Abstract
ABSTRACTUncharacteristic of a Jean-Luc Godard film from the 1960s, Sympathy for the Devil (1968) is largely ignored in Godard scholarship, dismissed as a high-profile, minor work that squanders its political-cum-‘rockumentary’ pretensions by diverging into quotidian Rolling Stones footage and esoteric didacticism. Yet considering its status as Godard's first commercial documentary, especially in the light of his written tirades against the mode in Cahiers du Cinéma, the perceived shortcomings of the film reveal a calculated self-effacement that criticizes what it ostensibly participates in. Substantiated by interviews, criticisms, a shelved omnibus entry and the unrealized potential of One Plus One (Godard's intended title), this article proposes that Sympathy for the Devil is most effectively understood as Godard's indictment of the documentary mode, borrowing methodological signatures from the era's two divergent ‘truth’ cinemas—direct cinema and cinéma-vérité—only to subvert their aims with a perversion of techniques, admission of exploitative practices and a bevy of political rhetoric that collates the new schools' tenability to ‘truth’ with the propagandist, Griersonian model they first sought to displace. Resituated as an extension of his polemics, Sympathy for the Devil offers valuable insight into Godard's political project, and helps consolidate his views on filmic reality.
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