one + one = suck


THIS IS THE WORST FILM I HAVE EVER SEEN!

If you're thinking about watching this film because you love the rolling Stones, forget it! It's not about the Stones, they're just a prop for a pompous, pretentious Frenchman (oops, sorry for being redundant). I can just see this loser sitting around with his elitist friends eating caviar, drinking champagne, and waxing poetic about Marxism. Godard is the most sickening kind of hypocrite there is.
The worst part for me was the fact that you can't even hear Brian Jones' guitar. WTF is up with that!?! This film has absolutely no redeeming qualities. If you rock, you will hate this piece of crap. If you're a social misfit that sits around listening to Elvis Costello music, you might like it...

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I agree that this film is a total bore and an insult to the Stones, but did you really have to insult Elvis Costello fans to make your point?

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Again we meet, Warp!

Yeah although I'm willing to give Godard the benefit of the doubt and say he gave it a good effort, the OP was pretty spot on with every statement. Except the Elvis Costello slam!

I gave this film every ounce of leeway I could conjure up, and by the end I was actually enjoying it. But Stones fans: make no mistake, this is not about the Stones nor is it even about the song or its meaning. Sure, while both the song & the film portray the "devil" as human nature, that's where the similarities end.

The Stones song is a lyrical & musical masterpiece: a very clever take on evil, showing how seductive yet polite it is ("a man of wealth and taste") right down to the seductive, Afro-Brazilian beat which connects with us at a primitive level.

Godard totally dropped the ball and instead gave us a deliberately disturbing & tedious visual compliment. There's nothing seductive, polite or enticing about the way he composed his scenes, artistic as they are. A bunch of whackos in a junkyard & a bunch of dopey neo nazis in a comic book store are not "men of wealth & taste" by a mile. While the satire was funny & at times entertaining, it had nothing to do with the spirit of the Stones song, and I wonder if Godard was truly a hypocrite like the OP said, capitalizing on the popularity of a rock band to sell his off-base agenda.

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Fancy seeing you here, Rooprect, as well as all the other cool places on this site!

I wish I remembered more about this film to add to the conversation, but it's been more than four years since I've seen it and can't say I plan to revisit it soon. I have to admit I'm one of the folks who don't "get" Godard, though I've seen several of his films and continue to give him a chance.

Titling his film after perhaps the Stones' most cinematic song appeared to set Godard up for defeat, at least with Stones fans – and I can't imagine a lot of other folks who might be interested in this. The song is a movie in itself – alluring yet threatening, beautiful yet horrifying, with killer musicianship and atmosphere.

I'm always better at discussing films I like rather than those I don't – and I'm even worse at discussing films I hardly remember – so I'll move on here, but I wanted to acknowledge your eloquent reply.

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Haha well this film isn't exactly memorable, mostly due to its very confusing presentation. I don't really "get" Godard either, though I continue to try. I liked "Le Mépris" [Contempt] because it had a more traditional storyline (and also Brigitte Bardot who makes even the most excruciating experiences fun to watch). I also thought "Alphaville" was a fun scifi-noir satire, sorta like "The Maltese Falcon" meets "Brazil" meets "Airplane!" But for the most part I can't say I'm in tune with Godard.

I really gave this film everything I could, mostly because I love the Stones song so much (like you said, it's a movie in itself) and I was hoping Godard would give a fitting visual interpretation. But instead he just used the song as a footnote to his own agenda. Worse, I don't think he bothered to understand what the song was really about. The more I research the circumstances under which this movie was made, the more I realize how incongruous the song is.

Apparently that year Godard had intended to make a pro-abortion film, but by the time he got his crews together, abortion was legalized and the debate was settled. So he shifted gears & grabbed the opportunity to film a Stones recording session that was happening. In the end he made a film about counter-culture revolutionaries. I suppose he intended to show the Stones as a revolutionary force just like the Black Panthers or the graffiti-writing beatniks he showed. Meh, if so I can sorta understand what he's getting at, but I still think it's a terrible waste of rare potential.

Anyway, as you did I'll probably end up flushing most of this film out of my memory and moving on to the next one. I may be a few years late but one of these days I'll catch up with you!

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I know I'm late in adding to this column but I agree with everyone--Stones aside this film sucks! The song itself is a masterpiece and Godard obviously didn't have a clue on what it was about. It's all about him not the Stones. Personally I hate Godard. I found "Breathless" pointless, "Weekend" bewildering and "Hail Mary" a laugh a minute. His short in "Aria" is just impossible to sit through. What points he's trying to make are lost in badly edited and literally incomprehensible films. This is one of them. I caught it on DVD where it looked and sounded great. When the Stones were on it was magic--when they weren't it was a chore to sit through. I heard Jagger hates the film and has no idea what all the political crap was doing in it.

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Hey prep, that's interesting to know about Jagger's opinion. I always get a kick out of it when people use songs for a political agenda/campaign, and the original songwriter steps up and says "no way man". It usually happens in every US presidential campaign where some bonehead tries to use the Mellencamp song Pink Houses just because of the (sarcastic) line "aint that America, home of the free".

Thanks for the warnings about the Godard masterpieces. I keep wanting to give him another chance, as it looks like you've done several times. I figured this would be the easiest one to get into just because I'm a Stones fan. Didn't quite work out that way.

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Yeah--Jagger was really upset when it came out and from then on the Stones just did concert films with no political agenda. Godard (from what I've head) is a control freak and is so insistent on his political agenda that other people's wishes are ignored. He was big in the 1960s and his movies broke new ground in terms on content and visions. Unfortunately his movies to not age well at all. I have the same problem with Bergman but at least Bergman had linear plots and characters you cared about. Both are absent from Godard. His last big hit was "Hail Mary" and that was only cause the Catholic church condemned it calling it sacreligious (it isn't). However he has his supporters so what do I know?:)

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That makes a lot of sense about Godard owing his fame to controversy & breaking new ground. But yeah, I feel a great work should stand on its own without footnotes about how counter-cultural it was at the time. Being anti-fashionable is just as fleeting as being fashionable.

I'm not the biggest fan of Bergman either, probably for the same reasons. I did enjoy Wild Strawberries and of course The Seventh Seal because they had captivating stories to tell. But when I saw Persona which begins with random shots of animal slaughters and erect penises, I lost all respect for the man. The 60s seemed to be a lot of artistic "I can be more avant-garde than you" going on. As you said, that stuff doesn't age well at all!

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Interesting what you said about Bergman. I thought "Wild Strawberries" was OK but agree taht "The Seventh Seal" was great. You might want to try "The Virgin Spring" too which was remade (badly) as "Last House on the Left". I (sort of) liked "Persona". I agree the animals being slaughtered I could have lived without but the erect penis makes sense in the context of the story. However the film isn't for everybody. You might want to try David Lynch. His films are sometimes hard to watch ("Blue Velvet" especially) but he has stories, characters and images that all work together.

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