Not only is Shine a Light the best rock and roll movie I’ve seen, it’s also a superb film. Martin Scorsese lends depth and richness to the clichéd rockumentary, putting it in the same lofty company as The Last Waltz.
It’s often funny, when two leading control freaks Scorsese and Mick Jagger butt heads over technical details. A priceless ongoing sequence follows the War of the Set List, Jagger’s refusal to hand over the crucial document on which Scorsese needs to base his camera positions.
Jagger takes great joy in mocking him and threatens to send it over an hour before the show. He, in fact, hands it over in the opening seconds. Whoa!
What a peacock that Jagger boy is! Strutting in every spare inch of space of that stage, he has the trained power that he’s always had. How about that toned body – it will send Madonna into workout frenzy.
Unless you’re as close to stage as this film allows, it’s difficult to appreciate the politics of a Stones show. Jagger is the benign dictator of course, while Keith Richards holds up his end as that wonderfully individual character. He smiles beatifically as he plays and interacts intimately with the audience. Ron Wood is the new kid still after all these years and Charlie, the coolest cat, brings a staid, steady beat. Jagger is above it all and yet the heart of it. He’s a magnificent work of art, honed, experienced, focused, energetic, virile and larger-than-life.
It’s there right in your face, a visceral experience that, after two hours, leaves audiences exhausted. How the hell does he do it?
It’s funny that he does a heart-rending version of the old chestnut As Tears Go By, the slightly melodramatic and romantic tune he gave to Marianne Faithfull. Full on drama. He says it embarrassed him to do it. That is trying to be TOO cool. He’s a hot commodity, not a cool one.
I love seeing the Stones grow old, we all are and they’re doing it better than most, considering the condition of some of them.
The filmmaking is spectacular and it doesn’t hurt that it’s on IMAX. Saw a Stones IMAX film many years ago – child’s play compared to Scorsese’ masterpiece.
Archival interviews with the boys as the Stones are just taking off are revealing. Mick confides in one reporter that the band’s been making records for two years and sees at least another year ahead. We’re watching this nearly 43 years later.
Footage taken a year or so later shows Jagger refining his act, seducing a pack of reporters with flirtatious smiles and ‘looks’. That footage along would have guaranteed attention, including negative attention from actors for his lack of subtlety.
Can’t help thinking, watching this hard working man earn his pay, how many people depend on him staying fit and creative. His extended family, untold numbers of employees and support system. A son and daughter of friends of mine were flown around the world on tour with the Stones, just to sell T-shirts.
Interesting to see a familiar Scorsese image at the end – a final, beautiful visual meditation on New York, reminding us, as at the end of The Gangs of New York, of the tragedies of September 11.
IMAX documentary
USA
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