Shine a Light | |
---|---|
Directed by | Martin Scorsese |
Produced by | Steve Bing Michael Cohl |
Starring | Mick Jagger Keith Richards Charlie Watts Ronnie Wood Christina Aguilera Buddy Guy Jack White III |
Cinematography | Robert Richardson |
Music by | The Rolling Stones |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Paramount Vantage (through Paramount Classics; United States) 20th Century Fox (United Kingdom/Australia) |
Release date |
|
Running time | 122 minutes |
Countries | United States United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | $1 million [1] |
Box office | $16.2 million [1] |
Shine a Light is a 2008 concert film directed by Martin Scorsese documenting the Rolling Stones' 2006 Beacon Theatre performances during their A Bigger Bang Tour. [2] The film also includes archive footage from the band's career and makes use of digital cinematography for backstage sequences, the first time Scorsese used the technology in a film. The film takes its title from the song of the same name, featured on the band's 1972 album Exile on Main St. A soundtrack album was released in April 2008 on the Universal label. This is also the last movie by Paramount Classics, as the company merged into its sister company Paramount Vantage after the movie was released.
Scorsese filmed the Rolling Stones at the Beacon Theatre on October 29 and November 1, 2006, but the performance footage used in the film is all from the second show. The music was recorded, mixed and co-produced by Bob Clearmountain. The audio recording was done on the Silver Truck with David Hewitt. The concert footage is preceded by a brief semi-fictionalized introduction about the preparations for the shows, and is intercut with historical news clips and archival interviews with band members.
The shows, which were added to the tour schedule for the purposes of the film shoot, featured a different set list than was typical of other shows on the tour (see below), and were noted for their star-studded crowds, including former United States President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Clinton, who was then a United States senator, and former President of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski. [3] [4]
The performances benefitted the Clinton Foundation, a charity founded by Bill Clinton, who gave a short speech at the October 29 performance. The film also shows Jack White, Buddy Guy and Christina Aguilera performing with the Stones.
Prior to the October 29 show, 83-year-old Ahmet Ertegun, a co-founder and executive of Atlantic Records and chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and museum, was backstage in a VIP social area, the "Rattlesnake Inn," when he tripped and fell, striking his head on the concrete floor. He was rushed to the hospital, and died on December 14, 2006. The film was dedicated to his memory.
According to keyboardist Chuck Leavell's tour diary, Mick Jagger had been ill with throat problems, forcing a postponement of the Stones scheduled Atlantic City concert and the October 31 Beacon Theatre show was moved to November 1, to allow Jagger to recuperate.
Most of the performance footage was culled from the second night of filming. "The first night we had Bill Clinton there," Charlie Watts recalled. "I don't know why the Clinton bit's in the movie... That was a bit dull, because they weren't really rock 'n' roll people. But Mick was on fire. You can tell in the third song when Lisa Fisher (sic), the singer, does a shimmy with him and you see the look on her face. He dances like Fred Astaire, going backwards." [5]
All tracks are by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, except where noted.
Additional acoustic instrumental numbers are also played during the closing credits:
Noting the director's frequent use of Stones music in his films, Jagger joked that Shine a Light may be the only Scorsese film that does not include "Gimme Shelter". [7]
Shine a Light was initially scheduled for release on September 21, 2007, but Paramount Classics postponed it until April 2008. [8] The world premiere was at the 58th Berlin International Film Festival on February 7, 2008. [9] The film was also screened in some IMAX cinemas. [10] The IMAX version of the film was the second IMAX Stones concert film, the first being Live at the Max , released in 1991.
From Paramount Home Entertainment, Shine a Light was released on DVD and Blu-ray July 29, 2008. [11]
Bonus features: [12]
Shine a Light grossed $5.5 million in the United States and Canada and $10.7 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $16.2 million, against a production budget of $1 million. [1]
Shine a Light received mostly positive reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 86% of 126 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.3/10.The website's consensus reads: "It may offer little new for fans, but Martin Scorsese's document of the Rolling Stones' electrifying live show should provide satisfaction to audiences." [13] On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the film has an average score of 76 out of 100 based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [14]
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active across seven decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pioneered the gritty, rhythmically driven sound that came to define hard rock. Their first stable line-up consisted of vocalist Mick Jagger, guitarist Keith Richards, multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones, bassist Bill Wyman, and drummer Charlie Watts. During their early years, Jones was the primary leader of the band. After Andrew Loog Oldham became the group's manager in 1963, he encouraged them to write their own songs. The Jagger–Richards partnership became the band's primary songwriting and creative force.
Sir Michael Philip Jagger is an English singer. He is the front man and one of the founder members of the rock band the Rolling Stones. Jagger has written most of the band's songs alongside lead guitarist Keith Richards; their songwriting partnership is one of the most successful in history, and they continue to collaborate musically. His career has spanned over six decades, and he has been widely described as one of the most popular and influential front men in the history of rock music. His distinctive voice and energetic live performances, along with Richards' guitar style, have been the Rolling Stones' trademark throughout the band's career. Jagger gained notoriety for his romantic involvements and illicit drug use, and has often been portrayed as a countercultural figure.
The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus was a concert film hosted by and featuring the Rolling Stones, filmed on 11–12 December 1968. It was directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who proposed the idea of a "rock and roll circus" to Jagger. The show was filmed on a makeshift circus stage with Jethro Tull, The Who, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithfull, and the Rolling Stones. John Lennon and his fiancee Yoko Ono performed as part of a one-shot supergroup called The Dirty Mac, featuring Eric Clapton on guitar, Mitch Mitchell on drums, and the Stones' Keith Richards on bass. The recently formed Led Zeppelin had been considered for inclusion, but the idea was rejected.
Performance is a 1970 British crime drama film directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, written by Cammell and filmed by Roeg. The film stars James Fox as a violent and ambitious London gangster who, after killing an old friend, goes into hiding at the home of a reclusive rock star.
William J. Monahan is an American screenwriter and novelist. His second produced screenplay was The Departed, a film that earned him a Writers Guild of America Award and Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan is a 2005 documentary film by Martin Scorsese that traces the life of Bob Dylan, and his impact on 20th-century American popular music and culture. The film focuses on the period between Dylan's arrival in New York in January 1961 and his "retirement" from touring following his motorcycle accident in July 1966. This period encapsulates Dylan's rise to fame as a folk singer and songwriter where he became the center of a cultural and musical upheaval, and continues through the electric controversy surrounding his move to a rock style of music.
"Tumbling Dice" is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. It was released worldwide as the lead single from the band's 1972 double album Exile on Main St. on 14 April 1972 by Rolling Stones Records. A product of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' songwriting partnership, the song contains a blues and boogie-woogie-influenced rhythm that scholars and musicians have noted for its unusual tempo and groove. The lyrics are about a gambler who cannot remain faithful to any woman.
A Bigger Bang was a worldwide concert tour by the Rolling Stones which took place between August 2005 and August 2007, in support of their album A Bigger Bang. At the time, it was the highest grossing tour of all time, earning $558,255,524, before being surpassed by U2's 2009–11 U2 360 Tour, and eventually Taylor Swift's 2023–24 Eras Tour. The tour was chronicled on the video release The Biggest Bang, compiling full performances, several recordings from shows and documentaries. Notable concerts on the tour included a two-night stand in the autumn of 2006 at the Beacon Theatre filmed by Martin Scorsese for Shine a Light, and their half-time performance at Super Bowl XL.
"Connection" is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, featured on their 1967 album Between the Buttons. It was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, features vocals by both and is said to be about the long hours the band spent in airports. The lyrics contain much rhyming based on the word connection. The lyrics also reflect the pressures the band was under by 1967:
My bags they get a very close inspection, I wonder why it is that they suspect 'em, They're dying to add me to their collection, And I don't know, If they'll let me go
"Some Girls" is the title track of the English rock band the Rolling Stones' 1978 album Some Girls. It marked the third time a song on one of the band's albums also served as the album's title.
"Shine a Light" is a song released by English rock band the Rolling Stones on their 1972 album Exile on Main St. about founding band member Brian Jones and was subsequently reworked and released after his 1969 death.
Bernard Fowler is an American musician. He is known for a long association with The Rolling Stones, providing backing vocals since 1989 and on their studio recordings and live tours. Fowler has been a featured guest vocalist on the majority of solo albums released by the members of that band. He has released two solo albums, and he has also been a regular featured singer on other musicians' recordings and tours. Fowler has toured and recorded with the bands Tackhead and Bad Dog and occasionally with Nicklebag and Little Axe.
Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten is a 2007 documentary film directed by Julien Temple about Joe Strummer, the lead singer of the British punk rock band The Clash, that went on to win the British Independent Film Awards as Best British Documentary 2007. The film premiered 20 January 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. It was also shown at the Dublin Film Festival on 24 February 2007.
"Loving Cup" is a song by the Rolling Stones, which appears on their 1972 album Exile on Main St.
Rolling Stones: Live at the Max is a concert film by the Rolling Stones released in 1991. It was specially filmed in IMAX during the Urban Jungle Tour in Europe in 1990. It was the first concert movie shot in the IMAX format.
Video Rewind is a compilation of video clips by English rock band the Rolling Stones, recorded between 1972–1984. Instead of presenting unrelated clips and videos strung together, it uses a framing story directed by Julien Temple, featuring Bill Wyman and Mick Jagger, and also includes some footage directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. It was first released in 1984 on the VHS, Betamax, Laserdisc, and CED Videodisc formats by Vestron home video.
Shine a Light is the soundtrack to the Rolling Stones' concert film of the same name, directed by Martin Scorsese. It was released on 1 April 2008 in the UK by Polydor Records and one week later in the United States by Interscope Records. Double disc and single disc versions were issued.
Crossfire Hurricane is a 2012 documentary film about the Rolling Stones written and directed by Brett Morgen. The film chronicles the early years of the band through to 1981. The film is a series of interviews conducted without cameras, while showing various points of interest that the band is discussing as archival footage. The title of the film comes from the first line of the band's 1968 hit "Jumpin' Jack Flash".
Metallica: Through the Never is a 2013 American thriller concert film featuring American thrash metal band Metallica. Its title is derived from the song "Through the Never", from the band's self-titled 1991 album. It follows young roadie Trip's surreal misadventures, intercut with concert footage shot in Vancouver and Edmonton in August 2012.
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese is a 2019 American pseudo-documentary film, composed of both fictional and non-fictional material, covering Bob Dylan's 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue concert tour. Directed by Martin Scorsese, it is the director's second film on Bob Dylan, following 2005's No Direction Home. The bulk of Rolling Thunder Revue is compiled of outtakes from Dylan's 1978 film Renaldo and Clara, which was filmed in conjunction with the tour.