Scorsese Shines A "Light" On Stones
Thirty-eight years after the classic Rolling Stones documentary "Gimme Shelter" debuted, a new film about the Stones is rolling into theaters, this one from director Martin Scorsese. Our David Edelstein got a preview. But did he get satisfaction?
"Shine a Light" is cut together from two concerts at New York's Beacon Theater, shot from every angle with a Marvel Comics-worthy assemblage of super-cinematographers. With this kind of talent it should be the best concert movie ever, and maybe it is in IMAX, but I haven't seen that version.
What I saw needed some extra element of liveness because Mick Jagger doesn't make the words sound like he means them. His automatic pilot is faster than ever: It's like watching the latest Terminator model.
Scorsese is smart enough to make Jagger's jitteriness the launching point: The director appears in a black-and-white prologue, trying to connect with Jagger, to plan the movie.
Jagger's motor runs too fast even for Scorsese, king of the speed-freaky motor-mouths. And that's true in concert, too, in numbers like "Jumping Jack Flash."
It's better when he shares the spotlight with guest stars - even, amazingly, Christina Aguilera, who brings much-needed va-va-voom to a stage full of skinny old dudes.
Scorsese made one of the great rock movies, "The Last Waltz," about The Band's final concert, and you could taste his pleasure in making his own kind of music alongside these musicians.
But my favorite concert movie is Jonathan Demme's "Stop Making Sense" with the Talking Heads. It's arty yet ecstatic, and Demme seems to build the sound from the inside out. And in "Neil Young: Heart of Gold," Demme gets it all on the stage, not just the artist but the wellspring of the art.
"Shine a Light" has reservoirs of emotion, too, especially when Keith Richards is on. It doesn't matter that he looks like Freddy Kruger's gypsy grandmother. He's alive and happy and open to the camera.
The Stones' blend of driving rock and ramshackle blues is inherently fraught, but with Jagger, Richards, Ron Wood and Charlie Watts, the center holds.
Scorsese doesn't penetrate the mystery of the group's supernatural stamina, but then, he doesn't try to. He's like a pagan sun-worshipper. Merely capturing this magical energy - this dynamo - on film is triumph.