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| A light shines on old pros Scorsese, Rolling Stones | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| By Craig Outhier, Get Out | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| April 3, 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
“Gimme Shelter,” the band’s Vietnam-era standard, has appeared in three Scorsese films: “Goodfellas,” “Casino” and “The Departed.” In Scorsese shorthand, “Gimme Shelter” announces crooks, double-crosses and a post-1960s milieu. It’s his anthem for the underworld. “Gimme Shelter” isn’t on the set list in “Shine a Light,” and why should it be? This lively, Scorsese-directed concert film, shot during the Stones’ recent “A Bigger Bang” tour, is fully, fawningly aboveboard. It revels not only in the band’s status as the pre-eminent sexagenarian rockers of our time, but in the director’s unabashed, out-of-the-closet admiration. And there Scorsese is, in the giddy, overproduced prologue to the concert, nervously prepping New York City’s Beacon Theater like a Jewish mother before a bar mitzvah. Fretting over arcane technical issues, awkwardly cracking jokes, the graying, shrunken filmmaker seems impishly pleased with himself. This is his show, and he wants it to be perfect. For the better part, it is. Prancing around the stage like a crazed, plucked rooster, Mick Jagger belts out the opening number, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” with the energy and stamina of an androgynous rock fairy at least half his age. His mates, including drummer Charlie Watts, guitarist Ron Wood and guitarist-vocalist-pirate impersonator Keith Richards, are also astoundingly spry, a brotherhood of lean, well-coiffed prunes, preserved by popular demand. (In one of the film’s best moments, a 20-something Jagger, via archival footage, muses that the band will be around “at least another year.”) Digging into the Stones’ bejeweled stash of blues-rock treasures, pop-music polymath Jack White joins Jagger for a blistering duet of “Loving Cup,” followed by cameo performances by Christina Aguilera and bluesman Buddy Guy. Before wrapping up the show with big band-style renditions of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and some of their biggest commercial hits, the band changes pace, gloriously, with “As Tears Go By,” the doleful stardom lullaby popularized by Marianne Faithful. So what’s missing? In a word: personality. This isn’t a rueful rock-concert eulogy like Scorsese’s “The Last Waltz,” or an essential document like the post-Altamont film, “Gimme Shelter,” or even a miraculous feat of techno-fetishism, a la “U2 3D.” It’s just a really good show, with a bunch of old pros who can’t really affect the bedraggled-rebel routine anymore. In fact, Mick and the boys positively gush when Bill and Hillary Clinton visit for some pre-show kissy-poo. Hmm. For today’s Stones, nothing is just a shot away. Except photo-ops. The Quick Hit: Swivel-hipped sexagenarian Mick Jagger is joined onstage by the likes of Jack White and Christina Aguilera. Neither a timeless rock-doc eulogy (like “The Last Waltz”) or a stunning piece of techno-fetishism (like “U2 3D”), this Martin Scorsese-directed Rolling Stones concert film makes do simply by putting on a good show. Rating: PG-13 (brief strong profanity, drug references and smoking) 110 min. Grade: B 'Shine a Light’ Cast: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bill Clinton, Jack WhiteBehind the scenes: Directed by Martin Scorsese Rating: PG-13 (brief strong profanity, drug references and smoking) 110 min. — Grade: B Contact Craig Outhier by email, or phone (480) 898-5683 |
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