Shine a Light

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.

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."

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.

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.

"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