Product Details

• Actors: Sean Lynch, Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts
• Directors: Jean-Luc Godard
• Writers: Jean-Luc Godard
• Producers: Iain Quarrier, Eleni Collard, Michael Pearson, Mick Gochanour, Robin Klein
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Abkco
• DVD Release Date: October 21, 2003
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0000DC13U
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #61,889 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Sympathy for the Devil" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Creative Process (sort of) and Rock Icons In Their Youth, December 28, 2001

By 

Clare Quilty (a little pad in hawaii) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sympathy for the Devil [VHS] (VHS Tape)

In many ways, this film is as valuable an account of the Stones and their world and music as Stanley Booth's amazing memoir/biography "The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones." And Booth's book, despite the cheesy, alternate title (it was originally called "Dance With The Devil") is, in itself, a shrewd and articulate literary counterpart to "Gimme Shelter."

But "Sympathy" is a more concentrated glimpse and its focus is on the progression and recording of the title song is, to a fan anyway, fascinating.

One thing I find interesting is the many directions this song could've taken. One version is a chilled out, slowed down samba. Another has an ethereal Nicky Hopkins organ melody. And apparently, the line that originally went, "I shouted out 'who killed Kennedy'" had to be changed to "who killed the Kennedys" because Robert Kennedy was assassinated as they were working out the song.

Other interesting aspects are the questions this film raises. How long a period does this session cover? A month? A week? Two days? Are we seeing the sessions in chronological order. Who are all the other people we see milling around while the Stones try to get something done. We're never told.

Plus, it's just cool to see these guys when they were young, looking great and being as close to themselves as they can be with a camera in their face: Mick, waddling around and flubbing lines; Bill, looking like the boredest man in the world; Charlie focused and steady; Brian struggling to arrange a cigarette to smoke; and Keith, like a slim pirate, doing a jaunty step as he fiddles with what will eventually become "Sympathy's" razor-sharp solo.

Many viewers take this film to task for the non-music related scenes that are interspersed with the studio sessions: short, verite riffs on celebrity, race, sex, literature, techonology. I actually liked these sections, though every single one of them goes on about twice as long as it should. However, these little glimpses outside the studio plant the movie in a particular zone (the end of swinging London as seen through Godard's lens) that give the entire piece a distinct, if consistently unreal, identity.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Utterly incomprehensible, but...., May 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sympathy for the Devil [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Godard made "Sympathy for the Devil/One Plus One" shortly after the events of May '68, and is consequently one of his most oddball, revolutionary films ever. Fascinating footage of the Stones at work is cut with non-narrative scenes of black revolutionaries quoting Eldrige Cleaver, a porno bookstore owner reading from "Mein Kampf," an interview with a woman named Eve Democracy consisting entirely of yes/no questions, and a woman surreptitiously spray-painting slogans on parked cars, while voice-overs describing sexual situations involving Pope Paul, LBJ and other luminaries drone on the soundtrack. The film works best if you just shut your mind to reason and let it all wash over you. For die-hard Godard aficiandos or Stones fans proficient with the fast-forward button.

56 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Marx 'n' Roll, October 27, 2003

By 

D. Hartley (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sympathy for the Devil (DVD)

A rarely screened late 60's curio, "Sympathy For The Devil" looms larger as a legend in the minds of those who have namechecked it over the years than as a bonifide "classic". While it's great to have it available on DVD, 35 years passing have not been kind to the film's scattershot approach. Director Jean-Luc Goddard is not exactly famous for linear narrative, so it's not like I was expecting "ABBA: The Movie", but I found this film rough going all the same. The premise: Goddard was given permission to film the Stones working in the studio on thier classic "Sympathy For The Devil". He took this footage and intercut it with Black Panthers spouting political rhetoric and conducting "guerilla theater" vignettes about the "Revolution". While I think we "get" the analogy between the seeds of creativity (the Stones methodically building the song in the studio) and the seeds of Revolution (being sown in the streets), the repetitive nature of the dated rhetoric wears out its welcome quickly. This does leave one pondering as to whom, exactly, the film is for. Music fans will probably find the interruptions annoying; history buffs studying 60's politics will likely find the Stones superfluous. Personally, I found the beautifully shot Stones footage enough to warrant hanging on to my copy. If you're looking for a classic 60's MUSIC film with the Stones, check out "Gimme Shelter" instead. If you're looking for a time capsule of 60's POLITICS, try "Medium Cool" or "Putney Swope". Unfortunately, while "Sympathy" contains a good amount of both,it never successfully connects with either music OR politics.