What a load of pretentious nonsense. I watched this to see the Stones creating a rock classic, Sympathy for the Devil, and got heaps of ravings and musings about politics, power, black liberation, all done in a very smug pretentious sort of way.

The making of Sympathy for the Devil was interesting, but even that was ruined by having some idiot read (fairly low quality) books over the scenes. You do get a sense of the development of the song, but there is no indication of the creative genius that drove the development. Even worse, there is no footage of the ultimate development of the song, the final take that is committed to vinyl.

If, like me, you are a Stones fan, you will be ready to smash in your TV within a few minutes of the movie starting. The thing to note is that the incredibly crappy direction the movie took was through no doing of the Stones, but through having Jean-Luc Goddard as the director (though with any French director the result would have been the same).

I strongly recommend that you avoid this, or at least have your finger paused above the Fast Foward button at all times. Other than the pieces involving the Stones, there is absolutely nothing worth watching here.

In the 60's, having as the background the rehearsal and recording of "Sympathy for the Devil" in the classic album "Beggar's Banquet" by the revolutionary bad boy Rolling Stones – Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman and Brian Jones – plus Marianne Faithful, Godard discloses other contemporary revolutionary and ideological movements – the Black Power through the Black Panthers, the feminism, the communism, the fascism - entwined with the reading of a cheap pulp political novel divided in the chapters: "The Stones Rolling; "Outside Black Novel"; "Sight and Sound"; "All About Eve"; "The Heart of Occident"; "Inside Black Syntax"; and, "Under the Stones the Beach".

"Sympathy for the Devil" is another pretentious and boring mess of the uneven director Jean-Luc Godard. The narrative and the footages are awful, but fortunately I love the Stones and "Sympathy for the Devil" and it is nice to see them in the beginning of their careers; otherwise this documentary would be unbearable. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Sympathy for the Devil"

Godard's documentation of late 1960s Western counter-culture, examining the Black Panthers, referring to works by LeRoi Jones and Eldridge Cleaver. Other notable subjects are the role of news media, the mediated image, a growing technocratic society, women's liberation, the May revolt in France and the power of language.

I can't say I'm a huge Godard fan, but this film has to be one of his best pieces. 1968 is arguably the most revolutionary year of the most revolutionary decade of the 1900s. And he captured it, through the changes in the Stones, the Black Panthers, and more. Although not quite a documentary, it isn't quite fiction, either... it's a nice blend of art and a time capsule for when change -- good or bad -- was in the air.