Sympathy for the Devil

Sympathy for the Devil

I was extremely excited for this film--knowing that the Rolling Stones played a large role—I had a predisposition of enjoyment. Thirty minutes into it, I realized Godard was pretty much filming the Stones recording the song “Sympathy for the Devil”. Not one of them acknowledged the camera; it looked like there was a hidden camera in the studio. To be honest I finally got sick of a song I always loved to hear. I could have done with out the Rolling Stones band practice and was irked by the prolonged and unnecessary studio scenes. The film would have been much more powerful with two Rolling Stones scenes—one at the beginning and one at the end. Not only would this of cut out about an hour of unnecessary boredom after the initial excitement of seeing the Stones via 1968, but it distracted the messages of the film.

That being said; I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the film. It was bizarre, it was honest, it was thought provoking, it was shocking, it was powerful, it was Godard. The wonderfully eerie Black Panther Scenes were of my favorite. The message of the quite script that was repeated and recorded and spoken on microphone-- contradicted their hateful actions. The background noise of trains and jet plains did distract, but added to the chaos. These scenes were shot in a beautiful junkyard (where cars go to die) and it made me wonder if the place was real or constructed by Godard.

I cannot thoroughly examine the scenes that Godard used to tack the issues of: Feminism, racism, Communism, Fascism (pornographic fascist bookstore) and more. It seemed to me—since the film was in English—Godard was exposing these issues to let western culture realize how close and/or real these issues are.

All around the film was great accept of the overexposure of band practice. Godard may of included these scenes for an important reason—if so it flew a mile over my head.