‘Human, Not Human’: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in Italian avant-garde mess, 1972

Mario Schifano, an Italian pop art painter and collagist who exhibited alongside Warhol and and Roy Lichtenstein, released this unusual art film Umano Non Umano (“Human, Not Human”) in 1972. It looks quite boring (I don’t speak Italian, so it’s boring to me) but is notable for the inclusion of odd scenes with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (Anita Pallenberg, once Schifano’s girlfriend, is also in the film, and there are appearances by Carmello Bene and Italian existentialist novelist Alberto Moravia).

At about 36 minutes in, Mick Jagger is seen looking a right prat in a pink suit doing a not terribly convincing lip-sync of “Street Fighting Man.” At the one hour and one minute mark, Keith is seen arsing about making avant-garde music (we posted this clip a while back, too). That part is pretty cool, but the rest of it looks awful.

Although the film came out in 1972, I’d imagine that Jagger’s scene was probably shot sometime prior to when Marianne Faithfull left Mick for director Mario Schifano in 1969. Two pages are devoted to the affair in her 1994 autobiography, Faithfull. Schifano was apparently a huge coke freak, according to her. Maybe that’s why he thought the incessant heartbeat noise going on throughout this film was a good idea?

Below, Keith’s scene:

Thank you, Chris Campion!