One Plus One

One Plus One  (aka. Sympathy For The Devil)

Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard
Producers: Eleni Collard/ Michael Pearson/ Iain Quarrier

Running time: 110 min   Color   Date: 1968

In the 60's, having as the background the rehearsal and recording of "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones, Godard discloses other contemporary revolutionary and ideological movements - the Black Power/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"

Godard's documentation of late 1960's western counter-culture, examining the Black Panthers, referring to works by LeRoi Jones and Eldridge Cleaver. Other notable subjects are the role of the media, the mediated image, a growing technocratic society, Womens Liberation, the May revolt in France and the power of language. Cutting between 3 major scenes, including the Rolling Stones in the studio, the film is visually intercut with Eve Democracy (Wiazemsky) using graffiti which amalgamates organisations, corporations and ideologies. Godard also examines the role of the revolutionary within western culture; "There is only one way to be an intellectual revolutionary, and that is to give up being an intellectual". During filming of the Rolling Stones' recording, a fire broke out in the sound studio. While footage of the studio on fire was not included on the film, it does exist and has been used in a documentary film, "Voices".

"One Plus One" was premiered at the National Film Theatre, London, late 1968, and the film was not released in America until 1970. Producer Iain Quarrier had re-titled the film "Sympathy For The Devil", having re-edit and reworked the material (against Godard wishes) to include longer sequences with the band and the full version of the Stones song in the end.