Shine a Light | Review

It just makes sense that after years of sampling their music for his pictures, that Martin Scorsese and The Rolling Stones would come to collaborate for an entirely new project. Unlike sports stars that have a brief stint in the spotlight and are forever immortalized by their exploits and by the minds of the fans who adored them, the music business allows for those with the enough stamina and a solid fan base to defy the constraints of ageism. By way of the IMAX experience, Shine a Light is for those who haven’t had the chance to experience the front row feeling at a Stones concert and becomes an affordable dream come true, but for the rest of us this isn’t the concert film that will make you hum the oldies – instead this will make you take a mental note on drafting a life insurance policy or help remind you to kick the cigarette or drug habit.

Though they might stand tall on an IMAX screen, this PG-rated show displays the rock legend quartet as they are today: old, saggy and distinctly un-rock and roll-like. With a Mick Jagger who plays a lot more for the camera before him than the three balconies worth of fans peering up or down at him. For the most part, the running time is devoted to the musical numbers, which is too bad since, it lacks the fervor of a true concert experience. Scorsese first begins by detailing the behind-the-scenes of the event, doctoring the preliminary anxiety and attempting to document this as a nerve-racking experience when in all truth he has an army of camera operators (who also happen to be some of cinema’s top cinematographers) to record the event – and has the magic of movie editing to shorten the set list to meet his approval.

Surprises come in the form of the invited three musical guests who gleefully contribute to that one evening in New York City, but audiences watching this film especially those with short concentration spans will start paying more attention to the number of guitar picks used in a given song, or instead focus in on the people in the front row which is populated with mothers competing with their own daughters for Jagger’s casual glance over the crowd or hot blonds acting like wannabe groupies.

With the kind of tracking shots and camera equipment that would make sporting event broadcasters envious and with a Jagger strutting his stuff and 62 year-old frame for the camera, Scorsese doesn’t do much else to challenge the run-of-the-mill concert film docu format. Scorsese’s only attempt to change the form is by introducing bits and pieces of archival interview footage along the way – unfortunately, these moments account for less than ten percent of the layout and the filmmaker seems content with driving the message home that the Stones are eternal and that wisdom is not the key to the band’s longevity. As a contemporary nostalgic trip, this is way too manufactured for any rock purist to enjoy – without any bootleg and enough of a stock footage imprint to play with – this is a concert docu is about as much fun as erectile dysfunction.

Rating 0.5 stars