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Proto-Pop: The Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for Jean Luc Godard

Before MTV and MuchMusic, there was Jean Luc Godard. Here’s a clip from his bizarre 1970 film One Plus One, featuring The Rolling Stones’ jam sessions for what ended up being one the greatest rock songs of all time, Sympathy For The Devil. The wiki:

Composing the movie’s main narrative thread are several long, uninterrupted shots of The Rolling Stones in a sound studio, recording and rerecording various parts to “Sympathy for the Devil.” The dissolution of Stone Brian Jones is vividly portrayed, and the chaos of 1968 is made clear when a line referring to the killing of John F. Kennedy is heard changed to the plural after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in June.

Interwoven through the movie are outdoor shots of Black Panthers milling about in a junkyard littered with the rusting cars heaped upon each other. There are also scenes of Black Panthers tossing their rifles to each other, from man to man, as if in an assembly line, readying for an impending battle.

The rest of the film contains a powerful political message in the form of a voiceover about Marxism, the need for revolution and other topics in which Godard was interested. One scene involves a camera crew following a woman about, played by Anne Wiazemsky, in an outdoor wildlife setting. She’s dressed in a flowing white gown, but no matter what she is asked, she always answers “yes” or “no.” (linkage)

More here and here.