"Sympathy for the Devil"
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Cupid Productions 1970
Abkco Video, 1994

This is the film integrating the hugely popular 
"Rolling Stones" and Godard's support for 
and occasional criticism of Maoism 
in 1970. First, we shall point out that there is 
some controversy over its production once out of 
Godard's hands.

While watching the film, the reviewer wondered why 
Godard used different tints in the scene at the 
end. It would perhaps be expected to see some use 
of red, but the various colors were inexplicable. 
It turns out that Godard did not put those scenes 
in. The corporation did in order to fit in the 
whole "Sympathy for the Devil" song. Nor did 
Godard put the finished version of the song 
"Sympathy for the Devil" in at the end. Moreover, 
Godard's original title was from a slogan in the 
French near-revolution of 1968, but the 
corporation put in a different name.

It's tempting to say that this is just another artsy 
film without a plot. Yet, we have to consider that 
what Godard thought he was doing was more akin to 
advertising, a form of propaganda. We do not have 
to accept the Nazi view of propaganda as 
completely unrelated to science to believe that 
what Godard tried to do might be necessary for the 
movement. 

The mere fact of building the movie around Rolling 
Stones practice and creation sessions sanctified 
the film as "cool," moreso then, but probably 
still today. The main content of the movie is 
style, the creation of impressions that draw 
people in to the topics brought in by a voice of 
political disruption. 

Scattered throughout the film are all the main 
subjects of the day, many of which MIM believe 
continue to be the main subjects. Sex, drugs and 
rock n' roll were parts especially indicative of 
the times in 1970.

What makes this a film that should be considered 
the official MIM film of 1970 are the lines about 
Black revolution, including and especially 
revolution without "waiting for the white worker." 
Violence, Black/white relations, Vietnam--"whitey" 
as the enemy--it's all there in the film.

Despite the corporate changes to his film, Godard
fought and won the battle for style for the
revolution. Godard believed plots and coherent narratives are
unnecessary to that struggle. He bounced back-and-forth
between pseudo-didacticism (didacticism
would be the overbearing approach of preachy politics
entering into art) and the Rolling Stones's
practice sessions. If the politics were any heavier or more
analytical, it would not have worked.

Reading Nazi propaganda on the Aryan race at one point while
panning the camera past all the stupid Western magazine covers of his
day was one example of political commentary that may have seemed
like an abrupt transition from watching the Rolling Stones.
While criticizing Western culture as not something worth exalting
the way Nazi propaganda did, Godard also moved on from the subject
by taking the pornography of Western culture more seriously. That's
the sort of thing that made it all not too overbearing for Western
viewers.

Like any other art form, Godard's was revolutionary in his
hands in 1970, but later we saw very similar techniques used
in post-modern art--a melange of images without a central
plot or coherent directing monologue. Before there was MTV,
there was Godard. As soon as we make that comparison in our minds,
we realize just how great this film really is.

Note:
Andrew Sarris, "Godard and the Revolution," Jean-Luc Godard Interviews, David
Sterritt ed., (Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press), p. 52.