Sympathy for the Devil (1968)

Director:

Jean-Luc Godard

Writer:

Jean-Luc Godard (writer)

Release Date:

26 April 1970 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | Drama | Music

Plot:

Godard's documentation of late 1960's western counter-culture, examining the Black Panthers, referring to works by LeRoi Jones and Eldridge Cleaver...

Plot Keywords:

Music | Song | Songs | Rolling Stones | Experimental Film

Cast

Mick Jagger	...	Himself - The Rolling Stones
Brian Jones	...	Himself - The Rolling Stones
Keith Richards	...	Himself - The Rolling Stones (as Keith Richard)
Charlie Watts	...	Himself - The Rolling Stones
Bill Wyman	...	Himself - The Rolling Stones
Anne Wiazemsky	...	Eve Democracy
Iain Quarrier	...	Fascist porno book seller
Frankie Dymon	...	Black power militant
Sean Lynch	...	Commentary (voice)
Danny Daniels	...	Black power militant
Illario Pedro
Roy Stewart	...	Black power militant
Linbert Spencer
Tommy Ansah		(as Tommy Ansar)
Michael McKay

Also Known As:

One Plus One (UK) (director's cut)

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:X (original rating) | UK:15 (re-rating) (1997) | Australia:MA | Argentina:13 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 (video rating) (1997) (uncut) | UK:X (original rating) (cut)

Filming Locations:

London, England, UK

Company:

Cupid Productions

Trivia:

Director Jean-Luc Godard was called to England to make a film calling for the legalization of abortion. Shortly after his arrival, though, England relaxed its abortion laws, and his film became unnecessary. Godard agreed to remain in England on the condition that he could make a film with either The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. The Beatles declined the offer, but the Stones promptly accepted, claiming they were avid fans of Godard's work.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Voices (1968)

For Godard fans, a good film, for Rolling Stones fans, so-so. The middle ground might find it to be a minor masterpiece

Sympathy for the Devil is one of the strangest, coolest, though oddly off-putting documentary/satires that I've ever encountered. If anything else, the film is also one of the few true time capsules, along with Easy Rider, Woodstock, and The Graduate among others, of what the political, social, and musical climate was like in the late 60's. On that end Godard gets it right. And being more than a casual observer of the Rolling Stones, I was no less than fascinated in the recording process of their classic cut off of Beggar's Banquet.

On top of this, Godard does continuous, peerless shots back and forth across the studio, never cutting, just seeing through to what Mick and Keith and Charlie and the others are trying to work through in the studio. Godard doesn't just use this, however- using a narrator perhaps reciting from a book of literotica crossbred with classic literature, he puts together scenes of radical pieces of the times. This is where the flaw button might kick in for some viewers.

It took me three times to finally get through all of Sympathy for the Devil- the first two times I turned it off halfway- not because I hated it, per say, but because it gave me a feeling like I was being ambushed by images and messages not of my time. Then the third time it sunk in and I really started to "dig" the feel of the film- Godard, much like his early 60's films, is doing a satire that goes against all the conventions that he got pummeled with as a film critic in the 50's. Like the others in the French new-wave, the attitude was this- either you get us or you don't, and if you don't, we're not sure you ever will. Sympathy for the Devil- or One plus One as its original title- gives a problem for two, or perhaps more, types of audiences.

There will be some who have never heard of or seen Godard's works, and seek this out as being fans of the Rolling Stones. To this I saw be warned- you may be interested, maybe even enveloped, by how these guys work through this one song over a period of weeks and months. But, you may want to fast-forward past all the off-beat, supremely ironic vignettes detailing what a foreigner must think of ours and other's counter-cultures (in other words, if you didn't live through the 60's, most of it will pass over your head). And then for the Godard fans who might not be fans of the Rolling Stones, I don't know what to tell you, except to say that as a piece of creative non-fiction (not documentary- like one of Michael Moore's films it's hard for me to call this one a full-blooded documentary) it displays him at the near top of his game before his pits in the 70's.

It's lucid despite it being crazy, and it's disparaging even though it's funny. Basically, Jean-Luc Godard gets the feel of the song in and of itself, and on that end he was successful.