Shine A Light - Rolling Stones doc

[MacGuffin]

Scorsese shines 'Light' on lensers
Rolling Stones docu employed 18 shooters
By ANNE THOMPSON; Variety

Honest. Raw. Funny. Rock 'n' Roll.

Those were Martin Scorsese's marching orders to the 18 shooters -- including Oscar winners Robert Richardson, Robert Elswit and John Toll -- who lensed the two Rolling Stones concerts showcased in "Shine a Light."

No one knew what the setlist would be for each of the two nights at the Beacon Theater. The first night served as a rehearsal, in effect, for the second, which makes up about 90% of the film, including the opening tune, "Jumpin' Jack Flash."

Richardson led the team, capturing many of the striking profile shots of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards from stage right. Roving cinema verite master Albert Maysles, 79, who shot "Gimme Shelter" 30 years before, captured the backstage moments that bookend the film on a small handheld HDV camera.

The film's most stunning shot -- a fierce closeup of bluesman Buddy Guy -- comes during the song "Champagne and Reefer." "When we saw dailies, it had a chilling effect," says editor David Tedeschi. "That's the key shot in the song. All of Buddy Guy's charisma and musicianship is right there."

Curiously, no one is sure who took the shot.

Was it this year's Oscar winner Elswit ("There Will Be Blood"), or Oscar winner Toll ("Braveheart"), who operated a camera on techno-crane in the back?Toll "got some amazing footage, like the moment when he pulls out on 'Tumblin' Dice' and captures Mick's interaction with the audience," says Tedeschi.

Richardson placed huge floodlights behind Jagger for one grand entrance from the back; they were so hot that Jagger was warned to keep moving or he could light up. The final edit took nine months, plus two months for the sound mix. Scorsese was able to make changes up to the last minute without penalty thanks to VFX master Rob Legato's new workflow, which made any shot accessible at any time.

"There's a lot of great stuff on the cutting-room floor," says Tedeschi.

[MacGuffin]

Stones roll with Martin Scorsese in 'Shine a Light'
The director's latest rock documentary puts the Rolling Stones center stage.
By Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times

NEW YORK — MICK JAGGER, dressed in lean, tailored perfection, was encamped recently in the bright, two-level tower suite atop the Carlyle Hotel on the Upper East Side, where he welcomed a visitor by offering a cup of English breakfast tea. Later that same day, 21 floors lower, Keith Richards greeted the same scribe with a rasping laugh and, with a Marlboro red and skull rings at his fingertips, held up a glass of vodka and orange soda on the rocks. "It's called a nuclear waste. You want one?"

The music industry may be a diminished and uncertain mess this century, but the Rolling Stones, bless 'em, still don't disappoint or stray from the expected iconography; if anything, Richards seems to be going back in time with his pirate curtsy and eternal bluesman leer while Jagger, the whippet-thin rock star who once attended the London School of Economics, is the imperious archduke in full control. When his visitor pointed out that Jagger seems to be single-handedly keeping the Stones together through sheer force of will, the 64-year-old sighed through a smirk. "Oh," he said, "do you think?"

It was in the same room at the Carlyle a few years ago during a bad storm that a skeptical Jagger met with Martin Scorsese and an early production team to discuss the prospects of a concert film. The result is "Shine a Light," which arrives in selected theaters (and on IMAX screens) Friday and may boast the most accomplished team ever assembled to document a rock show. Scorsese brought in Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson ("JFK," "The Aviator") to lead a team of fellow Oscar winners in John Toll, Andrew Lesnie and Robert Elswit, whose collective résumé includes "There Will Be Blood," "Braveheart" and the "Lord of the Rings" franchise.

The "Shine a Light" team used swooping cameras to capture the Stones in the intimate confines of the Beacon Theatre, the grand old 2,800-seat palace on Broadway. For the film, the band tears through a 22-song set list with the usual-suspect hits ("Brown Sugar," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Start Me Up"), some surprise excavations (like the rare revisiting of "As Tears Go By" with Richards on acoustic 12-string) and some guest stars (Jack White, Buddy Guy and, oddly, Christina Aguilera).

The finished film presents the Stones in high energy and bottled up on the stage of the vintage neo-Grecian theater. There's also some odd off-stage material--the completely artificial booking was presented as a fundraiser and it was attended by the Clintons who greeted the band before the music played; as the band sniggers, the political family is presented as the square backstage admirers, the role Kevin Costner played in that old Madonna documentary. Scorsese appears on camera a lot, too, fretting and cajoling the band to give him a set list.

Jagger said afterward that the crowd was "not a good one, they were nice people, but not the kind of audience that is going to stir up the band." His guitarist said the cheering and dancing in aisles was unimportant. "The show was a good one," the 64-year-old Richards said, "but you have to know that it's not just about the band, right? It's about Martin Scorsese . . . it's a rock show painted by a Rembrandt."

It was a portrait that took some time, mostly because of the schedules of the principals. The show was staged in fall 2006. No one was more involved than Jagger, who was a persistent presence in every stage of the film. During the editing, he was the one pushing to keep the finished product lean. For instance, the film is peppered with vintage snippets of interviews with the Stones from the 1960s and 1970s, and many of them are amusing and some are even heartwarming.

"It's got a light touch," Jagger said. "It's not some gloomy thing. There was a temptation to put more of those interviews in because they're funny. But during the editing, I said, 'No, cut it there. That's enough.' " One reason was to keep the momentum of the stage performance going, but Jagger said a band with so much history needs to resist anything that starts to feel like a museum piece. "People have seen a lot of that before," the singer said. Then, with an expression of mild weariness, Jagger said he still wasn't sure the Stones needed another film document. "There's quite a shelf full, already, don't you think?"

Tarnish on their track record

THERE'S always been a whiff of danger to the Stones, of course, and it comes through in their history on camera. Most infamously, the 1970 film "Gimme Shelter" by the Maysles brothers documented the nightmarish scene the previous year at Altamont Speedway, where the Hells Angels were hired as security but went on a rampage. One 18-year-old concert-goer was stabbed and stomped to death.

There had been other dark tinges to the film library. The "Rock and Roll Circus" (recorded in 1968 but not released until 1996), directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, turned out to be a grim time capsule as the last public performance of Stones guitarist Brian Jones. The politically ominous "Sympathy for the Devil" (filmed in 1968 and released in 1970) was beset by a studio fire, the arrest of Jones on drug charges and a dispute between director Jean-Luc Godard and the producer that climaxed with a fistfight at the premiere. Then there was "Let's Spend the Night Together," directed by Hollywood rebel Hal Ashby, who filmed the band in 1981 at Arizona's Sun Devil Stadium and then hours later was wheeled out of the band's hotel on an ambulance gurney after slumping into a drug overdose.

There's certainly reason to presume the shadowy hazards have receded as the band closes in on its fifth decade. In recent years, the Stones (down to the core quartet of Jagger, Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts) have been starring in slick advertisements for mortgage companies and luxury sedans, so the sense of dark hazard is reduced significantly.

Don't try telling that to Scorsese, who has a longtime romance for the encoded menace and vamping decadence of the Stones songbook. The director has used Stones music to great effect as a backdrop to scenes in "The Departed," "GoodFellas" and "Casino," and he jumped at a chance to film them.

Producer Victoria Pearman said the director quickly seized on the opportunity to add the Stones to his recent suite of music documentaries. Scorsese had the 2005 success of "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan" for PBS and, in 2003, the seven-part PBS series "Martin Scorsese Presents: The Blues."

(Scorsese was not available for interviews, his representatives said, because of the work schedule for his next feature film, "Ashecliffe," an adaptation of author Dennis Lehane's "Shutter Island" that is due in theaters next year.)

The Stones certainly knew Scorsese could make a concert film -- he was the auteur behind arguably the greatest concert film of them all, "The Last Waltz," the farewell show by the Band recorded in San Francisco on Thanksgiving 1976. This made Richards especially eager to work with him while, not surprisingly, Jagger came to an opposite point of view.

"I was very worried it would be a remake of 'The Last Waltz,' which was great, of course, but it was then. I was concerned that it would look like the 'The Last Waltz,' which is why I said no interviews. This needed to be different. Then there were other matters: How much was this going to cost? Who's going to pay for it? Who's going to release it? We were on tour, and this would require cutting a week out, for rehearsals, the shows, all of that . . . I was thinking, 'Oh, um, do I really need this?' I'm still thinking that."

For Jagger the problems were in the months leading to the show, but for Richards the problems were during the show itself. At one point a female fan jeered him -- "You screwed up!" -- when he flubbed some chords. The salty Richards jeered right back: "Shaddup!" (Jagger and Scorsese got a good laugh from it in the editing room but softened the volume on his scream for the sake of the soundtrack.)

Richards also looked a bit flabbergasted right before the band launched into "Live With Me," that raunchy classic from "Let It Bleed." "This girl came out and I was, like, 'Who is that?' I had no idea." It was Aguilera, one of the most famous pop singers in the world. "Yeah, that's right. I don't know. I'm still not sure who that is. She can sing, though. And she looked good."

The show was assembled from a two-night stand and, like those old Stones movies, there was an unexpected tragedy. Ahmet Ertegun, the stately music executive who co-founded Atlantic Records and was a dear friend and supporter of the band, stumbled backstage and hit his head. He died within weeks. Jagger was asked about the grim footnote to the evening and, for once, seemed at a loss for words. Not Richards: "I know, it was awful. There we are on stage, rockin', and there he is backstage, croaking. What can you do? I loved him. But you know, what better way to go? Backstage at a Stones show? That's how I wanna go."

When first conceived, "Shine a Light" (named after a song on the 1972 "Exile on Main Street" album) was going to be a "big" show -- Scorsese was going to bring his battery of cameras and document one of those massive Stones shows that approaches a NASA launch in its decibels and mission-control calculation. There was even talk of filming the Stones in Rio de Janeiro where a beach concert was expected to bring a million fans. But after seeing a few Stones shows in person, Scorsese wanted to zoom in, not out.

"At a certain point I thought making something more intimate would be suited to me as a filmmaker and would also facilitate a more personal connection between the audience and the band," the director stated in the production notes.

Jagger was reluctant to go to a theater -- again, the "Last Waltz" problem -- but relented. "In the big shows, we're on the same stage, but it's like we're not on the same planet," Jagger said. "People like to see this interaction. This is what Martin was trying to get. If you're on this very large stage, there's a lot of moments when you're not close together. In fact you're hundreds of feet apart. If you're forced to be in a smaller setting, it changes."

It's an on-screen surge

IT'S an interesting time for the Stones and cinema. "This is quite a year, yes," said Jagger, who with Diane English is producing "The Women," a remake of the 1939 George Cukor film due in October. English is also writer and director, and the deep cast is lead by Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes and Debra Messing. Jagger also has another project underway, "Ruby Tuesday," an animated film that features the music of the band. "It's an animated film with Stones songs, not an animated film with the Stones, get that straight," said Jagger, clearly worried that the band isn't the sort that should be climbing inside a yellow submarine.

Well, maybe Richards could pull off the maritime cartoon. After Johnny Depp's channeling of Richards in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series and the rocker's cameo as Jack Sparrow's father, the salty old guitar hero is reveling in his new role as the world's pirate laureate. "I keep getting scripts, can you believe that? All these people want to put me in movies now. It's very unusual."

Jagger seemed long ago to give up on his aspiration of a Hollywood career, and when asked about his bandmate's accidental career as bleary icon, he chose his words carefully. The band has survived these many decades by giving each other room and keeping their interviews on separate floors. Richards, seemingly without malice, caused a stir recently by referring to Jagger as "a dictator," but the more careful singer wasn't going to fire a cannonball that might mess up the Stones balance.

"He needs a parrot, right? I don't know . . ." Jagger chuckled and tapped his teacup, searching for the right words. "He's an icon, I suppose, an iconic pirate. I guess . . . people evolve these characters throughout their lives. And it's interesting to watch. I hope he's not going to have a peg leg. I hope it doesn't come to that. But, you know, it could."

[MacGuffin]

Scorsese and The Stones!
Source: Edward Douglas; ComingSoon

When you talk about filmmakers who are legendary and have reached the heights of what can be done with cinema, one of the first names that might come to mind is Martin Scorsese, and the same goes for rock music in terms of the Rolling Stones, who have been making records and touring fairly consistently since their formation in 1962.

The two camps have crossed paths many times, mainly as Stones songs have become the soundtrack to classic scenes in Scorsese's films, so it was bound to happen that after decades of them working separately they'd eventually come together. In this case, it's for Shine a Light, a concert film documenting a rare appearance by the Stones in a smaller venue, New York's Beacon Theater, which Scorsese captured with the help of some of the most acclaimed cinematographers working today, acting as cameramen as they shot two nights at the venue with bulky IMAX cameras.

This past weekend, Scorsese and the four surviving members of the Rolling Stones reunited in New York for a high profile press conference at the New York Palace Hotel. At Scorsese's last New York press conference for The Departed, he had Leonardo DiCaprio on one side of him and Matt Damon on the other, but this time he was flanked by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, two of the most well known names, faces and sounds in rock and roll.

Considering how rarely any of the Stones talk to the press, this had all the makings of being a zoo akin to the 2005 Spielberg/Cruise press conference for War of the Worlds with journalists gathering from every possible outlet and medium, as well as TV cameras from every network filming the event. One often has to wonder how much of the circus that surrounds the Rolling Stones wherever they go is self-generated, and yet, this was a surprisingly tame and low-key affair, although the time was far too short and the moderators didn't let us ask even a single question.

Either way, it was fun being there, livened up by Keith cracking jokes or making his trademark impossible-to-decipher retorts to Mick and Marty's semi-serious responses. Guitarist Ron Wood didn't say very much and drummer Charlie Watts said even less.

If you so choose, you can also check out the audio of the press conference by downloading the file here and see some more pictures here.

Mick Jagger: Good afternoon everyone, good afternoon New York!

Question: Mr. Scorsese, could you explain why it was important for you to make this film in a small venue in your native Manhattan? To the members of the band: Mick at one point says "You've been a great audience." I'm sure you've said that before, and I'm sure you'll say it again. Was this audience special? And if so, why?

Martin Scorsese: The importance of making the film on a smaller venue, for me. We discussed doing it at a bigger arena and I looked into that, and actually while I was doing it, I was trying to prepare for that, I began to realize I'd rather... I think I'm better suited to try to capture the group on stage, on a small stage, more for the intimacy then for the group and the way they play together. The way you see the band work together and work each song. I found that to be interesting and more than interesting, it's just a compulsion of mine. I love to be able to see that and be able to cut from one image to the other, movement, that sort of thing, but really about the intimacy of the group and how they work together.

Jagger: I can't remember what you said now (laughter) but the audience was a good audience, because I think they really got into the spirit of the movie as well as enjoying being an audience for the band. They were a great audience for the band but also, they were a great audience for the movie.

Keith Richards: They were all cameramen. (laughter)

Scorsese: They enjoyed it, the cameramen liked it.

Question: Keith, did you see anything special about that night?

Richards: The Beacon Theater is special for some reason anyway. It wraps around...especially if you're going to play there for more than one night and you start to get... the room sort of wraps its arms around you, and every night, it's warmer. It's a great feeling room, and also, this band didn't start off in stadiums (chuckles).

Question: Charlie, do you want to say something about it being a special night?

Charlie Watts: No. (laughter)

Ron Wood: I knew he'd say that.

Question: I understand this is going to be available both on regular screens and also on IMAX and I was wondering how that experience would be different for the fans.

Jagger: It will be very larger (laughter)...

Wood: The slight imperfections might be revealed. (laughter)

Jagger: The funny thing really is that Marty, after looking at all the options, decided that he wanted to make this small, intimate movie and I said, "Well, the laugh is Marty that in the end it's going to be blown up to this huge IMAX thing, so the intimate moment is shown in IMAX," but it looks good in IMAX. We've got both formats, so we're happy with that.

Question: For everyone in the band, we're all impressed with how this movie reminds us of the boundless energy it takes to be on tour. Starting with Mr. Jagger, I'd like to know what vitamins you take and what's your workout like to do this.

Jagger: God! (laughter) You can forget about that.

Richards: (If we tell you) you'll all be on it. (laughter)

Jagger: No gym, no vitamins I think that day. Just do it, just get out there and yeah... you get very pressurized in these situations. The thing I always find is when a movie shoot that you really have to come up to the plate and fortunately, we had two nights. As Keith was saying, it's good to play there more than one night and I agree with him, because the first night we played was more like a rehearsal for us in a way, and by the time the second night came 'round, we got more adjusted to playing in a small theater, because though we played lots of small theaters in the past, we hadn't done it on this tour, so this was quite different to suddenly go into this small theater. By the second night, we knew how to sort of do it, this was going to be the night with all these people there and everything, but I felt really good about that particular night, so you just have to almost come and do it.

Richards: But it was a turn on.

Jagger: Yeah. (laughs)

Question: Why did you choose Marty as the director?

Jagger: He's the best one around. (laughs and whoops)

Question: But what would he do that other directors wouldn't?

Jagger: I can't answer that but... I'm embarrassed now. He's not part of the furniture (laughs)... he's a fantastic director and you assembled a wonderful crew, and I think he would agree with that, and he got fantastic DPs, camera, lighting, everyone working on it, and then very painstaking on the editing to produce the movie that you see. It's not all in the shooting. It's obviously in the editing, too.

Richards: Also we didn't choose Marty, Marty chose us.

Scorsese: It was mutual.

Question: For Marty, with the world of the Mafia being featured in so many of your films, can you make some comparisons to working with the Stones? (laughter)

Scorsese: Uh, well, no, that's an interesting question. I don't think I can make any direct associations to it, but the music is something that deals with at times, it reminds me of when I went to see "Three Penny Opera" back in 1959-1960 and how the music affected me and what that was saying and what that play said, and the lyrics were so important to me, that particular play. I found I grew up in an area that was in a sense like the "Three Penny Opera," and I think at times the Rolling Stones' music had a similar effect on me. It dealt with aspects of the life that I was growing up around me that I was associated with or saw or was experiencing and trying to make sense of, and so it was tougher, had an edge, beautiful and honest and brutal at times and powerful, and it's always stayed with me and become a well of inspiration, like to this day. As Mick said in Berlin, he said (to Mick) can I take the line from you? He said, "I want you to know that 'Shine a Light' is the only film (of mine) that 'Gimme Shelter' is not played in." (laughter) And when I use "Gimme Shelter" in a film, which I think is just as apropos of the world we're living in today, "Gimme Shelter." When I use it in a film, I don't remember that I used it before. I say, "Well, let's do that" and they say "Well, Marty you did it before" and I go, "Well, it's alright." I keep forgetting, you know, but it's something that the music has been very important to me over these years.

Question: Which song gave you the most pleasure or was the most important and emotional to you, either when you saw the final film or when you were cutting it?

Scorsese: That's a hard one, because the entire concert was composed by them as one piece of music in a way...

Question: At the last minute...

Scorsese: Well, we fudged that a bit. (laughs) I mean, it felt like that. It really is impossible to answer, sorry.

Question: For Keith and Mick, which are your favorite films directed by Martin Scorsese?

Jagger: Which one do you like, Keith?

Richards: Oh, me?

Jagger: Marty's favorite

Richards: Marty's favorite?

Jagger: "Kundun's" one of my favorite.

(Scorsese laughs)

Jagger: That's not a joke. (laughter) Did you do that one?

Scorsese: I did do it, yes (laughter)

Jagger: I love all of them. It's hard to choose your favorite. I love nearly all of Marty's movies and I can't wait for the next one.

Question: You used "Gimme Shelter" in "The Departed" and in other films but you also used "Let It Loose" which is a little bit more obscure song from "Exile on Main Street." What made you pick that and for your future films will you pick more obscure songs?

Scorsese: Well, for me, I think it's from "Exile" isn't it? "Exile on Main Street" is an album I like a lot, and that again is sort of in my DNA so to speak. It just came the way Jack Nicholson sat down next to Leonardo DiCaprio and said, "Do you know who I am?" The tone of that and the mood I found... I heard that sound from that song, and I played it against it. I tried a couple of other things afterwards, because invariably, you say "That's the first one.. It works but it can't be (that easy). Working on the first try can't be that way." So we tried some other songs, but we went back to "Let It Loose" and placed it just at the right moment in between the dialogue for the highlights of the song, but it had the tone and the mood and again, the edge that the scene had and the characters were like really.

Question: Going back to the set list, a lot of people have called this movie "a meditation on aging." I was just wondering why you chose a lot of bluesy numbers and a lot of slower songs, but then amp it up at the end. I just wonder why you guys chose the set list like that.

Jagger: I don't know now. It was 18 months ago. I mean...

Richards: Mick always comes up with the set list because he's got to sing them. Unless I say suddenly, "Mick, you've got ten songs in the same key," I don't interfere. We make it up because the man's got to sing them.

Jagger: Yeah, I think you pick the one you think is best for the night really. I wasn't thinking, "God, this is a...."

Richards: There might be a sore throat (and that would be the end of it).

Question: How much are you guys still having fun, and were there moments of that you tried to capture?

Jagger: It took us two days to shoot the picture, but we've spent four days doing the premieres and promotions. It's taken us twice as long doing that. Shooting this movie was quite nerve-wracking in some ways for us, and in other ways it was fantastically enjoyable. I'm sure that Marty has got a lot of things going on, and he's got to cover it when it happens. It was quite a challenge. Talking about having fun, it was great fun, but it was great challenge for everyone sitting at this platform both on the night and after it. Careerwise, you always see things as great fun, but they're also challenges to do these things that are slightly different from what you do normally.

Scorsese: For me it was literally the moments when you can see the band working together. All the songs, it's like a narrative, a story, and the whole sound of the band is like a character, one character in each song. With the grace of these wonderful cinematographers, headed by Bob Richardson, and people like Bob Elswit and Ellen Kuras and Chivo and John Toll, Andrew Lesnie, who did "Lord of the Rings," Edgar Rollins, they were able to, like poets at times, know exactly when to move that camera to pick up a member of the band. We thought this in 35mm, not video, so we had 10-minute loads, and cameras were going down all the time, running out of film, so another camera would pick up where someone left off. That's why there were so many, to be able to pick up the slack. But the key was to find the moments between the members of the band and how they work together. It's like a machine, its own entity during each song.

Question: Who chose the documentary clips and do you think you'll still perform when you're 70?

Richards: That's only five years away. (laughter)

Scorsese: Who chose the clips? Dave Tedeschi's the editor of the film, and we worked together almost nine to ten months. The music came together rather quickly in the cutting. That was very enjoyable. The hardest part was putting together the clips. I think Dave had over 400 hours of archival footage, and then he chose about 40 hours for me to see, and then we worked from that 40 hours and it was a matter of balancing, saying something but not saying too much and then saying nothing with it. That was the key, and balancing it so it wouldn't unbalance the music in the piece. To do a film of all archival footage I think would be a four or five hour documentary.

Jagger: There were some moments when I thought the archival footage was going too long and I felt we were going off into another movie and not at a concert. Because it was really kind of riveting sometimes, those old movies, but then if it goes on too long you want to come back to the concert stage. Sometimes David left them a little bit on the long side, so in the end we ended up with what we had, which was good.

Question: Do you have plans to do another acoustic album like "Beggar's Banquet" in the future?

Jagger: It wasn't really an acoustic album. It did have acoustic guitar. We don't, actually, have plans. We do have some acoustic songs in the featurette on the DVD.

Richards: When you can't afford the electricity, baby, you gotta go acoustic. (laughter)

Question: I loved the version of the Motown classic "Just My Imagination." Are you guys planning to ever do a tribute album to Motown? And for Marty, how is it shooting back in Boston after "The Departed"?

Jagger: I used to do tributes to Martha and the Vandellas in front of my mirror. (laughter)

Richards: It must have been twenty years ago.

Scorsese: For me, it's great to be back in Boston. It's a little cold right now, especially at night, but aside from that it's really good, and we're working a little bit outside of Boston, in Medfield and places like that.

Question: You had a number of special guests at the concert including Buddy Guy, so can you talk about your relationship with Buddy Guy? And how you got Jack White to perform with you on "Loving Cup"?

Jagger: In fact, we've done quite a few shows with Buddy Guy in the past. I think we've known him off and on for quite a long time. He's one of those continually wonderful blues performers.

Richards: I met him through Muddy Waters, and it goes back a long way.

Jagger: I think that the thing that Marty captured, the duet thing that we did with him, was really one of the high points of the movie for me.

Richards: I didn't give him that guitar for nothing, then. (laughter)

Jagger: That wasn't just for show!

Richards: That was a bloody high point to me.

Jagger: Yeah, and I think the other guests all in their own slightly different ways add to the movie. I liked all the duets very much, they really all work. They don't always work, those duets, but I think everyone likes all the duets, and they really come off, so thanks.

Question: I noticed Al Maysles in a few of the shots. How impacted were you by earlier Stones films like "Gimmer Shelter"?

Scorsese: Al sort of referenced the line of continuity with a number of wonderful films he made with the Rolling Stones, going back of course to "Gimme Shelter" and Hal Ashby's "Let's Spend the Night Together" and the Godard.

Richards: Don't forget "C**ksucker Blues." (laughter as he smiles knowing that they're filming this for television)

Scorsese: And "C**ksucker Blues." But also, the Godard film where you actually see the song "Sympathy for the Devil" come together in the recording studio, which is fascinating. This is a direct reference to the past films, yeah.

Question: Can you talk about the phone call at the beginning where you're waiting for the set list to be given to you. How real is that tension between you guys in the beginning?

Jagger: Totally real. (laughter)

Scorsese: Absolutely. I trimmed it a bit. The actual phone call was over 45 minutes so I cheated a bit. The idea is to capture the spontaneity of the group, and the word "capture" means you have to control it, but you can't control spontaneity, so therefore, the cameras have to be in the right position. Then I wanted to go a little further and have them be all moving cameras, but that means they could collide with the performance, so you have to be very careful and all this sort of thing, and also the band is on tour, so basically, we end up talking to each other in like little talking boxes. I shot that at I think 11 o'clock at night on video. I sent my assistant over to the hotel next door, they had white phones. I said "Get me a white phone" because it happened on a white phone. (laughter) I said to David, "Just get the voice in a little speaker, like a box, like the voice of Zeus coming out of the air." But the humor of that was that we could never really be in the same city together for a long period of time, we just couldn't do it, and so we had to work that way. I did trim down the phone call, that's true, although me talking about a camera movement, I couldn't stop talking about camera moves and sweeps. That's very real. And the set list itself, it had to really be something that they all worked out almost I think to the last minute. You have to, as he says, know the room. You've got to feel the temperature of the audience, you've got to feel what's happening. As he said, it could be softer, it could be anything. I was concerned that we got as much as we could on film because the film is running out of the magazines at 10 minutes a clip. I wanted to get the first three songs completely with all 12 or 15 cameras, whatever it was. But inevitably some of them are going to go out, which happened I think with "She Was Hot." But luckily we had the backup cameras. I actually found out the set list a little earlier than that. Someone did purloin it. I'm not going to use the word "stolen" or I don't want to say who it was, but we found it.

Richards: I didn't realize it was such hard work, Marty.

Question: How did you feel about how Scorsese appearing so much at the beginning and end of the film?

Jagger: We had a lot of trouble working out the ending of the film with Marty because he had to go to a lot of different acting coaches.

Scorsese: It was sad, yeah. I do it in a lot of my pictures, like with Edward Kennedy, the slow burn. He used to go like this (presses hand onto forehead). That's what it's like to make films. Another thing is to get into that and literally send up the hapless director, so to speak. Very often you do feel like a hapless person sitting there. It started snowing one night when we were shooting, it wasn't supposed to snow, things like that. But that's the nature of what it is. There's so many concert films now where you see the actual setting up of the concert. Let's have fun with it, let's get to the actual tension, and the good humor of that tension, really.

Question: Can you talk about the arc of the film and how that came about?

Scorsese: We hoped for that arc. We need them to perform the way they are, we can't put cameras in their way, and yet I wanted to get that arc. I knew that getting certain cameramen working together, they could find the angles and find the looks and know when to pan to Ronnie on guitar, know when to pan to Keith, know when to stay on Mick and Charlie, and that sort of thing. I was hoping that the cameras in those positions would get those moments, and then it was constructed in the editing.

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SPOILERS!: ShowHide

the rolling stones are old!

[Pozer]

i agree.

[ElPandaRoyal]

Saw it today at a press screening and it was fucking great. Keep in mind, this is a concert movie, so for the fans of Marty and the Stones, this is going to be something special, but if you're not a Stones fan, then I don't think this is going to make you one. I loved the approach to the concert, the cameras in constant move, either among the audience or just staying with their faces. Only two complaints about it: I'd love to have seen more backstage stuff, and there's no "Gimme Shelter", but that kind of shit is minor stuff, and you know Marty is a natural bonr filmmaker (who else could have created that kind of suspense right before the gig started, with a damn piece of paper with the set list?)

Great fun!

[Pozer]

I'd love to have seen more backstage stuff... but that kind of shit is minor stuff...

that's the major stuff which is what i thought i was going to be seeing.  they didnt advertise it like a concert film.  id have rather seen them having luch at Burger King than watch them play song after song.   

...and there's no "Gimme Shelter"

Shine A Light is NO Gimme Shelter.

who else could have created that kind of suspense right before the gig started, with a damn piece of paper with the set list?

that was the good shit.. the MAJOR stuff.

[ElPandaRoyal]

Oh, but that's the thing. If I had thought I was going to watch a doccumentary I probably would have felt like you. You're right about them advertising it all wrong. I went for a concert movie and that's what I got, and considering that, I liked it a lot. That's why I said the lack of backstage stuff was minor, considering that I knew it would be like that. And no, it's no Gimme Shelter - the Maysles movie is a completely different thing, and quite amazing.