Shine a Light

Take some lyrics:

1. "May the good lord shine a light on you Make every song your favourite tune"

2. "You call yourself a Christian, I call you a hypocrite. You call yourself a patriot, well I think you're full of sh*t."

Both are recent songs by the Rolling Stones. A 1960s rock and roll group. (Band members are now in their sixties.)

Verse 2 is from an anti-Bush song called Sweet Neo Con. An interesting point from which to start a movie perhaps. Veteran director Scorsese even chooses a concert at which democrat Bill Clinton is in attendance. But the song, even though part of the tour, is missing. This film has no hidden agenda or meaning. Sweetness and Light. Shine a Light.

If you are a current fan of the Stones, such details matter little. This is a concert film (at the New York Beacon Theatre) to die for. Production values are far better than any comparable TV live event. A concert to enjoy in surround sound, in a comfortable theatre, with every detail up close on a big screen (or even IMAX). Not a film about lyrics. Not a documentary of these extraordinary long careers. Just a big, brilliant concert.

It rather feels as if the Stones hired the best filmmaker in the business. Who in turn hires the best cinematographers. Who in turn capture every dramatic gesture. Every Mick Jagger mince. Every crowd-pleasing wave. Each impressive guitar riff. Each colourful stage contrast. Each theatrical burst of light. Everything. Except film fans may struggle and ask, "But isn't this supposed to be a Martin Scorsese film?"

When Scorsese did Bob Dylan (No Direction Home), his achievement was in the insights into a complex man. His film resolved the eternal conflict between Dylan's public personas. Shine a Light, on the other hand, offers no such insight into the stars concerned beyond the current state of their stage performance (impressive though it is).

There are some nice cinematic touches. It is fun watching Scorsese in front of the camera in the opening scenes. He worries about getting a specific playlist, so he knows whether to be ready for a guitar solo or singer acrobatics. It helps us understand the complexity of filming a live event. The question of the band's age, instead of being disguised, is cleverly made a feature. Scorsese intersperses Beacon Theatre sets with vintage black and white footage of frequent interview questions relating to age. "Can you imagine doing this when you're 60?" and so on. I wince. I had qualms about watching these pensioners prance about on stage. A fan of their early music, I instinctively feel rock stars should die (or at least retire) before they get old. But blues singers look cool old. Why not the Rolling Stones? Keith Richards looks positively cadaverous. A Munster with a mean guitar. And the Rolling Stones are considered chic both by baby boomers and trendy young well-to-dos. Long gone are the days when buying a Stones album was an act of defiance.

But in spite of the unused Neo Con lyrics and Jagger's single use of the f word in the whole concert, fans seem more concerned that Richards actually smokes a cigarette. A girl in the audience points disapprovingly. The Stones are mainstream. Bill Clinton hails their green credentials. Everyone is lovey-dovey. Much of the concert features impressive showmanship and a high level of professionalism. Jagger never misses a note. The guitar-work is beautiful. And as a role model for pensioners, Jagger's routine is more energetic than any step class. But where was the angst? The blinding energy that seared itself into the brains of the 60s youth? This was a very a different band. I try to forget the old one. I enjoy the toothless new more than I like to admit.

Shine a Light is a time capsule. The latter years of the most famous rock and roll band in the world. A great British institution preserved for posterity. (It releases the day after Gordon Brown's jovial and equally polished tele-appeal on American Idol. New Labour. New Stones.)

Well-chosen guest artists spring into sets. Jack White produces a perfect blend of young and old as he duets with Jagger. Christina Aguilera looks stunning in high heels and tights. How could she not fire up the old man? Jagger hugs her bum as they dance to Live With Me. He has new fire in him as he continues with Start Me Up. By the time he sings Brown Sugar, there is a passion to it. The audience wave and cheer in time. When Satisfaction ricochets through the hall it is like watching the legend. The Mick Jagger of old. I'm almost a convert.

Would it be cynical to say Sympathy for the Devil looked more like a Born-Again pageant? Unappreciative perhaps. The film lover in me would rather have Jean-Luc Godard's film of that title for a sense of the 'real' Rolling Stones. But why should audiences dictate that pop stars – or film directors for that matter – conform to expectation? Accept Shine a Light for the awesome concert film that it is. Miserable old sentimentalists go back to your vinyl. Your 'creative' cinema. There's not much of it here.

Shine a Light (2008)

**** (out of 4)

You could argue that Martin Scorsese is the greatest director in the history of cinema and you could also argue that The Rolling Stones are the greatest rock 'n roll band in history so the two giants teaming up for a movie is a tricky move. A lot of times when two giants team up the results are disappointing but that's certainly not the case here. This concert film is without a doubt the most beautiful one I've ever seen and certainly the best directed. There's no doubt in my mind that Scorsese has taken the concert film and created something so incredibly that I'd compare it to how Dylan changed music history with Highway 61 Revisited.

As for the concert, The Stones need no defending and they deliver a terrific performance here, which was recorded over two shows at the Beacon Theatre in NYC. The guys get off to a feverish pace with a rocking 'Jumpin Jack Flash' followed with a neat version of 'Shattered'. The majority of the show has lesser known tunes and these here are certainly the highlight of the film. The cover of 'Just My Imagination' has the Stones making that song all their own. The legend Buddy Guy joins the band for an incredibly spirited version of the Muddy Waters' tune 'Champagne & Reefer'. 'Some Girls' features Jaggers really having fun on stage and the country based 'Faraway Eyes' really packs a punch. 'As Tears Go By', described by Jagger as a song they were originally embarrassed by, turns into a magical moment. The second half of the show features the big hits like 'Start Me Up', 'Brown Sugar', 'Sympathy for the Devil' and 'Satisfaction'. The entire concert is full of terrific energy as Richards is constantly smiling and even does two songs himself including a sharp version of 'You Got the Silver'. The group is really rocking throughout the thing and Jagger doesn't slow down as he's constantly dancing, spinning and working up the crowd. Not to mention feeling up on Christina Aguilera during 'Live With Me'.

On the technical side of things, this movie makes every other concert films look cheap and generic. Even without the music this thing is pure beauty as Scorsese really knows how to edit all the action together and his direction of the cameras is something really mind blowing. Just look at the 'Champagne & Reefer" segment, which is a rocking blues number and see how Scorsese captures the mood and spirit of the song. The heavier songs like 'Start Me up' are also perfectly captured. I'm really not sure I can put into words how incredible this whole thing looked on the IMAX screen. You get so up close and personal with the band that you can see spit flying from Jaggers mouth and notice every bit of perspiration pouring off the group. The stage settings add for some great visuals, which really jump off the screen. At times I really forgot I was watching a movie as it felt like I was really there at the concert. After the songs would finish and the crowd would cheer, I had to stop myself a couple times from cheering because that's how much I forgot I was watching a movie. The opening of the concert features a camera move that I won't spoil here but it ranks right up there among Scorsese's greatest and probably falls just behind that famous scene in Goodfellas.

The first ten minutes of the movie shows all the pre-show stuff including Scorsese trying to get the group to deliver a set list so that he can determine how he wants to film everything. The eventual set list doesn't show up until minutes before the show so you can imagine how Scorsese was pulling his hair out. We also get a great closing scene with the band leaving the stage, which was great to see because I always wondered what they were doing as they left the stage. Vintage interview clips are also sprinkled throughout the film, including one from when the band was just out for two years and Jaggers is asked how much longer they could keep doing this. He's reply is that they have at least one more year in them. Forty years later we get this film, which shows why Scorsese and The Stones are legends and this film perfectly captures the greatness of both artist.

Shine a Light displays, thrillingly and with the bombastic POP of a revisited 'happy place', why many love the Rolling Stones and many love the style of Martin Scorsese. It's mostly a concert movie shot over a period of two mights at the Beacon theater (as if doing a workhorse revival of thirty years ago, while Scorsese was busy shooting New York, New York in 76 and doing the Last Waltz concurrently, this time he shot the concert while finishing up the Departed), with some choice documentary footage interspersed in between some songs. On both fronts, however minor the (all archival) interview footage is, it's a big success, visually and musically, as good old rock and roll performance art (well, almost art, but I like it), and as visual virtuosity made incarnate.

It might be easy to adulate the Stones, as well as Scorsese. They've been around for so long, doing what they do, with each side rumored here and there to quit doing what they do (for the Stones it's every tour, much to their grinning bemusement, and for Scorsese it was a point in the 80s when he thought he'd have to leave Hollywood and make documentaries on saints). They're always acclaimed, usually big money-makers, and they've acquired a kind of nether-region between 'cult' audience and full-blown mainstream mayhem. It's this that is, in a way, the subtext for Shine a Light. While Scorsese stays mostly behind the scenes, the Stones are up and front and in center of a marvelous performance, and showcasing the energy and level of pizazz that quiets the naysayers. They sold out, and it doesn't get to them a single bit.

After some funny early footage of Scorsese (shot usually in black and white DV by Albert Maysles, who also appears here and there) getting into a minor tizzy about what the set-list is going to be, and getting some downtime with Bill Clinton, the show starts up like any good Stones show should- Jumpin' Jack Flash. Then onward come some given numbers (Shattered, Brown Sugar, Tumbling Dice), the masterpieces (Sympathy for the Devil, Loving Cup, featuring an awesome Jack White, and Champagne and Reefer with an equally awesome Buddy Guy), and a lot of unexpected tracks too (Live with Me with showy Aguilera, As Tears go By, some country song, and a kick-ass She Was Hot). For fans it's an amazing mix, and it allows for those who are just casual admirers to get their money's worth, primarily in IMAX. This is not just because of the quality of the music and the performances- which is, at its best, revelatory of what this band can do, at any age- but because of Scorsese's cameras, moving around in epic and roving fashion, edited with efficiency to not go all over the place or too slow, and, chiefly, to make it intimate like how many remember the Last Waltz to be (lots of neatly defined close-ups, lingering on to capture these hardened rockers).

And at the end, what is the point? Is it just another blah-blah Stones concert movie? Not necessarily. It doesn't have the heavy sociological context of Gimme Shelter, however it's not a little sloppy like Let's Spend the Night Together. Shine a Light celebrates its heroes, but it doesn't go completely overboard. Scorsese knows, as he did with Bob Dylan, not to get too cocky with these fogies. It's important to throw in those bits with the Stones getting interviewed, candid and without much overbearing ego present, and by the end you know there's still a place for them, firmly, in the public consciousness. They sold out in the most ironically good way in rock music history, with Scorsese now wonderfully in tow. A+

"Shine a Light" is Martin Scorsese's second real concert film after 1978's "The Last Waltz", which by now is generally acknowledged as a masterpiece and is my favorite film by the director. I really hope we will see more concert films from Scorsese in the future, because "Shine a Light" is further excellence from him. If all, or even a significant number of concert films were filmed with such skill and exuded such energy, there would be far more of them made and far more released theatrically.

"Shine a Light" is a concert film. I'm not sure I'd call it a documentary on the Rolling Stones so much as a filming (a brilliant filming) of an especially good concert they played recently. Scorsese is smart enough, however, to use interviews and clips from all stages of the Stones' career for purposes of humor and even commentary on various aspects of music and the music business, as well as the band itself.

Your average Rolling Stones fan waiting to see a Rolling Stones concert and who isn't a fan of film probably will be bored during the film's opening scenes, but for those interested in film, they provide a fascinating glimpse into the marriage of live music and film-making, which doesn't happen as much as it should. It's also quite an intimate look at the Stones as a bunch of people, exposing them in the same sort of way the non-concert scenes in "Gimme Shelter" did. Then again, how much of it is real and how much is an act is really the essential question that we will forever be asking about this band.

"Shine a Light" isn't a document of an important historical event like Scorsese's "The Last Waltz" or the Maysles Bros' "Gimme Shelter" was as a Rolling Stones film, so one shouldn't expect that sort of greatness from "Shine a Light". What one should expect is a great concert, filmed with great skill, tasteful guest appearances that do nothing but add to the music, and a gorgeous film interspersed tastefully with archive footage chosen carefully and played at just the right moments.

The Stones and Scorsese are on top form here, making this a memorable and exciting concert film and the sort of marriage of film-making and live music that really should happen more often.

8.5/10

Sometimes you might feel that the rock concert movie genre hasn't moved much since "Woodstock". Which doesn't mean Scorsese doesn't manage the tradition in a very proper way.

You certainly have the concert feeling here. But Stones have made it both better and worse. There are ups and downs in this performance, with an absolute peak from the blues man Buddy Guy entering stage.

The clips from old Stones interviews are entertaining, but what's the purpose of having them there? If they are supposed to be included, they should have taken a bigger place, telling something more of this band, which in itself forms essentials of rock history. Anyway, good work by Scorsese, although traditional.