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Complete final press notes for Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones documentary SHINE A LIGHT

March 8th, 2008 by Scott Marks

PARAMOUNT CLASSICS in Association with

CONCERT PRODUCTIONS INTERNATIONAL

and

SHANGRI-LA ENTERTAINMENT

Presents

A Martin Scorsese Picture

shine-a-light-logo.jpg

Starring Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood.

The film is directed by Martin Scorsese. The producers are Victoria Pearman, Michael Cohl, Zane Weiner and Steve Bing. The executive producers are Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood. The co-executive producer is Jane Rose. The director of photography is Robert Richardson, ASC. The film is edited by David Tedeschi. The concert sets are designed by Mark Fisher. The concert lighting is designed by Patrick Woodroffe.

The film is being distributed in the U.S. by Paramount Classics and sold internationally by Fortissimo Films. This film has been rated PG-13 for brief strong language, drug references and smoking.

Synopsis

On April 4th, Academy Award®-winning filmmaker and the world’s greatest rock n’ roll band will unite to bring audiences the year’s most extraordinary musical film event, “Shine A Light,” to theaters everywhere.

Martin Scorsese’s concert documentary “Shine A Light” will show the world the Rolling Stones as they’ve never been seen before. Filmed at the famed Beacon Theatre in New York City in Fall 2006, Scorsese assembled a legendary team of cinematographers to capture the raw energy of the legendary band.

Oscar®-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson (“The Aviator,” “JFK”) supervised the camera team comprised of several highly acclaimed directors of photography, including Oscar® winner John Toll (“The Last Samurai,” “Braveheart”), Oscar® winner Andrew Lesnie (“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, “King Kong”), Oscar® nominee Stuart Dryburgh (“The Piano,” “The Painted Veil”), Oscar® winner Robert Elswit (“There Will Be Blood,” “Magnolia,” “Good Night and Good Luck.”), Oscar® nominee Emmanuel Lubezki (“Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events,” “Sleepy Hollow”) and Ellen Kuras (“Summer of Sam,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”). The film was edited by David Tedeschi, who most recently worked with Scorsese on the acclaimed Bob Dylan documentary “No Direction Home: Bob Dylan.”

Produced and financed by Steve Bing’s Shangri-La Entertainment and longtime Rolling Stones tour promoter Michael Cohl’s Concert Promotions International, the film was produced by Victoria Pearman, Michael Cohl, Zane Weiner and Steve Bing. The executive producers are Stones members Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood, with Jane Rose serving as co-executive producer.

(This goes on for days…)

About the Production

“Shine A Light” documents an astounding stage performance by what is indisputably the world’s greatest rock ‘n roll band, filmed by America’s preeminent director and an all-star crew of the motion picture industry’s leading cinematographers. The film came together in a unique moment in time when all these stellar forces aligned in New York City and were able to unite to capture a great performance on celluloid.

The idea for the film originated with the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, who was in the middle of the band’s planet-circling “Bigger Bang” tour. The idea, at first, was to make a film about the tour. Jagger’s original concept was to shoot the group’s biggest concert ever. “At the beginning, I was thinking we would be doing some kind of film of this tour,” says Jagger. “And because we were doing this big concert in Rio de Janeiro on the beach, I started thinking it was going to be different than the normal concert. It was going to be a big event, a million people on the beach, a huge audience, a big occasion. There was going to be a lot of material in there to shoot. We even did a budget for that, to shoot that on film, in various methods.”

Once the steel wheels of this colossal enterprise were in motion, the logical next step was to find a director equal to the task. To Jagger, the answer was obvious. “We started to think, if we’re going to do this, we might as well start with a really top-flight filmmaker. It’s good to start at the top,” Jagger says with a laugh. “Martin Scorsese is perhaps the most talented American film director and the Rolling Stones, you know, a good rock band, with a vintage approach to things, the combination of the two would hopefully make an interesting couple hours.”

Keith Richards is also a major fan of Scorsese’s and says he’s studied “every one of his movies. Some of them I know most of the dialogue,” he says. “All I heard was that Marty might be shooting the Stones, and I said, ‘Yeah!’ Given the opportunity to get a Stones show shot by a master, who’s going to say no?”

And what was Martin Scorsese’s response to the proposal? “I think it was just, ‘Absolutely,’” Pearman says. “At first I got the call from his manager saying, ‘Great we’d love to do it.’ And then we started having meetings, and a lot of discussions, and I think at one point because they were doing such an enormous world tour at the time, the logistics of getting everyone together, what city it should be done in and whether it should be the biggest concert ever, which was the Rio show…it was very complicated getting everyone in the same place at the same time to even talk about it.”

Jane Rose, Richards’ manager of 25 years, who is the film’s co-executive producer, describes the guitarist’s process: “When we knew that Marty was interested in doing the movie, he met with Keith, and they proceeded to have a long conversation about film history. Keith has so much respect for him and was so thrilled that the director of ‘Goodfellas’ would be directing him. He just puts his faith and trust in the director.”

Once Scorsese was on board, the producers followed. Steve Bing’s participation with the financial and filmmaking muscle of his Shangri-la Entertainment — he’d whetted his concert-film appetite when his company financed “Neil Young: Heart of Gold” — and that of Concert Promotions International topper Michael Cohl — himself a producer of some major Stones documentaries — iced the deal and moved the project forward.

Meetings were held to iron out the details of the shoot. “We had this stunning meeting in my hotel room,” says Jagger. “There was a storm, the wind was blowing, there was a window that wouldn’t close, the curtains were blowing and the chandeliers were wobbling – and we were all sort of laughing about it. We talked about shooting in 3-D, and shooting in IMAX, because it was such a big event. I was focused on this big event because I thought it was different. Marty seemed very excited by this idea.”
Jagger invited the director to see the Stones on tour, which he did. However, the notion of shooting a big concert film began to give way to another approach.

“Every time I saw them perform – sometimes further back, sometimes they’d actually bring me on stage – I became more and more obsessed with getting it on film,” says Scorsese. “We did talk about making an official tour film but at a certain point, I thought making something more intimate would be more suited to me as a filmmaker and would also facilitate a more personal connection between the audience and the band.”

Plus, Scorsese adds, a Stones concert is already such a spectacle, he thought that showcasing them in a smaller venue might offer a different point of view of the legendary rock ‘n roll band. “I went to see the show again and I’m sitting there, and the band is this small on the screen, they’ve got 50 cameras already — what am I going to bring to that?” he says. “So then I thought: what if I can convince them to play on a smaller stage, the Beacon Theatre in New York, with the best cameramen in the world…?”

And convince them he did. Though Jagger struggled a bit with letting go of his initial large-scale idea, it was hard to argue with the director’s plan. “Marty came back and said he’d been thinking about it and what he really wanted to do was shoot something more intimate. So we’d come around completely — I’d gone from a million people…and he’d gone to…something small. I said, you know Marty, the other problem is, we don’t have any intimate places booked on the tour. We have lots of non-intimate places but we don’t have an intimate place. We have a fully booked tour schedule — you know, how are we going to do this?

“And he had to convince me – he said, this is kind of my forté, is to shoot these intimate things. That’s what he likes to do, that’s what he wanted to do. So, it took me quite a long while to get used to the idea because I was rather fixated on this huge show. In my mind, it was an amazing thing for a filmmaker to shoot because there was so much stuff in the event – in Brazil. On the beach there was so much action, and there were so many people, there was so much music of every different kind.”

Richards, too, was amenable to the smaller venue, where he’d performed with his solo band the X-pensive Winos. “The idea of doing it at the Beacon was great and very warm to my heart since I worked there with the Winos. We did five nights there so I knew the room.”

A more pressing concern for Richards was in regards to the possible clash between the band and the filmmaking crew during the performance. “I asked Scorsese, ‘Do you think you can shoot it without us being – as much as possible – unaware that it’s being shot.’ That would be the ideal situation. Otherwise, you’re shooting a movie and not doing a show. And you wouldn’t get that spontaneity if everyone was aware they were being shot by Martin Scorsese.”

For Scorsese, the Beacon was the perfect setting – big enough to provide enough room for the cameras and lights and dolly tracks but small enough to capture the Stones’ ineffable chemistry up close.

“I liked the Beacon Theatre in New York. The stage was tight enough for me to film but it also gave the Stones enough room to move and also enough room for our cameras. And so then it became an issue of how we bring the two processes together – the film and the Rolling Stones on stage. I wanted to capture the music and their interaction on stage, I wanted people to feel like they were on stage with them in the film. In editing it, it was clear that each song had its own story to tell, it was as if we were hearing them for the very first time. The way they work off of each other and off of the audience – something happens and it takes you out of yourself. It’s fascinating to see that kind of power and excitement that transcends…ancient, shamanistic - they cast a spell, something primal but very orchestrated, each character in the Stones having his own personality and way of relating to each other – and to be in the best position to see them perform and how they just wrap up the audience in their hands and basically take them away,” Scorsese says.

Scorsese caught the electricity of the show with the help of more than 18 cameras panning and zooming in on every conceivable bit of the action. Those cameras were manned by some of the top directors of photography in the motion picture business, including Albert Maysles, who had directed the Stones in “Gimme Shelter,” and two-time Oscar® winner John Toll, all working under the collective leadership of Scorsese’s director of photography, Robert Richardson, who has won two Academy Awards® (one for Scorsese’s “The Aviator” and the other for Oliver Stone’s “JFK”) and been nominated three additional times. Richardson also came up with some of the key dramatic lighting schemes, such as a “wall of light” that Jagger bursts through on his entrance through a door at the rear of the theater.

Everything clicked, and Jagger credits Scorsese’s loyalty to his vision and his steadfast director’s hand in maintaining tight control of the elements in a very small space. “I think that’s why Marty didn’t want to do it with the big stages,” says Jagger, “because on the big stages you’re quite removed from a more intimate relationship between the audience and the performers. I know that Marty had seen our IMAX film and he felt that you don’t really see much in the relationships when you see a big movie like that. Also, he wanted to be in a very confined space with a lot of cameras and a lot of different angles, which gives you more control than being in a very large space.”

This is not to say that filming the more contained concert was easy, for the filmmaker or for the band – in fact, over two nights at the Beacon, the first served as a bit of a dress rehearsal and most of the footage came from the second.

“We did discuss all the cameras and the only problem we had really was that every time you go to a camera that moves, it takes up a lot of room. Marty and I wanted a lot of tracks and cranes and cameras but there wasn’t a lot of room in the theater and not a lot of room on stage. If you put two big cranes on a stage, there’s not a lot of stage left, so we had to cut down on them. But we had a lot of tracks and learned a lot on the first night. We were much more efficient on the second night,” Jagger reports.

The process of documenting the Stones on stage generated a bit of creative tension for Scorsese, something he reveals with wry humor in the opening frames of the film, and it played out behind the scenes.

“I wanted to see the music but you have to be cognizant and aware that if you put five cameras in front of a person and you’re moving one way and he another, there is a good chance he will run into the camera. It was a matter of trial and error and, at times, very funny – especially when you factor in that they were constantly on tour and I was finishing up ‘The Departed,’ so it was impossible for us to be in a room together for a concentrated period of time until maybe a week before the shoot. So there was a lot of trying to figure out how much movement I could get from the cameras while they too were in motion. I didn’t want to inhibit them in any way but we also wanted to get the best shots we could.”
Then there were potentially opposing artistic styles – Scorsese’s legendary painstaking approach vs. the Stones’ unbridled spontaneity.

“I prepared meticulously but I also knew that 75% of it wouldn’t be that way – to capture their spontaneity, we couldn’t get in the way, but on the other hand, we wanted to get it right. The camera had to be in a good position to capture it. That was the tension. Ultimately, there were certain crane moves and moves I specified for certain lyrics and we got those,” Scorsese explains.
He also “prepared” for the Stones’ on-stage impulsiveness by careful use of his myriad, renowned cinematographers and multiple cameras.

“Once we designated which directors of photography had which of the Stones and once they figured out if, say, Mick was going to dash out onto the runner and we were going to pan left with him, then we saw who could photograph what. I knew if he went out of John Toll’s camera range, he could be picked up by another. I had a big video monitor in front of me and if something went really off, I could tell camera number 15 to pick up where camera number 12 left off. Primarily, though, once we knew the parameters of movement – panning, tilting and who they could keep in frame and where – that became our foundation. All those cameras also helped us with our focus issue because the Stones are so quick and wonderfully spontaneous so it would be a pity if we got the move but it wasn’t in focus. So, if we had a designated camera position, Richardson would say, ‘Let’s have a back-up right above it,’ and the double camera was primarily for focus. The primary images camera came from maybe seven or eight cameras and the rest were filling in, helping and hoping and trying to get the best compositions in impossible situations,” Scorsese explains.

Pearman credits Scorsese’s inclusive sensibility and demeanor for the ease with which the musicians and crew worked together to successfully execute the production. “The wonderful thing about Marty is that he is so collaborative, and he has such reverence for the music,” she says. “It was wonderful to witness so much mutual respect between the parties involved. It was a joy to see that collaboration, to be part of it and to have produced it.”

Any of Richards’ initial misgivings were similarly allayed. “One of the beauties of the way Marty had set it up was that you could actually forget that there were any shots,” says Richards. “We’re used to cameras being pointed at us for the video screens. But though there were 16 of them here – you really couldn’t tell. Marty disguised it very well. It didn’t feel like we were working for cameras any more than we would at any other gig.”

“He was a joy, very easy to work with,” says guitarist Ronnie Wood. “I liked his street cred. He’s just like a grown-up school kid – his attitude was very loose, like, let’s have a laugh, go for it and see what comes out. He’s a very warm guy to be around and I think that brings out the best in you, whatever that might be. He makes you feel comfortable, even with all those cameras. Anywhere you looked there was a huge tripod with a giant machine on it and someone signaling to somebody else. You just had to concentrate on the music, really, which was what Marty wanted.”

The Stones’ songs often turn up in Scorsese’s movies, as Pearman notes. “He’s used the Rolling Stones’ music in many of his films and has such a tremendous respect for their songs,” she says.
“Their songs always come off extraordinarily well in movies – there is a drive and authority to their music and also an edge to it,” Scorsese reflects. “I’ve used ‘Gimme Shelter’ twice now in my pictures. The idea realizing that we are on our own and that we need shelter somewhere that I might not get from you – I’m going to have to find my own – it’s a desperation reflecting a point in the 1960s but it is also contemporary, which is why I put it in ‘The Departed,’ a reflection of where we are today. That film depicts a moral ground zero – you don’t know where anybody stands, nobody seems to be telling the truth and what the hell is truth anyway? ‘Gimme Shelter’ was the only thing that seemed to work.”
Long before Scorsese became a celebrated filmmaker, even before he ever attended a Rolling Stones concert, the Stones’ music spoke to him in a cinematic language.

“Their music was an inspiration. The Stones have a very powerful force to their music and the sound that they create – it has to do with the nature of the way the band is orchestrated, the use of guitars and drums and the sound of Mick’s voice. I made my first short films in 1963 or 1964, and certain music would create visual impressions in my mind that stayed with me. The Stones were key in creating images in my imagination, feelings and impressions that found their way into a lot of my movies – it became the signature of ‘Mean Streets,’ for example, the use of ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash.’ All that came before I even saw them in person. The first time I saw them was at Madison Square Garden – or at least a semblance of them because I was up so high in the bad seats – but at that point, the work had been done in my head. In other words, I was creating scenarios in my head as I listened to their music,” he says.

Richards and the Stones have been no strangers to the cinematic treatment by film masters. Of the more than 18 documentaries that have been made about them, “Shine A Light” is one of more than half a dozen helmed by an “auteur.” There was 1968’s Jean-Luc Godard activist-arriviste take on the band, “Sympathy for the Devil: One Plus One”; Robert Frank’s very-limited release (it was shown publicly perhaps three times) documentary about their debauched life on the road, “Cocksucker Blues”; Peter Whitehead’s 1966 art-scene film “Charlie is My Darling”; The Maysles Brothers’ “Gimme Shelter”; and Hal Ashby’s “Let’s Spend the Night Together.” Film scholar that he is, Richards says “Don’t forget ‘Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll,’” Taylor Hackford’s documentary about a legendary Chuck Berry concert, in which Richards appeared and also co-produced. “To me, ‘Shine A Light’ is on a par with that film. It’s different because it’s a Stones show but it’s a very superior rock ’n roll film.”

And why was that one so important to him as a performer and as an artist? “Actually, to me,” says Richards, “what was really intriguing was getting Marty’s take on it, and his vision. To me, the thing was that Martin Scorsese wanted to do something, and I thought, well, he must have something in mind that is beyond the usual sort of video scan. So I really wanted to find out what Marty wanted.”
Who would have guessed that beneath the guise of the ultimate rock ‘n roll outlaw beat the heart of a cinematheque-denizen film scholar who wanted nothing more than to please a master auteur? “When you’re actually up there doing the work, you really pass all of that onto the director so that in a way, you just do what you do and try to do it as well as you can, and at the end you see whether you did it or not and then you stop to see – ahh! his vision of it,” observes Richards. “As it slowly unfolded with “Shine A Light” – Marty’s great use of old footage and live footage, for instance, had a great feel about it. It slowly dawns on you as you’re watching it. Otherwise, you have no idea. You can’t climb inside of somebody else’s brain.”

Scorsese’s attention to detail and his musical sense of editing is another hallmark that drew Richards in. In one scene, guest artist Jack White III is brought onstage to play “Lovin’ Cup,” a three-way acoustic guitar jam in which Jagger straps on a Taylor acoustic and White uses a metal slide on his own acoustic ax. The film then segues to Richards on an acoustic 12-string for the ‘60s Stones composition “As Tears Go By,” one of their rare performances of the tune.

Scorsese’s treatment of the guitars in this sequence is further evidence to Richards that he had put himself in the hands of a master. “How many times have we all watched fingers going up and down fretboards?” he says. “The thing that Marty did with it was he turned the observation into a Rembrandt. It shows the beauty of the guitars themselves. It wasn’t just who was playing them. It was the loving shots of the instruments themselves, which I found very, very, very nice.”

According to Richards, it was Scorsese who pushed to have him sing “You Got the Silver” (from the classic “Let It Bleed” album) in the film. “It was a special moment for me, because it was the first time I had done it without actually playing a guitar. I am a guitar player, you know,” he laughs. “I mean, sometimes I sing. But just the freedom to do a song and not have to think about left-y on right-y and to have to figure out what you’re going to do without the guitar…once you got over that, you gotta do something else. You gotta move with the band. And it was a great release for me, actually, and great, great fun.”

According to Pearman, Jagger matched Scorsese in meticulousness with his painstaking attention to the show’s set list. “I think Mick’s concern was that it had to be really, really, really special, because it was Martin Scorsese and because it was at the Beacon. He wanted the set list to be perfect, not just the standard set list. So there was a lot of planning and it all literally happened right before the show,” she says. “We were all on pins and needles. Not knowing what to shoot or what was going to happen first or where all these cameras were going to be.”

The jitters about the set list are documented in the film almost as a prologue to the concert with Scorsese fretting about what the set list would be, particularly the opening number. Onscreen, Jagger replies, “We’ll be done, Marty, on the night, an hour before the show.”

In hindsight, Scorsese has a laugh at “the absurdity of trying to be organized when we didn’t know what was going to happen. We were dealing with performance which is tone and mood, but it wasn’t ours, it was theirs. They’d rehearse in the theater, go backstage and work it out, but even a half-hour before the show, they weren’t sure.”

Scorsese says that preparing for the unknown set of songs that might happen during the concert was ultimately as thrilling as a horse race.

“It depended on what they felt like together enough to play. It’s like a handicapper in a race. He doesn’t choose the winner. He knows the temperature of the race, he knows the jockey on the favorite horse has just had a problem with his family. Maybe his mind isn’t into it. He knows the track might be muddy at three o’clock. He doesn’t know who is going to win, but he can gauge the temperature and make a value judgment as to who to bet on. So I think that’s what a performer does and part of the excitement was not knowing exactly what was going to be there,” Scorsese says.

“It was quite a difficult set list to do,” Jagger claims. “It’s a film to watch in a movie house or on DVD. So it’s got its own aesthetic. You’re not going to do the same show you do in a big place. The problem was, we didn’t have a theater show on this tour. In the previous tour we’d had a theater show. In other words, we’d had a set list that was different for theater which featured different numbers. It was more intimate. These had to all be invented. And then, the other thing was that it’s always nice in a film like this to have guest artists. So you had to think about them, what kind of numbers were they going to sing and what could they do. How’s that all going to dovetail with the rest of it? So it’s not just think of a set list per se. It’s think of a movie set list of the presentation.

“And also, I had to balance off the fact that we had some prior commitments to shoot a DVD of the tour as well, so I had to try to make the set list different from the DVD set list. It doesn’t really come out in the film, but that was my big headache. I had to work out what shows we were going to play, this one and that one and the other one and so they wouldn’t be the same but, nevertheless, be related. And also work out who the guest artists were going to be.”

Like Richards, Jagger has nothing but respect and admiration for Scorsese. “Quite a lot of the previous auteur directors were actually doing documentaries, and this is mostly a concert movie. They’re all great filmmakers. I think that Marty is a wonderful filmmaker and I’ve known him for some time. And I think he really has a great passion for this. It’s not something he just tosses off in a week, so to speak, as a bit of a fun thing. He’s very involved, super-involved in the editing, getting it just right. He’s fantastically devoted to detail, which is very important in this. He hated the idea of winging it, as you could see with the set list.

“In post-production he is extremely careful,” Jagger continues. “He wants to get everything right and get the maximum emotion out of it, get all the relationships - work on all of it as hard as he can. So I think he’s a great guy to work with. He’s not a person who dictates to you or takes the sort of high ground in knowledge or anything like that, and he listens to your points and either takes them or doesn’t take them. He’s very cooperative.”

Adds Richards: “His eye on editing is amazing. He has a beautiful eye — to capture everything. Shooting three shows is one thing. Editing all that footage is another. And that’s where real magic comes in with Marty.”

Richards was also impressed with how Scorsese seamlessly threaded old newsreel and interview footage with the onstage performance in the film. “Marty did an incredible job of floating them in and out, you know,” says Richards. “It wasn’t just some gimmick. They all made sense, you know. But man, watching myself… I mean, everything’s been documented in a way, and it was just the way it was used. I thought Marty did it really smooth when he brought it in and out, present and past, you know. All I dare Marty to do now is figure out the future,” he laughs.

Scorsese is no stranger to big-event music films, having cut his teeth on the genre by working as an editor on “Woodstock” and, as in “Shine A Light,” he shot a definitive documentary on The Band, “The Last Waltz,” in a small venue. That film was a tribute to a classic rock group playing their farewell concert and Scorsese’s cameras danced about on cranes and tracks as the musicians performed. But the narrative was also involved with the band members’ history and background, with frequent cutaways to backstage interviews with the group members, as well as commentaries by The Band’s guests and some of the musical figures in their lives.

“Shine A Light” focuses on the music, dispensing with the talking-head device and opting instead for spare pops of vintage newsreel and TV footage as the only non-performance-based commentary on the band. Scorsese hopes that audiences watching the film in a theater with a good sound system will feel as though they scored the best seat in the house at a down-and-dirty Stones concert with the band performing at its peak.

“The issue was, ultimately, why are we making this film? We are not making a film compilation, a history of the Rolling Stones, which would be very interesting but very comprehensive – epic in length and a number of years to make. And they are probably the most documented band in rock ‘n roll history. There are so many documentaries in which you see the band arriving with their instruments, people saying, ‘Yeah, I worked with so-and-so back in 1973,’ that didn’t interest me. The music, its performance, that’s what was important. So the trick with the archival footage was to get just the right amount to support the music. We selected themes – such as the idea of the band’s longevity and some of the group’s notoriety and then, at a certain point, we wanted to show how irrelevant the interviews with them became – the same questions asked over and over to the point where they don’t mean anything anymore. Only one thing has meaning, really, and that is their performance. So the archival footage was chosen to emphasize that,” Scorsese says.

That goal, while very straightforward on a certain level, is also a bit like capturing lightning in a bottle. Reticent but ever gentlemanly drummer Charlie Watts is hard-pressed to describe or define the Stones’ relationship on stage. “I have absolutely no idea how to describe it,” says Watts. “But this thing happens when we get together. It’s always been like that. You can get another combination of the same instruments, the same playing, but it wouldn’t be the same. It’s just a couple of guitars, a bass and a drum; it’s nothing amazing. You can’t sit and analyze it really, but something definitely happens when we’re on stage together. We’re not the same without each other.”

He adds that it may be as elegantly simple and time-tested as the songs themselves. “The Rolling Stones are a blues band,” attests Watts. “I don’t play any differently today than I did when we began. Chuck Berry or Muddy Waters is what we’ve always played. I don’t think we’ve changed, really.”
In his quest to document their performance, their stage presence, their camaraderie, Scorsese also captured the Stones’ legendarily pumped up shows, concerts that absolutely belie their respective ages and electrify the fans. The final shots of Jagger, never playing to camera, never forgetting the audience in the balcony, are breathtaking and exhausting to behold.

“Performing to me is something you’re born with in some ways,” Jagger comments. “You can learn some of it – and you have to – but, ultimately, I think that performing urge is within you and the best shows are from people who just naturally take to it. I don’t know where the energy comes from, it’s just there.”

At the end of the shoot, Brigitte Lacombe, the production’s set photographer and a famous artist in her own right, pulled the staff together for a crew shot. The camera department’s picture stood out as particularly emblematic for Pearman. “Bob Richardson has this long flowing white hair, and all the camera department — I think there might have been a hundred people in the camera department, plus Marty — they all had these long white wigs on. It was an amazing photograph. That was wonderful fun. It was Halloween, the end of a great experience for everyone. And these photographers were obviously having a great time working together.”

Pearman sums up the impact of the shoot as a grand happy collaboration under unusual circumstances. In addition to the logistics of “all this equipment being unloaded into that tiny theater,” there was the special attention — and Secret Service details — paid to former President Clinton and his entourage. On the occasion of the president’s birthday, Clinton became the emcee for the show.

“It was the greatest rock band ever, the greatest director ever and the greatest president ever,” says Pearman. “Everybody in there was a rock star. Mick and Keith and the band – they are the rock stars, Marty is a complete rock star director, and Clinton is the political rock star. And the photographers were the all-star band of cinematographers. It was thrilling just to be there, to be a part of putting it together —beyond thrilling.”

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN … THE ROLLING STONES

It’s hard to overestimate the importance of the Rolling Stones in rock ‘n roll history. The group, which formed in London in 1962, distilled so much of the music that had come before it and has exerted a decisive influence on so much that has come after. Only a handful of musicians in any genre achieve that stature, and the Stones stand proudly among them.

Every album the group released through the early Seventies - from “The Rolling Stones” in 1964 to “Exile on Main Street” in 1972 – is essential not simply to an understanding of the music of that era, but to an understanding of the era itself. In their intense interest in blues and R&B, the Stones connected a young audience in the U.S. to music that was unknown to the vast majority of white Americans. Though the Stones were not overtly political in their early years, their obsession with African American music – from Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf to Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye and Don Covay - struck a chord that resonated with the goals of the civil rights movement. If the Stones had never made an album after 1965, they would still be legendary.

Soon, of course, the Stones - singer Mick Jagger, guitarists Keith Richards and Brian Jones, bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts, in those days - became synonymous with the rebellious attitude of that era. Songs like “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Street Fighting Man,” “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Gimme Shelter” captured the violence, frustration and chaos of that era. For the Stones, the ‘60s were not a time of peace and love; in many ways, the band found psychedelia and wide-eyed utopianism confusing and silly. The Stones always were - and continue to be - tough pragmatists. Against the endless promises of ‘60s idealism, the Stones understood that “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” You simply want to “Let It Be?” Why not “Let It Bleed?”

For those reasons, as the ‘60s drained into the ‘70s, the Stones went on a creative run that rivals any in popular music. “Beggars Banquet” (1968), “Let It Bleed” (1969), “Sticky Fingers” (1971) and “Exile on Main Street” (1972) routinely turn up on lists of the greatest albums of all time, and deservedly so. All done with American producer Jimmy Miller - “an incredible rhythm man,” in Richards’ terse description - those records shake like the culture itself was shaking. As the Stones were working on “Let It Bleed,” Brian Jones died, and the band replaced him with Mick Taylor, a guitarist whose lyricism and melodic flair counterbalanced Richards’ insistent, irreducible rhythmic drive, adding an element to the band’s sound that hadn’t been there before, and opening fertile new musical directions.

After that, the Stones were an indomitable force on the music scene, and they have continued to be to this day. In 1978, the band’s album “Some Girls” rose to the challenge of punk (”When the Whip Comes Down”) – whose energy and attitude the Stones had defined a decade earlier – but also swung with the sinuous grooves of disco (”Miss You”). The album is one of the best of that decade. Meanwhile, guitarist Ronnie Wood replaced Mick Taylor in 1975, adding another key element to the version of the Rolling Stones that would last another three decades – and counting.

“Tattoo You” (1981) added the classics “Start Me Up” and “Waiting on a Friend” to the Stones’ repertoire, and took its prominent place among the Stones’ most compelling – and most popular – later albums. Possibly the most underrated album of the Stones’ career, “Dirty Work” finds the band at its rawest and most rhythmically charged, a reflection of the tumult within the band when it was recorded. True Stones fans have long worn their appreciation of “Dirty Work” as a hip badge of honor.

With the release of “Steel Wheels” in 1989, the Stones went back on the road again for the first time in seven years and inaugurated the latest phase of the band’s illustrious career. They’ve made strong, credible new albums during this period – “Voodoo Lounge” (1994), “Bridges to Babylon” (1997) – along with the excellent live album “Stripped” (1995) and the fun, satisfying hits collection “Forty Licks” (2002). Now, “A Bigger Bang” (2005), the band’s first album of new material in the 21st Century, continues to tell the Stones’ gripping story with characteristic muscle and grit.

More significantly though, the Stones have set a standard for live performance during this time. That is an achievement completely in accord with the band’s history. When the Stones began to be introduced on their 1969 tour as “The Greatest Rock ‘n Roll Band in the World,” they were staking that claim on the basis of their live shows. It was almost fashionable for bands to withdraw from the road at that time – Bob Dylan and the Beatles had both done so. But the Stones set out to prove that writing brilliant songs and making powerful records did not mean that you were too lofty to get up in front of your fans and rock them until their bones rattled. The Stones’ live shows –epitomized, of course, by Jagger’s galvanizing erotic choreography – had earned the band its reputation in its earliest years, and that flame was being rekindled.

It was lit again 20 years later, and it’s burning still. Since 1989, the Stones have toured every few years to ecstatic response – and, firmly in that tradition, the current tour in support of “A Bigger Bang” has launched to rapturous reviews. Bassist Darryl Jones, who had formerly played with Miles Davis, joined the band in 1994, replacing Bill Wyman, and the Stones turned what could have been a setback into a rejuvenating rush of new energy. The Stones’ live success during this period is not a matter of dollars or box-office breakthroughs, though the band has enjoyed plenty of both. It’s about demonstrating a vital, ongoing commitment to the idea that performing is what keeps a band truly alive.

And that’s the critical misunderstanding of the question “Is this the last time?” that has come up every time the Stones have toured for close to forty years now. It’s true that over the decades the Stones have been in the news for many reasons that have little to do with music – arrests, provocative statements, divorces, affairs, all the usual detritus of a raucous lifetime in the public eye. And there’s no doubt that Mick Jagger is as famous a celebrity as the world has ever seen.

But, for all that, the Stones are best understood as musicians, and their own acceptance of that fact is what has enabled them to carry on so well for so long. For all the tabloid headlines, Jagger is finally an extraordinary lead singer and one of the most riveting performers ever to set foot on a stage in any genre. Richards is the propulsive engine that drives the Stones and makes their music instantly recognizable. Ronnie Wood is a guitarist who has formed a rhythmic brotherhood with Richards, but who also colors and textures the band’s songs with deft, melodic touches.

And Charlie Watts, needless to say, is one of rock’s greatest drummers. He is both the rock that anchors the band and the force that swings it. At once elegant and soaring in their simplicity, none of his gestures are wasted, and all are necessary. He and Darryl Jones enliven the often-monolithic notion of the rock ‘n roll rhythm section with an irresistible, unpretentious, jazz-derived sophistication.

Musicians live and create in the moment, and that’s why fans still go see the Stones. Certainly there’s also a catalogue of songs that only a handful of artists could rival. Surely there’s also the desire to encounter a band that has played a pristine role in defining our very idea of what rock ‘n roll is. But seeing the Rolling Stones live is to see a working band playing as hard as they can, and there’s no last time for that.

About the Filmmakers

Martin Scorsese (Director) was born in 1942 in New York City, and was raised in the downtown neighborhood of Little Italy, which later provided the inspiration for several of his films. Scorsese earned a BS degree in film communications in 1964, followed by an MA in the same field in 1966 at New York University’s School of Film. During this time, he made numerous prize-winning short films, including “The Big Shave.”

In 1968, Scorsese directed his first feature film, entitled “Who’s That Knocking at My Door?” He served as assistant director and an editor of the documentary “Woodstock” in 1970, and won critical and popular acclaim for his 1973 film “Mean Streets.” Scorsese directed his first documentary, “Italianamerican,” in 1974. In 1976, Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” was awarded the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. He followed with “New York, New York” in 1977, “The Last Waltz” in 1978 and “Raging Bull” in 1980, which received eight Academy Award® nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. Scorsese went on to direct “The Color of Money,” “The Last Temptation of Christ,” “Goodfellas,” “Cape Fear,” “Casino,” “Kundun” and “The Age of Innocence,” among other films. In 1996, Scorsese completed a four-hour documentary, “A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies,” co-directed by Michael Henry Wilson. The documentary was commissioned by the British Film Institute to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of cinema.

In 2001, Scorsese released “Il Mio Viaggio in Italia,” an epic documentary that affectionately chronicles his love for Italian cinema. His long-cherished project “Gangs of New York” was released in 2002, earning numerous critical honors including a Golden Globe Award for Best Director. In 2003, PBS broadcast the seven-film documentary series “Martin Scorsese Presents: The Blues.”

“The Aviator” was released in December of 2004 and earned five Academy Awards® in addition to the Golden Globe and BAFTA awards for Best Picture. In 2005, “No Direction Home: Bob Dylan” was broadcast as part of the “American Masters” series on PBS and released on DVD worldwide by Paramount Home Entertainment.

Scorsese’s most recent feature, “The Departed,” was released to critical acclaim in October 2006 and has been honored with the Director’s Guild of America, Golden Globe, New York Film Critics, National Board of Review and Critic’s Choice Awards for Best Director, in addition to four Academy Awards®, including Best Picture and Best Director.

Scorsese will next direct the thriller “Shutter Island” for Paramount Pictures.

Scorsese’s additional awards and honors include the Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival (1995), the AFI Life Achievement Award (1997), the Honoree at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s 25th Gala Tribute (1998), and the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award (2003). Scorsese is the founder and chair of The Film Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and protection of motion picture history.

Victoria Pearman (Producer) formed Jagged Films with Mick Jagger, and, as president of the company, has produced the feature film “Enigma,” which had a Royal premiere in the presence of Prince Charles; the ABC/Channel 4 documentary “Being Mick”; and the Rolling Stones documentary “Tip of the Tongue.” She also produced a documentary for A&E with a behind-the-scenes look at President Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative Conference.

Pearman and Jagger are also producing a remake of “The Women,” starring Annette Bening, Meg Ryan, Eva Mendes, Bette Midler and Candice Bergen; and “Ruby Tuesday,” an animated feature film in partnership with Luc Besson’s Europacorp.

Pearman is also overseeing the development of Jagged Films’ original slate of projects. These include a second project with Martin Scorsese, “The Long Play,” which Scorsese is also set to direct at Paramount with Terrence Winter writing; an adaptation of award-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel When We Were Orphans; a documentary on Paul Watson’s Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, “Sea”; a movie about Margot Fonteyn and Rudolph Nureyev; a dark comedy about roadies and rock stars called “Swap”; and a film about the murkier side of corporate journalism.

Prior to forming Jagged Films, Pearman was executive production supervisor at Warner Bros.-based New Regency Films, where she supervised movies including “Sommersby,” “The New Age,” “The Client,” “Falling Down,” “Six Degrees of Separation,” “Natural Born Killers,” “Heaven and Earth,” “Second Best,” “Boys on the Side,” “Copycat,” “Free WIlly” and “Free Willy 2.”

While senior vice president of production at Island Alive Films, the first of the truly independent film companies, Pearman produced “The Whales of August,” with Bette Davis and Lillian Gish, and was production supervisor and casting director on Alan Rudolph’s films “The Moderns” and “Trouble in Mind.” At Island Alive, she also worked on production of “Marlene,” Maximilian Schell’s documentary about Marlene Dietrich, “Stop Making Sense,” “Koyaanisqatsi,” “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” “The Trip to Bountiful” and “Choose Me.”

A native of Swansea, Wales, Pearman began her career at Universal Pictures in London.

Michael Cohl (Producer) is responsible for four of the five top-grossing concert tours of all time and is the world’s pre-eminent tour promoter and retail marketer. Four years after launching his career as a local concert promoter in 1969, Cohl founded Concert Productions International and quickly became a driving force on the Canadian music scene, promoting Canada as a viable stop for musical and theatrical tours of all sizes, and gaining expertise in almost all facets of entertainment – music, theatre, sports and multi-media.

A prolific producer and innovator of film and television programming, many global concerts as well as tour and branded merchandise for over 150 artists, Cohl’s current and past clients include the Rolling Stones, U2, Pink Floyd, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, Prince and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. With a hands-on approach, Cohl has created or produced a range of events, including several years of ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” Professional Figure Skating Championships, The Jacksons’ 1984 “Victory” tour featuring Michael Jackson, IMAX’s most successful concert film, Rolling Stones “Live at the Max” and the world’s highest-selling music DVD in history, “Rolling Stones Four Flicks.”

In 1989, Cohl developed the concept of “package” touring with the Stones’ “Steel Wheels” tour, also assisting in the development of the lucrative aftermarket – books, TV specials, videos, films and merchandise. Concurrent to concert touring, Cohl was involved with several theatrical events, including the Toronto productions of “The Lion King,” “Hairspray” and “The Producers,” and Broadway’s “La Cage aux Folles.” His first foray onto Broadway as a co-producer occurred in 2004 with A.R. Rahman’s “Bombay Dreams,” based on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s enormously successful London production. Cohl’s recent theatrical portfolio includes the West End’s “The Woman in White,” “Spamalot” (which won three Tony Awards) and the stage production of “Lord of the Rings.”

At the 2003 conclusion of the Stones’ “40 Licks” tour, Cohl launched his Canadian-based music DVD label and its first title, “Rolling Stones Four Flicks,” collected multiple artistic and sales awards. Cohl released the “Toronto Rocks” DVD, which documented highlights of its namesake benefit concert that he organized in the summer of 2003 to boost tourism and national pride. The event drew over 490,000 people and is now regarded as the model for shows of its kind. Proceeds from the sale of the DVD have been donated to various charities and, to date, in excess of $1 million has been raised. Also in 2004, he produced the documentary “Isn’t This a Time!,” featuring The Weavers, Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie. Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film received broad critical and audience praise. Cohl has also produced documentaries on music legends Pete Seeger and Harry Belafonte.

In summer 2005, with the start of a new Rolling Stones tour imminent, Cohl answered Bob Geldof’s call and brought Canada onboard as a participant in the LIVE 8 global series of simultaneous daylong concerts. With less than three weeks to prepare, Cohl delivered a world-class event with performances by 21 acts, including Neil Young, Bryan Adams and Gordon Lightfoot. In total, over 1,000 musicians performed on 10 international stages and were broadcast on 182 television networks and 2,000 radio stations. Following the LIVE 8 concerts, G8 leaders pledged to increase aid to Africa by US$25 billion by the year 2010.

That year also marked the Rolling Stones’ much anticipated return to the concert stage. Promoted by Cohl, the Stones’ “A Bigger Bang” world tour offered fans the opportunity to see the show from onstage boxes built directly into the stadium stage set. “A Bigger Bang” has become the highest-grossing tour in history, drew an audience of 3.5 million ticketed customers and included a historic free show at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro which was seen by an estimated two million fans.

Cohl has received the Number One Promoter of the Year Award several times from various trade publications and industry associations. In 2002, he received the Juno’s Walt Grealis Special Achievement award, presented to Canadian music industry builders; the same year, he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. In November 2004, he was the first recipient of Billboard magazine’s Backstage Pass Legend of Live Award, given to an individual who has significantly impacted the touring industry in a lasting way. On June 5, 2005, Cohl received a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame and, on the same day, his first Tony Award as a co-producer of the year’s Best Musical, Monty Python’s “Spamalot.”

The year 2006 was an historic one for Cohl: in addition to the Rolling Stones tour, he also produced tours for The Who and Barbra Streisand. Streisand went on to set house gross records in 14 of the 16 arenas she played during her tour, while The Who played to sold-out venues throughout North America. The Who are set to embark on an extended world tour where they will play South America and Europe.

Zane Weiner (Producer) has overseen productions for Shangri-La Entertainment which include “The Polar Express,” “The Big Bounce,” “Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World,” “For Your Consideration” and “Beowulf.” Prior to joining Shangri-La Entertainment, he served as unit production manager on many films, including Curtis Hanson’s “Wonder Boys” and “8 Mile,” and Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

Weiner makes his home in Pennsylvania with his wife, director and choreographer Niki Harris.

Jane Rose (Co-Executive Producer) has been Keith Richards’ manager since 1985, and has worked with The Rolling Stones in various capacities since 1975. The most recent development in her handling of Richards’ solo career was to negotiate a deal with the publishers Little, Brown & Company in the U.S. and Weidenfield & Nicholson in the UK for the publication of his autobiography in the fall of 2010. The book will be co-authored with James Fox, author of White Mischief and Richards’ friend of 30 years.

She was executive producer of the DVD “Keith Richards and the X-Pensive Winos: Live at the Hollywood Palladium,” a limited-edition release that accompanied his solo album, “Keith Richards & the Expensive Winos.”

Rose served as associate producer on “Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll,” the Taylor Hackford-directed concert film in which Richards appeared with Chuck Berry, Eric Clapton, Robert Cray and Etta James in Berry’s hometown of St. Louis.

Robert Richardson, ASC (Director of Photography)
Key Awards
• Oscars®:
Two wins: “The Aviator” (2004), “JFK” (1991)
Three nominations: “Snow Falling on Cedars” (1999), “Born on the Fourth of July” (1989), “Platoon” (1986)
• The American Society of Cinematographers Awards:
Eight nominations: “The Good Shepherd” (2006), “The Aviator” (2004), “Snow Falling on Cedars” (1999), “The Horse Whisperer” (1998), “Heaven & Earth” (1993), “A Few Good Men” (1992), “JFK” (1991), “Born on the Fourth of July” (1989)
• BAFTA Awards:
Two nominations: “The Aviator” (2004), “Platoon” (1986)
Other Credits include: “Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and 2,” “Bringing Out the Dead,” “Wag the Dog,” “U-Turn,” “Nixon,” “Casino,” “Natural Born Killers,” “The Doors,” “Repo Man.”

David Tedeschi (Editor) has worked with Martin Scorsese on two previous occasions, most prominently the Peabody Award-winning documentary “No Direction Home: Bob Dylan,” chronicling the life of the legendary folk and rock singer, as well as “Feel Like Going Home,” part of “The Blues” documentary film series.

Tedeschi has also continued his long collaboration with director Leon Ichaso on “El Cantante,” starring Jennifer Lopez and Mark Anthony, having previously edited Ichaso’s biopic “Piñero,” starring Benjamin Bratt as the iconic poet/actor/playwright Miguel Piñero.

Among Tedeschi’s television credits are “The Shield,” “American High,” “The Osbournes” and “TV Nation.”

Bob Clearmountain (Sound Mixer) is a producer, engineer and mixer who is among the most acclaimed studio kingpins in all of contemporary pop. Influenced by his guitar-playing older brother, he began playing bass as a teen. Fascinated by recording technology from a young age, he also toyed with electronics. While in high school, Clearmountain and his band soon cut a demo at the New York City studio Media Sound, and when the group disbanded a short time later, he returned to the studio in the hopes of landing a job. Initially hired as a delivery boy, he was serving within months as an assistant engineer on a session for Duke Ellington. Working steadily as an engineer throughout the 1970s, he was well known by the end of the decade in disco circles for his sophisticated work on hit albums by the likes of Chic and Sister Sledge. Conversely, he also produced material for new wave acts such as the Rezillos and the Tuff Darts.

As the 1980s dawned, Clearmountain not only produced up-and-comers like Bryan Adams and the Church, but also engineered records for superstars like David Bowie and Roxy Music. His breakthrough year was 1984, when he produced Adams’ smash “Reckless” and Hall & Oates’ “Big Bam Boom,” as well as mixing Bruce Springsteen’s landmark recording “Born in the U.S.A.” Often working in tandem with co-producer Jimmy Iovine, Clearmountain moved on to hits from INXS (“Kick”), Simple Minds (“Once Upon a Time”) and the Pretenders (“Get Close”). During the 1990s, he also developed SessionTools, a networkable studio management database application designed to aid in all facets of the day-to-day operations of modern recording or mixing facilities. A series of CD-ROM collections of sampled bass, drum and percussion sounds were also released under his name.

Of course, we can’t leave out the Rolling Stones. His mixing credits include such albums as “Voodoo Lounge,” “Bridges to Babylon” and “Forty Licks,” among others.

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