Sympathy for the Devil (One Plus One)

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Sympathy for the Devil (One Plus One)

Jean-Luc Godard’s Sympathy for the Devil, 1968. Photo courtesy ABKCO.

“It’s all great stuff: a snapshot of a far-off, lost world where rock music is still a redemptive and revolutionary force.” —The Guardian (UK)

In the wake of the Paris riots of May ’68, Jean-Luc Godard went to London to film the Rolling Stones transforming “Sympathy for the Devil” into the classic anthem of social decay. Situationist scenarios pop up throughout the film: a woman spray-paints revolutionary slogans on buildings; black militants read aloud from Eldridge Cleaver and Amiri Baraka (aka LeRoi Jones) in a junkyard of demolished cars; Eve Democracy (Anne Wiazemsky) holds a press conference in the forest; and a bookseller reads aloud from Mein Kampf and a novel of sexual escapades in a Marxist comic book shop. As the song comes together, everything else comes apart. Creating a late ’60s spectacle that breaks with all conventions, Godard’s documentation of the momentous session incorporates his charged social and political fascinations and statements in the midst of a revolution. 1968, UK, DCP, 100 min.