[.ca] Rolling Stones: Sympathy For The Devil

From Amazon.com:
This version of Jean-Luc Godard's 1968 One Plus One caused a legendary confrontation at a film festival when the director became infuriated at his producer's decision to attach the Rolling Stones' completed song "Sympathy for the Devil" at the film's end. Godard's own original plan had been to make a film of the Stones' construction of the tune in rehearsal, and intercut that with a story line about a white revolutionary who becomes suicidal when her lover embraces black separatism. Production problems caused Godard to give up that idea and just allow scenes to fall where they would, allowing viewers to construct the film in their own minds. Be that as it may, this slightly shorter and more commercial producer's cut does not lack in satisfaction by closing things out with the song as Stones fans know it. Overall, the film is a bewildering affair, and that's not at all a bad thing: one's orientation is whatever one makes of Godard's enthralling mess here. Even if a viewer is just interested in seeing the Stones at their peak and at work on their brilliant 1968 album Beggars Banquet, this is a highly rewarding experience. Astute watchers and listeners will note that in an early take of the song, Mick Jagger sings the lyric, "I shouted out, 'Who killed Kennedy?'/When after all, it was you and me." Later, with no mention of a particularly tragic 1968 event in American politics, Jagger has revised the line to "I shouted out, 'Who killed the Kennedys?'" Talk about a startling moment. --Tom Keogh

this is phenomenal stuff:
one plus one is phenomenal stuff at least for one reason, which is that one of the 'ones' mentioned in the title refers to the Rolling Stones' recording of Sympathy for the Devil. The experience is amazing. The viewer is taken into to the studio where Keith Richards literally composes the song, plays guitar, plays the bass, sings in the chorus and directs fellow backing vocalists (Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, Marianne Faithfull). It is literally amazing to see how involved Keith was and how much he was leading the band. But Keith's leadership is only half of the story. One plus one also tracks how Mick Jagger come up with the lyrics that have made this song so famous. The movie also makes it quite clear how alienated (and marginalized) was Brian Jones from the rest of the band. The movie develops from the first chords (that Mick patiently shows to Brian Jones), to the session in which percussion where added, to those in which the piano was added, to those in which Keith plays bass, to those in which Keith improvizes few notes that would later become Sympathy-for-the-Devil-vintage-guitar-solo. It's a great historical document and the music is quite excellent. One plus one is definitely worth watching.

Not what I expected. Probably not what you expect either.:
What can I say? I was in Wal-Mart shopping for a last minute birthday present and this little oddity caught my eye. It aroused my curiosity, and the words of praise on the box made it seem so deep so artistic and Jean-Luc Godard wow I mean he is associated in my mind with highbrow film of the type which I usually dig so I bought it and called a few friends and said I had something that looked good and shouldn't we all congregate somewheres to enjoy this? Too bad this was the worst film ever made and there I was hyping it as the next Live at Pompeii or something. Well first the obligatory praise for the behind the scenes Stones footage that somehow seems to save the movie for most people. I love the Stones, and I admit it was interesting to watch what we have come to know as the song "Sympathy for the Devil" come together. But the buck stops here. Interspersed between the band footage are hodge-podge clips of what could be called "artistic political commentary", meaning in my book a sucession of disparate scenes connected by the thread of a Marxist narrative (as well as several having overt Marxist themes as well) with the intent of hopefully leaving the viewer with the ambiguous feeling that they have seen something that could have been artistic and the result of a grand vision unifying cinematic art with music and politics. But, judging from the other reviews left here, Godard missed his mark. Nobody was fooled by this one. With many other works of art I feel that if I have gained nothing from my interaction with it, then most of the blame lies with me. I was not being receptive enough, I was expecting something else and when I didn't get what I wanted I rejected the piece as a whole. I don't get that feeling with this. I don't think there is anything to get. It is not enjoyable. It is a waste of time. And this from a guy who likes Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music.

Yikes!:
I'll make this short. Unless you are an extreme fan (not just a major fan), you won't like this DVD. They spend what it feels like 70 minutes in the studio just going through various parts of the title track with the remaining portion about who knows what junk. Unlike other DVDs from the 70s, why isn't this in 5.1?

Save your money & time:
My rating is a big fat zreo. The Stones fiddle around with the song off and on but never really get it going. Brian Jones is all but invisable. The social commentary that is interspersed throughout was probably cool at some point in time but I've seen it all come and go. My remote was working, and I used it a lot. I'm still looking for something really good by the Stones on DVD, VHS whatever and have yet to find it. I saw them in 1971 and they were decent but didn't really leave that much of an impression as a live band.

85% unwatchable:
The footage of the Stones' working sessions is great. I loved watching and listening to the metamorphosis of that great song. But Jean-Luc Godard's interspersed, incoherent "cultural revolution" playlets with the little pinball Love Grrl and the Black Panthers...I can't describe how utterly awful it is. There's something wrong with the fast-forward button on our dvd player remote, so I went to the tv and pressed the fast forward on the player to get through these parts after the first two bits. Needless to say, I ended up sitting in front of the player, a foot from the TV, so I wouldn't have to see any more of these parts. Won't somebody please edit this movie down to a great 15 minutes of Stones in session, please. I'd add a couple of stars for that.