Thursday, January 22, 2009

Sympathy For The Devil


Sympathy for the Devil (originally titled One Plus One by the film's director) is a 1968 film shot mostly in color by director Jean-Luc Godard.
Composing the movie's main narrative thread are several long, uninterrupted shots of The Rolling Stones in a sound studio, recording and rerecording various parts to "Sympathy for the Devil." The dissolution of Stone Brian Jones is vividly portrayed, and the chaos of 1968 is made clear when a line referring to the killing of John F. Kennedy is heard changed to the plural after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in June.
Interwoven through the movie are outdoor shots of Black Panthers milling about in a junkyard littered with the rusting bodies of Chryslers and Oldsmobiles heaped upon each other. There are also scenes of Black Panthers tossing their rifles to each other, from man to man, as if in an assembly line, readying for an impending battle.
The rest of the film contains a powerful political message in the form of a voiceover about Marxism, the need for revolution and other topics in which Godard was interested.
What I loved about this movie is that you witness the construction of the song, how it evolves as the takes go by, how it builds up and comes to be one of my favorite Rolling Stones song, Sympathy For The Devil.
The imagery is artwork, the music is amazing.
How can you go wrong.
Jean-Luc Godard & The Rolling Stones.
It speaks for itself.

1 comment:

Annabel Wendt (LoveMore) said...

wow this looks awesome! i must check it out. thanks for letting us know of it..great imagery! :) xxxx LM