Shine a Light [Blu-ray]

Product Description

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Martin Scorsese and the world s greatest rock n roll band The Rolling Stones unite to bring audiences the year s most extraordinary film event Shine A Light. With special appearances by Christina Aguilera Jack White and Buddy Guy and four Rolling Stones performances not seen in theaters Shine A Light is a must-own for rock n roll fans across generations.System Requirements:Running Time: 121 minutesFormat: BLU-RAY DISC Genre: MUSIC DVD/LIVE PERFORMANCES Rating: PG-13 UPC: 097361385945

Product Details

• Brand: SHINE A LIGHT (BLURAY) (BLU-RAY DISC)
• Released on: 2008-07-29
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 121 minutes

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Martin Scorsese leaps into the madness of the Rolling Stones' organization in Shine a Light, barely controlling (in a most entertaining way) a documentary that culminates in the Stones' best concert on film. The movie's highly entertaining, pre-performance prologue finds a frazzled Scorsese trying to get a clue about the band's plans for a very special New York City date in 2006, a benefit hosted by Bill and Hillary Clinton. While Mick Jagger quibbles over concepts for the stage's set and peruses lists of possible songs to include in the show, Scorsese tries to figure out how to shoot something for which he has few production details. Everything falls into place eventually, and after an extraordinary meet-and-greet scene in which Jagger, Keith Richards, Ron Wood, and Charlie Watts catch up with the Clintons and sweetly introduce themselves to Hillary's mom, the Stones launch into a set that leans less heavily than usual on their greatest hits canon. Longtime fans are sure to appreciate the wealth of generally-untapped material from Let It Bleed ("You Got the Silver," "Live With Me"), Exile On Main Street ("All Down the Line," "Loving Cup"), and Some Girls ("Faraway Eyes," "Just My Imagination"). Jack White, Christina Aguilera, and Buddy Guy are on hand for memorable collaborations, but the Stones all alone are truly on fire in the relatively intimate setting of a small theater. Among the highlights is a sexy and even thrilling call-and-response between Jagger and ace backup singer Lisa Fischer on "She Was Hot," Richards' gracious and expansive solo on "Connection," and Jagger's witty take on "Some Girls" (which manages to skip over the controversial verse about "black girls"). Throughout the show, Scorsese and an army of camera operators cover the action from every conceivable angle, which results not so much in another hyperkinetic concert film but rather in the kind of graceful, flattering portrayal of a great band that the director mastered with The Last Waltz. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

You Might Be Dissapointed
I love the Stones and have since before I first saw them in concert (day 2 at Anaheim Stadium in the late '70's during the Some Girls tour). Although I look forward to each album...even the many many many lives ones, and concert performances, I was expecting more from the Scorsese film.
Let me say first...the Stones are great - they do their thing, they perform good (Jagger's voice is a bit strained, but not horribly so), and they look great.
Now the problem. If there were not so many live performance dvd/cds out there this would be great, instead it comes out like just another. What muddles this is the expectation that comes from this being a Scorsese film. Those of us who remember/love The Last Waltz, realize what a special film that was...beyond just a concert, it got into the heart of a band, and was a snapshot of the period, as well as a celebration. Shine a Light though is none of this...mostly concert film, enough hodge podge back stage stuff to call it a documentary, it just sits there. Again, its strongest point is the concert, and this would have been stronger if not "just another one from the Stones."
Well worth a renting...glad I did.

THE RAVAGES OF ACCOMPLISHMENT
Just a quick note of hearty agreement with Simon Collier's review ("Nothing Wrong with Nostalgia," 3 Aug 2008).

However, I'd also point out that to the extent that the Rolling Stones can finally and firmly place their music in the rock tradition inspired by the great Delta, Chicago, and Electric Bluesmen, as they do by including Buddy Guy in this concert, for example, they can perform indefinitely without regard to their age. Certainly, their work has had a basis in the Blues greats (Robert Johnson and Mississippi Fred McDowell, among others) from the very beginning with excursions into everything from psychedelia to reggae. But it's especially important for them to reinforce the Blues connection at this late point--nothing short of their final musical legacy is at issue. There's no such thing as a 60 year-old pop star, at least not without snickering in the aisles, but many of the old Bluesmen played marvelously at well past that age, in some cases dying while still musically active or quitting only when health substantially intervened. Among others, I'm thinking of Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Mississippi John Hurt, McDowell, Son House, R.L. Burnside, and Willie Dixon, all of whom worked to the very end without appearing remarkably well-preserved. It's an almost ageless musical form, since you can't "retire" from something that's a part of your soul, as it was for these musicians, and as it seems to be for the Stones. Indeed, this music wears especially well with the performers' age when the material deals with hard times, as so much of it does, of course. Watts, Richards, and Wood playing "You've Got the Silver" certainly fit in this category for me, for example.

For the Stones to take a place as rock descendants of the Blues greats, it's important that artists like Guy, the "reigning king of Chicago Blues" and a significant Blues stylist in his own right, take their work seriously. This can't be in doubt, judging from the sheer joy that's apparent when he jams with them on Waters' "Champagne and Reefer." For me this cut is the high-point of the show, since the Stones' claim on true musical longevity, as opposed to mere celebrity, proceeds from the admiration of Guy and his musical cohort, as well as from their relation to Waters and the beginnings of Electric Blues in Chicago, and thence ultimately to Johnson and the foundations of the music in the Mississippi Delta. Fantastic though it might have been for insolent interviewers of those smooth-faced boys in the '60s to contemplate, at some point in their journey, the Rolling Stones finally did make the transition from rock stars to musicians of considerable talent--not at all necessarily the same thing--as any serious look at their body of work suggests. It can be easy to underestimate the level of that talent, given its sometimes outrageous packaging, but it is a foolish error to do so. Richards, in particular, has always made the difficult look all-too-easy. (I love his acoustic interpretation of Grieg in the bonus footage.) Wood likewise does so with, if anything, greater elegance and understatement. It's only fairly recently that I've been able to get beyond being distracted by their details to appreciate Wood and especially Richards as musicians, and in that sense the passage of time has been unambiguously to the good.

The Rolling Stones define the very concept of superb concert rock. "Shine a Light" is what all those other bands would try to do, if only they had the Stones' talent, compositions, and energy to draw upon, and, of course, if they could get a Scorsese to give them so much as a glance. Another thing that becomes abundantly clear from the film is the staggering professionalism of the band, but especially of Jagger, in putting together a concert. Details are planned with a level of care that might go into a military operation, and great thought is given to audience perceptions and to what they might find most appealing. At a stage in their career when indifference would be understandable, if not excusable, the Stones work mightily, both offstage and on, to put on a great show.

Thanks to the wonders of technology, I was able to review over the last weekend all of the Stones' live recordings both "vertically" (i.e., chronologically by concert date) and "horizontally" (i.e., grouped by song) I can now say that to my mind this is the Stones' best performance by a wide margin, based on its coherence, consistency, and maturity. It easily merits five stars; six would not be unreasonable. There are neither duds nor fillers here. Every cut shows complex and sophisticated musical evolution, and the price of that successful evolution is gray hair on performers, literally and otherwise, which can therefore be acknowledged without apology.

If my comments seem a bit clinical, I'll close by noting that I can't watch more than a few minutes of the DVD without my face hurting afterwards from smiling. The show is that magnificent and, what's most important, great fun for both band and audience, as Collier so rightly notes.

Like vintage wine!
They are getting older and they are still perform like they are kids! Another gem!

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