate Best Actor 1970: James Fox in Performance

James Fox did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Chas in Performance. 

Performance is a curious, occasionally overly stylized film, about a violent gangster hiding out from his mob at the home of a faded rocker. 

James Fox, much like his older brother, is most often cast as upper crust English of a certain type. Much like his brother's most famous role The Jackal, we have there a strict departure from that. This is quite evident, in more ways than one, in the the fever dream opening of the film where we get a taste for his Chas in rather lurid detail. This as we hear Fox's distinct cockney accent he brings to the role. Something that he makes wholly natural and helps to detach himself entirely from his typical screen presence. Fox does more than the accent there's a darkness within it. An intensity by itself that creates not only the sense of a less upper class sort, but also the mark of a man whose defined within a darker side of life. This is seen all the more evident when we witness him in a dalliance. This where he enjoys strangulation within the act that we see a vile sadistic glee carry across Fox's face as he shows the nature of Chas. We see a similar manner though as we see him work his way within the mob. Fox's carries himself admirably in granting both a sense of a personal style, while also carrying that certain gaze within his eyes of a killer. This in Fox presenting a man who carries himself as though he is a slick businessman of some kind, while just the brutal thug that is the truth of the man is festering underneath the very thin carpet. 

We see this as Fox portrays a particularly pointed intensity of the man as he quick to ridicule in both hateful words and violence. This quickly leading him to be violently accosted by a superior and his men. This which Chas manages to escape by shooting the man. An actual key scene within Fox's performance. This being the enjoyment that comes across his eyes. This removing any of the quiet darkness, to rather reveal the more vile bliss the man finds within the act of violence. This though leads Chas both to become infamous within the world but also within his organization that wants him taken out due to the action. In order to avoid death he finds a flat he can stay in with the faded rocker Turner (Mick Jagger). Fox being terrific in creating the false face of the man, being technically more like the typical presence of his performances, as he attempts to look like a well to do British gentlemen. Fox is terrific though by presenting that even in these acts it is this sort of fight within himself. This in these slight contortions almost of his expression that shows the violent fiend, between his overly light way of speaking that "he's artist" simply looking somewhere to stay. There's a marvelous moment where we have the true Chas speaking on the phone to an accomplish, while also fielding questions from one of the residents. Fox switching from an affable enough voice to the resident, while immediately becoming himself to the accomplish. This not only in the timbre, but the very way he exudes a certain darkness out of himself by nature, when being himself. 

 

The film at this point however gets into basically a drug induced haze for an extended period, overly extended I'd say. Fox is good in these scenes though in presenting Chas forced out of his comfort zone in the antics of Tuner and his "secretary" Pherber (Anita Pallenberg). This in showing both the man without control in his manner as he's lost within the haze of it, but also the discomfort when prompted to participate. This slowly segues towards his state as a kind of haze that Fox presents though with less of an overt unease. This as we briefly seem to see a satiated man, albeit briefly. The film then really kind of loses itself to style, and doesn't really devise anything to remarkable in that extent nonetheless. This particularly since there is an instant whiplash on the concept of Chas perhaps changing through the experience, well other than the wholly random and rather laughable "what does it mean" ending to the film. Still Fox does deliver on his end in creating a compelling portrayal of a brutal criminal. Although this idea gets lost just as the film does, Fox still manages to stay above water in maintaining the character even as the film loses its mind purposefully. It stands on its own as a strong performance, and best that it was given that the film and the experience evidently helped to contribute to Fox abandoning film acting for six years.