© DR - SHINE A LIGHT de Martin Scorcese par tellurikwaves blog (75 Paris)

Scorsese has made another fabulous concert movie using all modern techniques available. Scorsese had the Stones rehearsing their stage show for some days so he was able to choreograph his cameras. Shot with 16 cameras he is able to be always on the right image to the music. But yet it is not senselessly hectic like a bad music clip but allows you instead to watch the musicians and get a feeling for them. The Stones are at their best, delivering one hit after the other. There are some surprises like a duet by Mick Jagger and Jack White III. Buddy Guy and Christina Aguilera also blend in perfectly with the rhythm of the Stones. In between there are some short clips of old Stones interviews which are quite funny and also some Behind-the-Scenes-Footage.

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+

Haw! Bill Clinton handshaking the Stones. Hillary is there too. Cut to Bill and Hillary holding hands as they walk across the stage. It's a back shot, low, beagle high angle. Scorsese doing the Stones! Wow. He did the blues. He did Dylan and now the Stones. The man knows his music; I mean, on top of being the best film director alive. And this time, it's a concert at a relatively small venue of the Beacon Theatre, as the boys play in New Yawk City for a Clinton charity.

The band starts with "Jumpin' Jack Flash' and baby, it's a gas, gas, gas. Mick moves like he's half his age. Probably has something to do with running six miles a day. Keith is a bit slow and wiry, cracking a sly smile. Old Charlie's good, as usual and Ronnie slides on his guitar like a coke bottle down a ten mile incline. The band looks like it has weathered many a 'crossfire hurricane'--you can see it in their now craggy faces, especially when Scorsese directs a cut to clips of those smooth, innocent, devil may care faces of the past.

"Shattered" is next. Mick sings to New York, "To live in this town, you must be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough. Rats on the West Side, bedbugs uptown...." And the crowd is loving it, although with the exception of some of the band's back up, one from Brooklyn (a lusty lady), the other, a guy from from Queens and the third, a fellow from South Africa, they've probably never had an existential taste of Big Apple tough. It's all part of the Stones' conscious irony, singing laughing, smiling as the charity crowd rock 'n roars its approval.

"She was hot" comes up next. And the swaying women in the front rows, nearest the stage, all hot, look up.....mmmm, delicious...and this is followed by a rip, snorting "All Down the Line". Then another from one that classic albumn, "Exile on Mainstreet". Hey, this albumn was blaring over the loudspeakers last, at the Fremantle Blues and Roots Festival. It's a duet this time with Jack White III. Sir Mick and Jack White III sing "Loving Cup", a veiled bluesy kind of reference to a certain part of the female anatomy. Well done, Jack the Third.

Ah then, Marianne Faithful. Wish she'd been there. Mick makes a reference to how this was one of the first songs which the Stones wrote and then gave away to Ms. Faithful. "As Tears Go By", with a very pretty guitar, played by Keith, Mick on vocals.Okay, so you get the picture. No, you oughta go see the picture. One thing more though, "Champagne & Reefer". YES! Now, here's a piece which Mick says he first heard Muddy Waters do. Geez oh peez-o. What a great song! And who's on stage with the band this time? Buddy, mo-fo, Guy! Duets with Keith and Ronnie's guitar playing and Mick on the Mississippi saxophone. Sweet. And the lyrics will tear you up.

Author: george.schmidt (gpschmidt67@gmail.com) from fairview, nj
7 April 2008

*** This review may contain spoilers ***
It's Only Rock And Roll But I Like It!

Rock and roll's greatest living band and film's greatest contemporary filmmaker: what a combination!
That's the end result in this fantastic concert film capturing the venerable rock statesmen and legendary bad boys, The Rolling Stones, performing for a 2-nite benefit concert in 2006 for a charity event organized by President Bill Clinton (which happens to fall on his 60th birthday too boot!) at NYC's landmark venue, The Beacon Theatre. And on hand to document the intimate, rockin' event is none-other-than Manhattan's own movie magician, Martin Scorsese, with all his trademark flair and care into every thing he commits to celluloid (and it doesn't hurt that he's lensed at least one bonafide rockudrama, The Band's swan song "THE LAST WALTZ").

What begins in a stark black and white opening with the band needling Marty about not letting him know the set list until the last second has the asthmatic auteur practically scrambling for his inhaler, yet with all the hoo-ha, Scorsese and his troop of 18 premier cinematographers manage to get every possibly conceived angle with razor-sharp snap and precision you'd never know he was on pins-and-needles at the 13th hour.The Stones may not be aging gracefully – witness their wizened, leathery visage – but do not be fooled, like a fine vintage, they have ripened from the sweetest fruits (of their labor) and prove to be a force to be reckoned with. Led by the indefatigable front man and icon, Mick Jagger, impossibly straw-thin and suggesting a hip Dorian Grey with his portrait somewhere in the attic laughing its head off – shimmies, shakes, and gets his

snake-hipped insouciance with energy to spare, kicks the jams out with a non-stop Energizer Bunny kineticism that only sparks his onstage mates to full groove effect. Staid, yet strong to a fault, drummer Charlie Watts keeping the beat; good-time-Charlie Ronnie Wood on guitar having a laugh and a supporting line up of background singers, horns men and bass. But it is legendary axe-man Keith Richards, looking like The Crypt Keeper, with his madman's grimace and Pirates of the Caribbean élan, that makes the whole affair a hoot and he knows he's the king bee as he addresses his buzzing hive.

The hits are all covered from "Jumpin' Jack Flash" to "Shattered" to "Sympathy for the Devil" to, natch, "Satisfaction", and three musical guest appearances by Jack White on "Loving Cup", Christina Aguilera bumping-and-grinding with Mick to "Live With Me", and living legend Buddy Guy on Muddy Waters' "Champagne and Reefer"- there's something for everyone, that is if you're a dire hard Stones fan (and who isn't?!)Scorsese may seem to be doing a yeoman's job but he knows what to give his (and their) fans and delivers the goods and the band smartly choosing one of the more intimate premiere NYC stages makes for a shrewd, tried and true night to remember. Filmed in IMAX I chose to see this @ NYC's fabled last movie palace – The Ziegfeld – and it justifiably shows these giants larger than life as the aforementioned format would as well.

It may be only rock and roll; but I like it!!

I know that some other users had already write in the beginning of their comments for Scorsese's Shine a Light what I'm about to write and that is: Martin Scorsese is definitely one of my favourites directors of all time and The Rolling Stones is one of my favourites bands of all time. And now this film, second that I watch from the selection of the "Muestra", is one of my personal favourites of 2008.

You know that clip of Bob Dylan when a journalist asks him this: "how many people who labour in the same musical vineyard in which you foil, how many are protest singers? That is people who use their music and use the songs to protest the social state in which we live today, the matter of war, the matter of crime or whatever it might be". Then Dylan asks "how many?" and that journalist says "yes, are there many who" and Dylan says "I think there are about 136" "it's either 136 or 142", it was truly great, definitely if you haven't watch that clip you really should, certainly it appears in Scorsese's No Direction Home (after another terrific and funny interview) and also Cate Blanchett says that in I'm Not There (best film of 2007 by the way).

Certainly I remembered that clip of Bob Dylan with those clips that Scorsese featured, I really laughed in some of them and enjoyed all of them. Some clips shows "normal" answers by the Stones that now are really great and each one of those made the whole audience laugh! For example there you have a young Mick Jagger, when they had about two years in the business, saying that he hopes to last one year more in the business! And there you have Charlie Watts, the normal, the one who looks like a stranger, the only Rolling Stone with white hair! And he is so great, his clips are fun and once the show begins we watch his expressions after a couple of songs! Truly great.

Scorsese filmed two nights at the Beacon Theatre in NYC, October 29 and November 1 2006, and apparently he had a unique experience but not just because of the performances. Is a really funny introduction, Marty wanted the set list, he wanted to know everything, it can begin with a guitar part played by Keith Richards (or Captain Keith!) then Marty wanted to knew that but there you have Mick Jagger laughing, Marty will get the set list for sure but when? Well, seconds before we can hear the opening track, the fantastic Jumpin' Jack Flash. A person who was with me said to me after Shine a Light ended, "I don't know most of the songs but I really enjoyed the entire show", in my opinion Shine a Light does have a great set list, honestly I didn't knew what songs were part of this film and certainly I enjoyed each second of the show like her.

You watch the Stones enjoying themselves, of course is impressive the energy at that age, of course each soul at that small theatre were in touch with the legends, they don't think on the stage they just feel. The guest musicians were Jack White, Buddy Guy and Christina Aguilera. The first two were part of two gems of a performance, was pure enjoyment and you can see the face of Jack White (he was sharing stage with the Stones playing Loving Cup!) and with Buddy Guy we have a memorable performance and he ended with two guitars! Aguilera was also terrific and Jagger really enjoyed the performance of Live with Me. Certainly Shine a Light is unique, you can see the expressions of Charlie Watts (as I wrote) and you can see how the audience enjoys like if you were on the stage.

By the end we enjoy a powerful encore with Brown Sugar (one of my all time favourites) and (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction to finally finish with a great and creative scene. Then 120 minutes were not enough to me, for sure I wanted more but still I just loved Shine a Light aka Some Country for Old Men (filmjack terrific title you clever bastard!) and here's the set list: Jumpin' Jack Flash, Shattered, She Was Hot, All Down the Line, Loving Cup, As Tears Go By ("lovely isn't it"), Some Girls, Just My Imagination, Far Away Eyes, Champagne & Reefer, Tumbling Dice, You Got the Silver, Connection, Sympathy for the Devil, Live with Me, Start Me Up, Brown Sugar and (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.

After I saw "The Last Waltz" a few years ago, I figured that it would be hard for Martin Scorsese to top that. Well, he at least comes close with "Shine a Light", about the Rolling Stones' tour promoting "A Bigger Bang". And let me tell you, this is a GREAT one. Don't let the first few minutes fool you: we get to see Marty meeting Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie, and figuring out how he wants to film the documentary. But then comes the show. Funded by the Clinton Foundation (Bill and Hillary even attended) and performed in Beacon Theater, this is an experience unlike any other. Granted, it isn't the same on TV as it is being in the theater and hearing the Stones directly, but it's really close (so far the closest that I've ever gotten).

As for the Stones themselves, Mick Jagger still looks great, Keith Richards looks totally bizarre (of which he's no doubt quite proud), while Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood look as they usually do. Also performing are Christina Aguilera, Buddy Guy and Jack White.But the overall point is that this is a great documentary. Interspersing footage of the current show with footage from the band's early days, Scorsese accomplished another masterpiece here. Not to be missed.

Were the Stones in their 20's or 30's, the concert would be simply "very good." But considering that they are in their 60's, it's quite unbelievable. Also, the filming itself was outstanding. Scorsese really 'scores' with this one. The close-ups gave us the opportunity to see just how the performers really felt after a song, such as the feeling of relief on the face of drummer Charlie Watts' when a particularly energetic piece was finished. He was just plain tired! Then, immediately, another song kicked in. It was truly extraordinary due to their ages, and Jagger's ability to work an audience is without peer.

I'm a big fan of Buddy Guy, and his inclusion in this concert made it even better than expected, along with the outstanding performance of Christina Aguilerra. I also enjoyed the young British performer who did a duet with Jagger. He was introduced rather quickly, but I think his name is Jack White.In summary, I'd say that it's one of the best concerts we've seen, either on stage or live, and the IMAX version is as close to live action as it gets!

Great concert movie!! As a long time Stones fan, I was impressed with the way Mick Jagger pranced around stage for two hours!! Nobody can prance like Mick!! I loved the set list also. I was glad they played DOWN THE LINE and the country song FAR AWAY EYES! What I also noticed was how pronounced the guitar was and the vocals. Martin did a great job of capturing the detailed guitar work of Ron and Keith. Keith is such a great guitar player. He plays with so much heart which is more than I can say about so many other guitarists. I wonder how much longer the Stones will last? Perhaps much longer!! I loved how Martin interjected old interviews with the members of the Stones in which they were always apparently high as kites and stoned out of their minds!!

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."

A good concert will generate heat like a fire. And sometimes you feel you'll just melt away. So it was for me watching this brilliant film. Mick Jagger and the boys have traveled straight into history. It's as if they'd got hold of something that's eluded us all and, for me at least, they've left no doubt which band is the greatest, Beatles or Stones.I originally didn't want to sit through a long concert. But I was wrong. There's nothing dull or repetitious in this movie and, in fact, there are some surprises including a gem of a Keith Richard rendition and a revealing duet between Mick and Jack White. The film is like a compilation of a thousand lucky catches. Mick's energy, musicality and playfulness come through loud and clear, and I began to wonder just how influential this band's been over the years.

As a guy, I know I always wanted to take notice and listen whenever they came up on somebody's playlist. The Beatles always seemed to be a more acceptable choice, even when it was a Stones' song that kept going through my mind. But after all these years, I've concluded that it was the Stones who had the stronger grasp on my generation's psyche. In some ways they seem more honest than the Beatles. Certainly they've had more fun over the years. I just heard someone list iconic British things to include Big Ben and the Beatles. I winced because I realized, if I were British, it would have been the Stones I would have mentioned. There's something miraculous about them that I can't help admiring.

CINEMA :Les blessures narcissiques d'une vie par procuration

© DR - SHINE A LIGHT de Martin Scorcese

a must for every Stones fan