Review of Privilege (1967) by Mike M — 22 Jan 2011

Eerie and prescient feature-length examination of the ties between celebrity, commerce and politics, and how the first two might be used to distract the masses from the third... This is one of the outstanding rockstar performances of the period, not least for the self-effacement Jones is required to display: with any look-at-me showbix tics surgically removed by Watkins' direction, the lead has to fall back on a troubled blankness, the quiet anguish that's left Steve Shorter both as placid as a lake, and as pliable as plastic - the character's so well-trained, indeed, that his first genuine act of rebellion can be something as mild as to ask out of turn for hot chocolate.

The whole is somewhat stiffer in that 60s Art Film way, rigid with its own ideas, yet fascinating all the same as an artefact that had been disappeared underground until the BFI's recent DVD revival - almost as though suppressed by the powers-that-be.

And meanwhile the Gallagher brothers go to take tea at Downing Street, and the whole world goes mental at the news Take That - Take That, for f***'s sake - are to reform, and some new teen idol arrives what seems every five minutes to catch the eye.

As the film's final line predicts: "It's going to be a happy year, this year in England in the near-future.".