SYMPATHY FOR THOSE DEVILS | April 11th 2008

Samira Khan/Flickr                   

James Woodall is no fan of the Rolling Stones. He had hoped to find more reasons to love the superannuated band in Martin Scorcese's dazzling "Shine A Light". Alas, he only found a love-in ...  

Rock fans everywhere are licking their lips at the release of "Shine A Light", Martin Scorsese's new documentary about the Rolling Stones. The band's screamily trailed presence at the world premiere, which opened Berlin's film festival in February, had the German capital a-flutter for weeks.

As the Stones arrived, a scrum had gathered to ogle the four rockers--Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts--sashay down the red carpet. The effect was not unlike a scene from a religious cult: whoops, screams of adulation, an Armageddon of camera-flashing.

Jagger, while never discouraging the weird shiver he seems to inspire in millions of the world's rock public, tends to address the hordes like an ever-so-slightly impatient gym teacher. So he was at the packed Berlin press conference. In gravelly tones and always squinting, he took charge of proceedings barely before he'd sat down.

Filmed over two nights at New York's Beacon Theater in autumn 2006, "Shine A Light" shows the band in lightning form, fronted by the bendy, über-athletic vocalist, whose tireless immodesty remains the most endearing thing about him.

The film is technically dazzling. One gets a sense of the event's intimacy--the Beacon seats just 2,600 people--and of a band genuinely enjoying itself. With a multiplicity of angles (17 cameras rove round various parts of the theatre), these two hours reveal the Stones in fleshy, in-your-face close-up.

Yet the superannuated band is not always well-served by such proximity: Watts phlegmatic, seeming to pat rather than whack his drums; sinewy, pantomimic Wood, with low-slung guitar; Richards, aging gypsy dreamer that he is, in raddled ecstasy, soloing a fine "You Got the Silver". Jagger, marching and flailing all over the place, whipping his audience into gales of pleasured recognition.

But Jagger's voice has become monotonous. It is impossible not to have some doubts about a 63-year-old--however flat his stomach, however mini his hips--rustling up musical energies (if not from beyond the grave exactly, then) from a time long before punk. It is as if he is caricaturing himself from some dreadful late 1960s TV variety show. Even then, he was much more of a prancer than dancer.

Still, the old hits are here--"Jumping Jack Flash", "Sympathy for the Devil", "Brown Sugar". The best moments are when the band is joined by Buddy Guy, a brilliant old blues man, for a rendition of "Champagne and Reefer", and when Jagger slings a white electric guitar over his shoulder to join his two guitar regulars for a thrumming, visceral "Some Girls".

Both numbers point up the band's elemental strengths: their lashing blues base and their essential structure as a guitar band (just watch those three budding pensioners axe away in "Some Girls"). Rock'n'roll gets neither longer in the tooth nor more basic than this.

I should declare an interest or, perhaps, an unfortunate non-interest. I am not a Rolling Stones fan (though I once saw them live--at Knebworth in southern England, in 1976; half a mile away, Jagger poured a bucket of water over himself. I found their whole performance rather long). Martin Scorsese quite obviously is a fan, as well as a great film-maker.

Throughout his career, he has yoked his trade with his passion for rock--working on the film of the 1969 festival at Woodstock and directing the peerless "The Last Waltz", featuring the final live performance of the group The Band in 1976. Scorsese's most recent foray into the rock world was his probing 2005 portrait of Bob Dylan, "No Direction Home".

But what made the Dylan film work is absent from "Shine A Light". "No Direction Home" features fascinating concert footage, with substantial interviews and searingly intelligent self-analysis by the protagonist. Whether you're a Dylan fan or not, you learn something: about folk music, the 1960s in America, and about the inner biography of this most elusive musician.

"Shine A Light", however, is a fan letter, a love-in with the band. Archived interviews with Jagger or Richards seem to be inserted like ad-breaks. The film is slightly more than a promo, but not much. It is, finally, just a filmed concert.

Legions of Rolling Stones fans will nonetheless be delighted. For curmudgeons like me, "Shine A Light" should have the power to convert, but I came out feeling bored. If Martin Scorsese is to continue in this vein--apparently he has Bob Marley and George Harrison lined up--he might consider retiring his fan's shoes and donning his master-storyteller ones.                                                                                       

"Shine A Light" is out on general release. A double CD of the same title is on the Interscope Records label.

(James Woodall is a writer based in Berlin.)