Dvd Reissue: Godard/Stones: Sympathy For The Devil

[DudeAsInCool]

It's Clash of the Titans, cynical-Sixties-hipster division: Jean-Luc Godard vs. Mick Jagger! Who can reject more of the values held dear by respectable society? Sympathy for the Devil is Godard's documentary of the Stones in the midst of their 1968 Beggars Banquet sessions, working on their scariest song.

The Stones and their ladies look incredibly cool: Brian Jones is too out of it to light his own cigarette, Keith Richards had a little too much sugar in his tea this morning and Anita Pallenberg -- man, she can lay my soul to waste any time. Unfortunately, Godard intercuts the Stones sessions with endless scenes of revolutionaries in the streets. He aims for political context, but he mainly proves that it was the Sixties and nobody had invented the fast-forward button yet. As a DVD extra, there's the Neptunes' "Sympathy for the Devil" remix, the sound of a check getting cashed -- too bad the producers couldn't get a commentary track from Lucifer explaining why he's so mean to those poor troubadours who get killed before they reach Bombay. Four Flicks (available only at Best Buy stores) presents a different vision of the Stones at work: four discs of their 2002-03 world tour, featuring posh rehearsal footage, vintage hits, Richards rasping the ballad "The Nearness of You" and guests such as AC/DC.

ROB SHEFFIELD