Sympathy for the Devil

A mixture of revolutionary propaganda and Vietnam War footage set amid a Rolling Stones recording session., Jean-Luc Godard’s SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL is an exhilarating, provocative pastiche of a motion picture. While the focus of the film is on The Rolling Stones song after which the film is titled, a series of abstract fictional vignettes in the second half of the film allows Godard to probe topics as diverse as Black Power, pornography, and the irony of interviewing celebrities., This film takes an inside look at a rock band’s recording process, while reflecting on contemporary politics. One half of the film focuses on the Rolling Stones. The other half of the film presents a series of sequences dealing with issues like black power, pornography, racism, and Marxism, among others.