Performance

The strange equivalency of the underworld and the underground, rightly understood as “putting a bit of stick about” and “having a cavort” for the boss, who likes men.

Polonsky’s Force of Evil is the basis for the criminal enterprise, Bertolucci’s The Dreamers an invaluable analysis.

Richard Pryor’s sendup of Jimi Hendrix as Black Death machine-gunning his throng of admirers proceeds from this, and of course there is Krish’s The Man Who Had Power Over Women.

Cammell & Roeg reverse Polonsky, the murder of a small-time operator who resists a “merger” is a boyhood friendship gone sour in the mob.

Pop culture as a big disguise for a gangster going to the Big City, who supplies the pop star his “demon”, ineffectually.