We are pleased to welcome Adrian Wootton, CEO of Film London and the British Film Commission, to introduce this film. Adrian will also be presenting this month’s Afternoon Talk on The Rolling Stones earlier on, at 4pm, on March 4th.

When filming on a project on abortion in the U.K. fell through, Jean-Luc Godard turned his attention instead to The Rolling Stones, then working on the recording of the titular song. Coming into his most heavily political phase, Godard interspersed his footage of the band with typically oblique and didactic vignettes on the Black Panthers, Marxism, and the need for revolution.

The footage of the Stones at work is fascinating, however: filmed during Brian Jones’ final sessions, his decline in the band’s hierarchy is apparent as Jagger and Richards rework and refine one of their greatest songs. (Notes by Kevin Coyne.)

This film is screening as part of Rock&Roll, the final of our three-month season dedicated to excess, presenting examples of how cinema has taken on sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll in Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll.