There's no director more qualified
to shoot a Rolling Stones concert film than Martin Scorsese, who has used the
band's music to galvanizing effect on many occasions, from Robert De Niro's
swaggering entrance to "Jumpin' Jack Flash" in Mean Streets to his "Gimme Shelter" intro to The
Departed. And yet
the question lingers: Why now? The band is at least a quarter-century past its
prime, so how urgent and relevant could its five-billionth rendition of "(I
Can't Get No) Satisfaction" possibly be? And a high-ticket benefit event for
the Clinton Foundation at New York's Beacon theater ain't exactly Altamont, is
it? The chances of something spontaneous happening in such cloistered environs
are about as likely as someone flubbing their lines at a Cats matinee.
Of course, Scorsese knows all these
limitations up front, so he's turned Shine A Light into a buoyant, light-hearted
encore of a movie, paying tribute to the Stones as indefatigable elder
statesmen who still go out every night and put on a great show. Since this gig
is the furthest thing from the Stones at Altamont, the film is the furthest
thing from Gimme Shelter: planned out well in advance, controlled as a lab experiment, and
choreographed within an inch of its life. With a murderer's row of
cinematographers at his command—including Robert Richardson (Casino), Robert Elswit (There Will Be
Blood), John Toll (The
Thin Red Line), Emmanuel
Lubezki (Children Of Men), and Gimme Shelter co-director Albert Maysles on handheld—Scorsese
trained 16 cameras on the specially constructed stage, and plotted each song
like a conductor. (To keep things interesting, the Stones responded by withholding
and then revising the set list.)
Scorsese opens the film with a
little too much throat-clearing: Though footage of director and band preparing
for the big night is fitfully amusing, it gives the impression of veterans
patting each other on the back prematurely. Still, it sets an affectionate tone
for an evening that balances spirited performances of all the expected hits
with a few curveballs and some terrific one-song cameos from Jack White,
Christina Aguilera, and Buddy Guy. Calling the Stones "professionals" may be
the ultimate insult in the rock world, where impulsiveness is valued over
proficiency, but it's astonishing to see Mick Jagger perform a wrinkled
standard like "Start Me Up" as if it were the first time he'd ever sung it
onstage. Shine A Light pays tribute to the band's essential agelessness.