DVD Review: Shine a Light
Scorsese and the Stones make for a great feature
Shine a Light is one of the best rock documentaries I've ever seen. Topping it off, I'm not even that big a fan of The Rolling Stones. Yet what director Martin Scorsese has done here is truly phenomenal, and by the time the disc was over I couldn't wait to get back right to the main menu and start it all over again for a second viewing. It's that good.
If anything, the fact I liked this movie so much makes me wish all the more I hadn't skipped out on that press screening of the feature over at the IMAX right before its initial theatrical run. I imagine this would have looked and sounded extraordinary in that format, the Oscar-winning filmmaker teaming up with cinematographer Ralph Richardson to deploy a team of nine other Academy Award-winning or nominated cameramen to craft a concert film like no other ever attempted.
What they're doing is capturing the Stones' 2006 performance at New York's Beacon Theatre, a shockingly intimate venue for a band used to playing in front of, at times, hundreds of thousands. The result is a picture of surprising immediacy and richly satisfying closeness, the band almost seeming to shrink from their larger-than-life status to become something intimately human and accessible.
It must be admitted, a lot of this is pretty much the same tact Scorsese used the last time he made a concert film, the 1978 classic The Last Waltz. But so what? If this is the result of what happens when he repeats himself maybe he should do it more often. I have an increased respect for Mick Jagger and company, more so than I did prior to watching this picture, both the Stones' music and their collective personas still washing over me a little bit some 24 hours or so removed from watching the motion picture.
Paramount offers very little in the way of special features on their DVD release of the film. There is an extremely brief and forgettable behind-the-scenes featurette and then four bonus performances. The best of which, "Paint It Black," should have been in the movie if you ask me, but Scorsese edited it out for time. Thankfully the disc both looks and sounds terrific, and while not quite up to Blu-ray standards it comes just close enough. I wasn't remotely regretting the fact the standard edition was what was handed to me for review.
As for my own highlights from the documentary itself, with so many to choose from I almost don't even know where to begin. Christina Aguilera does a killer guest spot with Mick on the forcefully sexy "Live With Me," while Blues legend Buddy Guy outdoes the Stones putting them in a state of shock on their very own "Champagne & Reefer." But it is Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie who are the stars of the show, and trying to pick a highlight from the multitude they unleash upon both the audience in the theater and us sitting at home is a Sophie's Choice almost impossible to ponder. Needless to say, this is one DVD that seriously rocks.
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