Old spice: Mick Jagger and co. at New York’s Beacon

Review

Shine a Light

by Sean Burns

Entirely inessential but a good time all the same, Martin Scorsese’s breezy Rolling Stones concert flick feels like a bit of a lark, and presumably something of a wish-fulfillment fantasy for this particular filmmaker.

It would take pages to list all the indelible moments in Scorsese flicks backed by Stones tracks, but the love affair began 35 years ago with Robert De Niro’s pants-less star-making Mean Streets entrance à la “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” and has remained so fervent over so many pictures, I’m halfway convinced Marty kept randomly dropping bits of “Gimme Shelter” into The Departed as winking self-parody.

Such smiling self-mockery plays a big part in Shine a Light, and if the movie is actually about anything, it’s about aging gracefully into a cuddly caricature of your former self. Shot over two nights at New York’s Beacon Theatre in the fall of 2006, the film finds the band taking a break from their A Bigger Bang stadium tour in order to perform a smaller-scaled benefit for Bill Clinton’s foundation.

Alternating musical numbers with priceless, often ironic interview clips from the early Paleolithic period of the band’s career, Scorsese slyly highlights the hilarity of these once-dangerous drug-addled louts now respectably hobnobbing with ex-presidents—although the lascivious greeting Keith Richards plants on Hillary’s mother might even be enough to give Bubba pause.

Scorsese himself can’t help getting in on the act, sending up his manic worrywart reputation for a delightful black-and-white prologue, during which the filmmaker hems and haws, unable to get much in the way of cooperation—or even a setlist—from the characteristically coddled and aloof Mick Jagger. These old pros are in such complete command of their larger-than-life celebrity personas, and the two-character comedy is so undeniably amusing, who cares that it’s probably bullshit?

As the whole late-career Rolling Stones mythos is based on charming bullshit to begin with, this sequence fits like a glove. How else can one possibly elucidate the peculiar phenomenon of rock’s beloved grandpas hitting the road every few years, charging astronomical fees while shilling for mortgage companies, well into their 60s but still singing songs every night about eating pussy and shooting dope?

Gorgeously shot by a who’s-who of genius cinematographers, including Children of Men’s Emmanuel Lubezki, There Will Be Blood’s Robert Elswit and even Gimme Shelter director Albert Maysles, all working under the supervision of the great Robert Richardson, Shine a Light follows Scorsese’s Last Waltz M.O. of keeping the cameras locked to the stage and zeroing in on the band’s most intimate interactions.

On the bright side, this decision limits our exposure to a gaggle of large-busted bimbo extras bused in by the production to fill the front rows, none of whom appear to have been born when Tattoo You was released. But contrarily, the camera’s laser focus on marquee players Mick, Keith, Ronnie and Charlie ignores contributions from the band’s sizable stash of touring side-men and backup singers. (Judging from the photographic evidence, one could be forgiven for assuming the Rolling Stones don’t have a bass player.)

Yet somehow the movie is still an enormous amount of fun. As he’s demonstrated countless times throughout his career, Martin Scorsese has an intense visceral understanding of these tunes, and his fawning hero-worship of Jagger’s strutting, belly-shirted flamingo aerobics proves contagious. Old warhorses like “Satisfaction” and “Brown Sugar” feel phoned in, and if I ever hear the Microsoft anthem “Start Me Up” again it will probably be too soon. But cuts from Exile on Main St. and especially some choice tracks off Some Girls find the band perked up and alive, the way they aren’t on the obligatory classic rock radio staples.

“Tumbling Dice” begins in cacophonous shambles, and it’s downright thrilling to watch the song eventually come together, as if being willed into shape by Mick’s relentless refusal to let this sucker end before they get at least part of it right.

Ruefully funny and weirdly attuned to the passing of time, Shine a Light’s emotional high point finds Richards staggering up to the mike for a shockingly heartfelt performance of “You’ve Got the Silver.”

“It’s great to see you,” Richards slurs. “Hell … it’s great to see anybody.”

Shine a Light