Film > Documentary

Sympathy for the Devil (aka One Plus One) was a made at a time the Rolling Stones and director Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless) stood at the forefront of the ’60s counterculture. Essentially two films in one, the first sees rock superstars The Rolling Stones rehearse their revolutionary single Sympathy for the Devil in a London studio for their forthcoming Beggars Banquet album; while the second takes the form of a series of abstract fictional vignettes probing topics such as black power, pornography and celebrity around the streets of swinging sixties London.

This version of Godard’s film sparked a notorious confrontation at the London premier when the director attacked his producer for attaching the completed version of the song Sympathy for the Devil at the film’s end, and substituting Sympathy for the Devil for the original title One Plus One. Godard then demanded the audience attend an alternative screening of his original cut under the Waterloo Bridge. This release allows audiences to view both versions.

Set amidst the social upheaval of the late 1960s, Sympathy for the Devil stands as a timeless document of art and politics in the 20th century.