Where Roddam’s Quadrophenia asks of British identity, “Who am I?” and Anderson’s If…. asks “Can I be myself?”, Cammell and Roeg’s Performance declares, “There is no self.”
The best British films do not offer the easy bromides of Hollywood heroes. They reject redemptive arcs and moral uplift. Instead, they dwell in ambiguity, class friction, emotional repression, and the slow erosion of certainty. These films are not about heroic journeys, but the collapse of simple certainties into deeper, darker psychogeographies, from which a truer self can be burnished.
Quadrophenia, if…., and Performance all strip away the stories we tell ourselves: about belonging, duty, and British identity. Each film offers a different lens – subculture, uniform, mask – through which British life is performed, policed, and finally unravelled. Together, they form a jagged, brilliant triptych about what it means to become yourself in a country that demands you stay in character.
Quadrophenia – Director: Franc Roddam (1979)
Perhaps the best youth-oriented film of all time, the title of Frank Roddam‘s Quadrophenia is from the Who’s 1973 concept album of the same name. Its story is about Jimmy (Phil Daniels), a mod who is unsure of his identity and subsumes himself within the mod movement.
Mods, of course, were the youth culture of the day, who dressed sharp, took speed in the form of pills called purple hearts and blues, rode Vespa scooters, and listened to sharp modern pop. They were in opposition to, and antagonistic towards, rockers who rode larger motorbikes, wore leather, and idolised 1950s rockers like Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent. Being a mod gives Jimmy a sense of British identity at a time in his life (he must be around 18 or so) when he is unsure of himself and feels a need to fit in. This comes at a cost, as Jimmy eventually finds.
Amongst Quadrophenia‘s numerous qualities is its dedication to the reality of the context. There are no compromises in setting, dialogue, or tone. The strong London accents are undiluted, giving some memorable exchanges, such as “Fell asleep on the train and waahnd up in bloody Neasden!” or “The people who ride these things are state, third-class tickets.”
Similarly, the setting is unvarnished but completely recognisable as a working-class environment: Jimmy’s home is a plain council house, with crude newspaper cut-outs adorning his bedroom wall and, evidently, no bath. The scene where Jimmy sleeps in their shed and misses his dad leaving to cycle to work, wearing his flat cap and wax jacket, is tiny but acutely detailed, which is true of the film throughout.
Despite this verité, there is a depth to Quadrophenia that constantly dramatises larger themes. It achieves this through everyday dialogue with an embedded lesson: in its characters, one need not be “educated” to have ideas, and in cinema overall, one doesn’t need upper-class characters to illustrate larger issues.
To take one example: we see Jimmy paying another HP instalment on his suit. No store credit cards in those days, and where else have you ever seen such a frank depiction of consumer spending by the young? As he pays, another mod is being measured for a suit, angrily querying the tailor, insisting it be made much tighter and sharper: “Stop fuckin around and bring it in ‘ere!” The agitated tailor loses his temper, insisting, “Look here, sonny! You keep that kind of language to yourself! You don’t like it, you can go and make your own suit.”
The mod asks his friend what he thinks. “Fucking rent-a-tent, innit,” he says. The tailor looks angry but does nothing. He doesn’t want to lose the sale. There, in a nutshell, are significant themes such as youth consumption, Generation Clash, and Consumerism.
Or to take another scene: a former school friend, Kevin (Ray Winstone), now a rocker (the enemy), pays Jimmy a visit, biking up Jimmy’s garden path. Jimmy is in the shed tinkering with his scooter, and hearing the deep thrum of the bike, fearing an assault, picks up a spanner. After recognizing Kevin, he talks with him about why he is a mod, and Kevin talks about why he is a rocker.
Jimmy: But it’s not just the bikes, it’s the people. And the people who ride these things [gestures to Kevin’s motorbike] are states, third-class tickets.
Kevin: Do what?
Jimmy: Rockers, all that greasy hair and clobber. It’s diabolical!
Kevin: I don’t give a monkey’s arsehole about mods and rockers. Underneath, we’re all the same, ain’t we?
Jimmy: Nah, Kev, that’s it. I don’t wanna be the same as everybody else. That’s why I’m a mod, see? I mean, you gotta be somebody, ain’t ya? Or you might as well jump in the sea and drown.
Kevin: That’s why I joined the army – to be different. To get away from all this! But wherever you go, there’s always some cunt in stars and stripes who wants to push you about.
Identity, conformism, ambition, belonging, and group identity are all in this realistic conversation. (The irony that Kevin joined the army to be “different” is delivered straight-faced).
As with speed (which Jimmy is shown taking fairly often), or any stimulant, there’s the rush, then the come down. So it is with Jimmy. After the visceral fight scene between the Mods and the Rockers on Brighton Beach, the rest of Jimmy’s story unravels, as he learns that being a mod doesn’t provide a living. The euphoric unity he felt when identifying with the Mods splits apart.
Still, Jimmy clings to his Mod identity as he loses everything that gave him that British identity: his Mod friends, his family, his job, even his scooter. He returns to Brighton later in life, but what was once alive with mods and rebellion is now a sleepy resort. Once all his illusions are shattered, eventually he manages to let go. At the end, he’s shown walking away from it all, alone.
Ultimately, Quadrophenia is about identity as something externalised and asserted through clothes, music, and tribalism. However, this is fragile and unsustainable, as it masquerades as conformity. The Mods are defined by what they wear and who they fight, but the film ultimately shows that tribal belonging is meaningless when detached from self-knowledge. That final scene of Jimmy standing at the edge of a cliff is thus his rebirth of “the real me”. Sartre would be proud of such an existential examination.
if… – Director: Lindsay Anderson (1968)
Lindsay Anderson‘s If… was famously filmed during the student protests and strikes in France in May 1968. As film is an allegory for revolution against repression and the old order, this is fitting. (John Lennon was at the same time writing “Revolution” while meditating in India. Clearly, there was something in the air). It is also Malcolm McDowell’s first film. In his role as Mick, he doesn’t steal the show (for a film almost entirely performed by actual boys, the cast is highly impressive), but he grabs the attention.
if… is an allegory of revolution. Its boarding school setting is also an allegory of Britain, with all its past glories, repression, incompetent, class-based leadership, absurd rules, appalling education, and gross, archaic longings. It works remarkably well as a simple story of schoolboys revolting against repressive discipline (enforced by prefects called “whips” – a magnificent little detail); almost every scene carries symbolic meaning.
For example, one boy confesses to having “dirty thoughts” (presumably homosexual) to the Chaplain, who can offer no real advice. This is a condemnation of British sexual ignorance and hypocrisy. A new boy is told by a senior boy, “You don’t talk to us,” and that the youngest boys are referred to as “scum”. This is the corrupted power of seniority. The chaplain is, satirically, literally kept in a drawer in the headmaster’s office to convey using religion to control and discipline the masses.
As suggested by the chaplain’s presence in the drawer, If… flips between realism and surrealism. The realism is noteworthy. There’s no idealisation of the boys, who are no Hollywood lookers. The film looks frankly at bullying, public-school homosexuality, beatings, and pretentious pseudo-intellectualism, and the school itself is shabby and past its best.
Remarkably, this realism is commented upon by the surrealism of some episodes, such as the schoolmaster’s wife wandering naked through the school (a comment on sexual repression and longing). Similarly, while the pretty junior boy is realistically portrayed as being preyed upon by older boys, he is surrealistically seen in bed with one of the rebels, who had actually taken the time to talk to him.
If… also flips between colour and black and white. Don’t believe anyone who tells you that parts were shot to save money, as parts of the same scenes alternate. It’s another trick to break up the story, a Brechtian “alienation effect”, as with the realism/surrealism dialectic. Both enhance and complement each other.
In if…, conformity is institutionalised. The school crushes individuality through rituals, uniforms, and house loyalty. However, this pressure gives rise to surrealism and rebellion, an assertion of British identity through violent rupture. The final shootout isn’t based on a real event, but it contains a truth about youth identity.
Performance – Directors: Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg (1970)
Perhaps the best British film ever, Performance was released in 1970 but was produced in 1968. It features James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, and some real East End heavies. (Let’s not get too excited about that, but they do add to a convincingly brutal opening half.) It’s worth noting the directors, too: Roeg made his name as a cinematographer (Performance and his later films, such as Walkabout and The Man Who Fell to Earth, are highly arresting visually), whereas Cammel was a painter and writer soaked in Genet, Borges, Burroughs, and London/Parisian bohemia.
Performance is a film where nothing is as it seems. It questions the various dualities which make up our culture: male and female, nature and culture, fantasy and reality, heterosexual and homosexual, interior and exterior, image and reflection. Obviously, this isn’t a straightforward plot-driven film: it’s a diptych, with a violent gangster opener and a psychedelic mind-fuck closer. The relation between the two sections of the film only gradually becomes apparent; texturally, cinematically, and atmospherically, they are completely different.
Performance is a master class in cinematography. It is densely allusive, symbolically rich, and eyeball-grabbing visually. I have never seen a film like it: although Walkabout has some visual similarities, they are nothing alike in terms of theme and tone. Perhaps the real union of minds in Performance is not between Chas (James Fox) and Turner (Mick Jagger), but between Roeg and Cammell, the visual genius and the ideas man.
The plot is relatively straightforward, considering that this is not a plot-driven film. Chas specialises in “putting the frighteners up flash little twerps” for his gangland boss. When he oversteps the mark and kills a fellow mobster, Chas goes on the run, hiding from “the firm”. He takes refuge in the basement flat of a reclusive, faded pop star called Turner, and his household of two women (Anita Pallenberg and Michèle Breton) and an odd servant.
The longer Chas stays in Turner’s house, and the more he interacts with the residents, the more his boundaries and sense of British identity are unsettled, through mind games and psychedelic mushrooms. But this works both ways, and the similarities between Chas and Turner become increasingly apparent, to the point where both share the same death.
Much of this is suggested visually rather than dramatised. For example, when Chas first enters Turner’s living quarters, ostensibly seeking a telephone, their faces are framed in an eerie, dual shot that merges across the screen. It’s disorienting, intimate, and symbolic: the boundary between them begins to blur. Who is who? And how long before they switch?
Similarly, there is a constant use of mirrors and mirror images throughout Performance to suggest two things. Firstly, mirrors suggest the dualities such as male/female and fantasy/reality, which are explored during the film. But secondly, mirrors symbolise the self-projection with which both Chas and Turner are fundamentally concerned, both being “performers”. Performance shows how the gangster and the rock star are all too similar in their masculine, violent displays, suggesting the male ego’s need for dominance and power, whether expressed sexually or through group dominance.
Yet Performance also critiques this, with Chas undergoing psychedelic initiation, altering his “image”, and having his masculinity and sexuality questioned. Pherber (Pallenberg) uses mirrors on Chas, projecting his face onto hers, and showing both faces side by side, and asks if he has a male and female half, like Turner. Chas angrily replies, “There’s nothing wrong with me – I’m normal!”
The recurrent tactic of dislocation (further heightened by the extremely jumpy editing) effectively suggests Chas’ disoriented mind. For instance, Performance plays with the androgyny of Lucy (Breton) and Turner: at one point we see Chas in bed caressing someone who appears to be Turner; a moment later it turns out to be Lucy. Who is who?
Another aspect of Performance that merits mention for its imaginative use is the musicp early synthesiser work, deep blues, rock ‘n’ roll, proto-rap, and an eerily unsettling orchestral finalé. The editing, as mentioned above, is extremely jumpy, so that you have to watch the film a few times to understand what’s happening, as scenes intercut rapidly. Camera angles, as you might guess, are extreme. All of which may seem overcooked, but Performance creates one of those rare instances where content and method are perfectly matched.
A Hollywood-like film Performance is not. The nearest comparison I can think of is Alan Parker’s 1982 psychological drama, Pink Floyd: The Wall, which is similarly non-linear and told through images and music rather than narrative. Performance, however, is a far more literary film (with Borges being a major inspiration), whereas Pink Floyd: The Wall is naturally more musical, with next to no dialogue.
Performance captures a specific moment in British 1960s culture, when the rock/drug subculture met the criminal world, as embodied by the Kray twins (whereas Pink Floyd: The Wall captures writer Roger Waters’ alienation and the demise of the post-war dream). Performance thus illustrates how the utopian dreams of 1967 would evolve into darker and more violent realities, culminating in a deadly apotheosis at Altamont in 1969.
Indeed, Performance is the most radical of these three British films. It tackles not only rebellion and mask-slipping, but identity as pure construction. Chas and Turner don’t just change but dissolve into each other. Roeg and Cammell give us a psychedelic fever dream of fluidity, duality, and obliteration of fixed identity.
Where Quadrophenia asks “Who am I?” and if…. asks “Can I be myself?”, Performance says: “There is no self. Only roleplay, trauma, and transformation.” Performance is, therefore, both specific and timeless, literal and metaphorical, intensely visual and deeply literary, and stands as the most unflinching interrogation of British identity ever captured in British cinema.