"May the good Lord-

-Shine A Light on you"

UPDATE: Looky what dropped on youtube a few days ago.



Being a HUGE fan of Martin Scorsese and The Rolling Stones it's an understatement to say I'm over the muthafuckin moon about their new documentary, Shine A Light. The film will document a concert the Stones put on at the Beacon last year. Scorsese assembled some of the best DP's working in the movie business today to shoot it. Looky here. He also documented the lead up to the concert including preparations. Scorsese has already made the single greatest concert film ever - The Last Waltz, and the Stones are the greatest rock 'n roll band ever so this destined to be nothing less than beautiful and brilliant. Yes I love The Beatles too, but the Stones exemplify everything good, great, wonderful, decadent and perfectly imperfect about rock 'n roll. They've also been around longer and their longevity means a lot to me in terms of their status of greatest rock 'n roll band ever.
Had John Lennon not been killed it might be a different story but this argument is for another post. A brief but somewhat insightful article was recently done with Scorsese about the film. He's a longtime, die hard fan of the Stones and his use of their music in his films are nothing if not inspiring and ingenious. He was also one of the early adopters of using current pop/rock music in films. See Mean Streets.(and if you do take notice of Robert De Niro's attire in the film. Sylvester Stallone clearly ripped it off for Rocky 2 years later. But I digress, as usual)

Of note, The Last Waltz is a great film documenting The Band's last performance. Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, a very young Neil Young and many more grace the stage. The way he shot this film set the stage for the way every concert was shot since. Although I doubt anyone has ever approached it the way Scorsese did. He contacted each band, found out which songs they were going to perform and then he made a shot list on a music sheet- each lighting and camera angle motivated by the lyrics and music within the song. Yes he did. There's evidence too. Pick up the DVD. You'll be dancing in your living room.

Shine A Light was supposed to come out this fall, but recently it was pushed to the fall as Scorsese is still editing and mixing. I'm disappointed only because I'm anxious and you should be too!