Shine a Light

Scorsese has tried his best to recreate the glory of The Last Waltz but seems to have stumbled at the impossible: how can you recreate or better what is arguably the best concert movie of all time? Quite simply, you can't. The intro to this movie is as strange as its ending. There was obviously some sort of ruckus between Mick and Scorsese, because the lack of backstage footage and constant arguments between the two regarding camera, stage and setlists seemed to have set Scorsese on a "I find it very hard to work with this diva" twist on the movie.

This seems to dissipate with the beginning of the actual concert. Maybe he's trying to tell us that Mick's diva-esquire attitude and pointless demands fall apart and don't matter once they come onstage. It's all lost in the music.

As far as camera-work is concerned, this movie is well above most in terms of energy and fluidness (regardless of the lack of rehearsals Martin seems to emphasise). The two cameras behind the front row of people give a great sense of being in the crowd looking up at Jagger and Richards.

The gig itself is as good as any Bigger Bang tour I've seen. Anyone who has seen the Stones live in the past 5 years knows exactly what to expect and they don't disappoint in this show.

Scorsese cuts to archive footage of the band being interviewed at certain times. As interesting as these are to see, they seem to not fit as effectively as the cut scenes in The Last Waltz did. They almost seem separate to the rest of the film.

The performances by Jack White and Buddy Guy are interesting. It seems like they appeared onstage unannounced and had no previous rehearsal with the band and just tried to play along. Especially for Buddy Guy. His usually inch-perfect solos and licks seem rigid and refrained. Its as if he's waiting for cues from the Stones that never come. Christina Aguilaira's appearance proves she certainly has talent in her well-trained voice, but seems like a strange cameo.

All in all, I'd say this is a pretty decent concert movie, but nothing special in terms of movies in general. If you're a fan of the Stones, you'll enjoy this, but it won't shine any special light on the band themselves.

Great concert movie. It is amazing to see the Stones have such energy in their performances at their age, and they certainly don't disappoint here. The special guests were great - Jack White, Buddy Guy, even Christina Aguilera, whose music I hate, was excellent. Scorsese's camera angles work perfectly, giving a great vibe to the footage.

Would have been good to get some the behind-the-scenes stuff though, like how the band interact when they're not performing.

Not as good as The Band's "The Last Waltz", the ultimate concert film (and another Scorsese movie), or Talking Heads' "Stop Making Sense", but an excellent movie nonetheless.

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.

I saw the Rolling Stones live last year for the first time and I was blown away. I've been a Stones fan for decades but have never had any interest in stadium rock concerts with their huge crowds and tiny stars on stage. The few stadium shows I've attended were always mediocre experiences. But the Stones' Bigger Bang tour changed my mind.

For one, the enormous video screens make every seat great. Beyond that, it was the Rolling Stones that won me over. Rocking songs, incredible performances, unbelievable energy, and every one in the crowd dancing and singing the whole show. And these guys are in their sixties! Watching 'Shine a Light' on IMAX at times made me feel like I was actually at a live Stones concert, but then I kept feeling that something key was missing. And it was.

Martin Scorsese covered the two explosive shows at the Beacon Theater in New York with 18 cameras but he somehow missed getting the band. As expected, lead singer and ringmaster, Mick Jagger, gets the most screen time, with guitarist, Keith Richards, coming in a not too distant second. And then there's Ron Wood, the second guitarist, and some might argue, the better soloist, He has juicy moments on screen, but is shockingly absent time and again when soloing, the camera instead lingering on a prancing Jagger or posing Richards.

And where is drummer Charlie Watts? Watching 'Shine a Light' one might think the Stones had backing tracks instead of a live drummer. Watts is the quiet one (who doesn't dye his hair) but he's the backbone of their sound, keeping time, holding it down while the boys jump around. I kept wanting to see shots of Watts, not only for the variety of imagery and the visual reinforcement that there really is a live drummer hitting the cowbell on 'Honky Tonk Women,' but also because he's an original Rolling Stone. Sadly, there are only a handful of very brief clips featuring Watts, and just as few wide shots of the whole band on stage. And Watts is not the only one nearly absent from the movie.

Although the original members are Jagger, Richards, Watts and Wood (Wood joined in 1974 so he's not actually an original Stone), they tour with a number of key support musicians, including bass player, Daryl Jones (who's worked with them since 1994), a keyboardist, a horn section and three back-up singers. However, except for some brief interplay between Jagger and the back-up singers, the other musicians are absent from the film. It's not so unusual to relegate non-member, support players to minor roles in concert movies, but to avoid them altogether is baffling and frustrating.

The support musicians may not be Rolling Stones but they are a part of the band. They are playing the music and adding to the sights and sounds on stage. But 'Shine a Light' mostly kept them in the dark. This isn't how a real concert is experienced. In concert the other players are seen and often featured in the spotlight as soloists. But time and again in 'Shine a Light', we hear a piano riff, a sax solo, a horn section blast, a bass run, but we never actually see who's playing. We neither get full nor medium shots, nor even close-ups of hands playing. We don't even get quick cuts of the support players, as one might see interspersed regularly throughout most filmed live concerts today. Instead, we see lingering shots of Jagger and Richards, sometimes so close you can see the brown behind Jagger's teeth, while a saxophone or some other player wails somewhere off-camera. The Stones sound is some much more than guitar, bass, drums and vocals. A concert is so much more than the starring players, but you don't get that from this film. It's as if the film makers had tin ears.

This is baffling because they had 18-camera shooting the action. So the film makers either didn't get the coverage, or they decided in the editing room not to include the other players. Bad decision. This gives the movie, the Stones concert experience, a frustrating myopic feel. I kept wanting to see what I was hearing, but couldn't. I kept wanting to get a visual of the focal point in the song and on stage, but it was not delivered. Even one of the few times Jaggar plays harmonica is off-camera. This left me feeling short-changed.

Ultimately, 'Shine a Light' is slightly claustrophobic, with all its medium and close shots. It rarely opens up to show the entire band on stage. The film suffers as a result, as wide shots would have provided much needed breathing room, offering a more open perspective, and also providing the myriad tight shots with context. We do see the interplay between Jagger and Richards, or between Richards and Wood, but we don't see the whole band working together as a unit. And ultimately that's what a live Stones show, or any live rock show is all about--a group of individuals performing together as a band. Even if Scorsese decided that the film was all about the four Stones, he could have easily divided the enormous screen into quads, now and again, so we could see the four Stones working their magic simultaneously in a multi-screen format. This is common place today and highly effective.

It's baffling that with all the resources at hand and experience behind him, Scorsese didn't quite deliver the goods. It's as if his infatuation with the visages of Jagger and Richards blinded him from showing us the Rolling Stones. 'Shine a Light' is enjoyable for sure, but suffers from a limited vision.

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+