Shine a Light

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.

The Rolling Stones was here for a concert not too long ago, but since tickets were priced way out of my league, there was no way I could have seen them in action live unless I opted for the cheapest of the lot and sat well away from the stage. So I got to thank Martin Scorsese for having design and capture some definitive moments from a Rolling Stones performance, and share that stage magic the quartet provide when they're at their element, on a celluloid screen, captured for posterity.

Make no mistake, the entire movie is just like being there at a Rolling Stones concert, only that you'll have to ensure the cinema hall has great sound system installed, and you can't actually smell the sweat the rockers exude, even though you get to go really up close and personal during their performance, something which even the standing-only front row pit will not allow. You can even throw your hands up in the air only to irk those seated behind you, unless they and everyone else are game enough to turn the sedate cinema atmosphere into a party one. So this review (if I can call it one) largely depends on whether you're a Stones fan to appreciate, or for non-fans to want to give them a go, to kick back, relax (if you can) or just soak in the rollickingly wild atmosphere and immerse yourself into a Rolling Stones experience.

More than 20 songs were performed (if my mental counter serves me right), and for a Rolling Stones fan, you'll likely be satisfied them all for the price that you fork out. For a simple fleeting fan like me, it's an eye (ear?) opener to a lot more of their music, as well as an opportunity to watch them in action on the cheap. The first 10 minutes or so was the setup, with Scorsese worrying and fussing over how to film the Stones in action, and to want to have their set of songs as early as possible so that he could plan certain shots. But of course Mick Jagger and the gang got other ideas, as they flit from performance to performance during their "A Bigger Bang" tour, only to connect physically with Scorsese when they're at the designated performance stop at the Beacon theatre for the Clinton Foundation - where you'll get to see how big a fan Bill and Hillary are, together with their 30 strong entourage.

Interspersed throughout the concert performance are plenty of vignettes culled from past interviews spanning from the 60s, which will bring on some laughter as you watch them with perfect hindsight. You will get to see how youthful all of them looked when they first started out, and be amazed at their longevity in this business where bands come and go after making it to the top, if at all. Despite being grand-daddies, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts still look in great physical condition to be touring and strutting their stuff, dishing out high energy, high performance concerts, with Watts even cheekily feinting tiredness at a point. In fact, none of them thought earnestly thought, back in their youths, that they will sustain their popularity, or would have reasons for it, except perhaps Jagger himself who jested that he had dreamt about rocking the stage into his 60s.

Shine a Light doesn't break any new cinematic ground, even though it has cameras almost everywhere in a concert hall to capture every aspect and angle of the performing stage. In fact, despite Scorsese making appearances in front of the camera, his work behind it, with all due respect, could be replaced with any other director, and the outcome would probably be more or less the same, only because of the fact that it is a Rolling Stones concert with the band holding court from start to end. Would have been more of a blast to be able to see this in the IMAX version though.

The Rolling Stones are still rollin'.

That is the primary message of Martin Scorsese's well crafted if conventional rock and roll movie, 'Shine a Light,' based on two concerts played at the Beacon Theater in New York City in late 2006. Mick Jagger was always considered a phenomenon, the sexiest, most hyperactive white soul dancer in the world. He's almost freakish now, as exhilarating and kinetic at 62 as he was at 20. But 62!

Mick has the same tiny butt and slim body and an astonishingly flat, smooth stomach, But he like Keith Richards and Ron Wood has the ravaged face of a Bowery bum. These Dorian Grays bear the marks of their dissipation--or simply their intense living--in the visage. Only Charlie Watts, the perennial Stones drummer, just looks like an ordinary, healthy old man. Four or five years ago Wood was downing a bottle and a half of vodka a day and smoking a pack and a half a day. Keith Richards' indulgences are legendary, including his own claim, later retracted, that he once snorted up his father's ashes in a line of coke.

Watts, the drummer, has always maintained a Buddha-like silence together with a Cheshire cat grin. Richards is notable for often kneeling on the stage, and draping his wrist over a mike, or one of his cohorts. Ron Wood is constantly mobile and smiling, and has that standard aging rocker look: big seventies mop of dyed or otherwise assisted hair, ravaged face, stick-thin limbs. Mick of course is the front man of the band, its voice, its dynamo, its flame. He has as many moves as Michael Jackson, and you may wonder who influenced who of that pair.

Ups and downs they have had, and changes of personnel, with Wood coming in after Mick Taylor, who replaced the drowned Brian Jones, left the band, Daryl Jones replacing Bill Wyman as bassist, and so on. But the Stones have an exceptionally solid history nonetheless, with Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, who met at the age of four or five in Kent, still after 45 years together not only the creative center but the center of enthusiasm and joy of performance.

The aggregation Scorsese records here is typically excellent. The Stones not only have an unrivaled set of songs but still deliver extremely classy musical backup as well as all the old style in their renditions. It's just hard to get on the stage as an equal with a band this tight and this strong. But since the newest song they do is from twenty-five years ago in the film, the occasional fresh partner provides welcome variety. Success varies. The cute, smiley Jack White is a charmer when he joins Mick with guitar and voice for "Loving Cup," but his performance is so good natured it's more a sweet sing-along than the exciting duel it might have been. Christina Aguilera does a blistering rendition, with Mick, of "Live with Me," but she tries too hard and almost wails out of control. Best of these assistants, not an assistant at all but a fully equal partner, is the blues great Buddy Guy along for a song Mick says he first heard Muddy Waters perform, "Champagne & Reefer." That one is a true duel--and it's astonishing to see the youth of Guy's face, alongside the deep creases in Jagger's, given that he's nine years older than Mick.

As an album, Shine a Light unquestionably works. It doesn't include all my faves, but it does have exciting, risk-taking performances of "Satisfaction" and "Sympathy for the Devil." not to mention "All Down The Line," "Start Me Up," "Brown Sugar," "Shattered," and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" Mick imparts all his old swagger to "Some Girls" and "Tumbling Dice" and makes "As Tears Go By" and "Faraway Eyes" touching and (tongue-in-cheek) sincere. It's simply awesome that all these songs can still come across so intensely and musically; but that's what being great performers and the greatest rock and roll band is about. Scorsese shows them up too close though, and shows too many wrinkles.

Scorsese used so many photographers and so much light it made the Stones nervous ahead of time. The result is technically impeccable, but for a director who made the classic musical summing up 'The Last Waltz' and just recently the penetrating Dylan documentary 'No Direction Home', and for a band famously recorded in the shocking Maysle brothers 'Gimme Shelter' not to mention dozens of inventive song videos, the tame technique used here is a bit disappointing. One thing that's missing is any long looks at members of the audience, though glimpses show that they're of all ages. It doesn't add too much to have footage showing Marty's control freak nerves before the shoot (he could never accept that he didn't know exactly what songs were coming and in what order), nor is it hugely exciting to have Bill and Hillary present, though they have to be, because there they were, and Bill said a few words to the crowd before the concert began. Not earthshaking either are a few clips of early Stones interviews, though it's inevitable to show the one where Dick Cavett asks Mick at 24 if he can imagine doing concerts when he's sixty, and he replies, "Yeah, easily. Yeah." He was playing for laughs at the time, but truer words were never spoken. There is a recording of the concert by itself, including a few extra songs. I'd like to see the whole film again in IMAX. The sound system wasn't cranked up quite enough in the screening I saw. This is a remarkable experience. It confirms the excellence of the band. But to see them in their prime, better the 1974 concert film, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones, when Mick's face was smoother and his costumes more immodest--though that one is hard to come by.

Are the Stones still getting their rocks off? "Yeah, easily. Yeah."

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.

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.