The article in today's Sunday Times (UK) says it is the greatest rock'n'roll film 'you'll never see'. It throws down the gauntlet for the film to be released.

[entertainment.timesonline.co.uk]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-06-06 10:32 by Silver Dagger.

Thx! Great article!
Now you understand why there's an exc. "sanitized" version on top of the raw gory one...

Thanks for posting this, Dagger. Great piece. I was one of the lucky few who saw it at the Tate Modern in 2004. Cracking film.

We know the stones took drugs and had sex... but do we need to actually see all that? The Stones aren't the only ones who did things that are better not shown on video. Amy Whinehouse is among one of them

Wanna see this?

Frank casually shows people shooting up heroin, including a beautiful young groupie in a hotel room choking off her veins and plunging a needle into her arm as Richards watches. He shows Jagger snorting a large mound of cocaine off a switchblade; Jagger filming himself in a mirror, with his hands down his tight pants, starting to masturbate; a groupie lying on a bed, her legs spread, rubbing semen into herself; Keith rolling up a dollar bill to snort coke. And, in the most disturbing scene, two groupies being jostled by roadies on a plane, then having oral sex performed on them as Jagger and Richards look on, nonchalantly banging tambourines.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-06-06 12:04 by Harm.

It's amazing and mighty funny that Frank cared so little for the band's music that he wold send other ppl to film them live...
Imho he probably thought rock was pretty dumb overall...

the scene with roadies even QUITE made its way to brilliant Four Flicks documentary. such a shame I've lost this DVD... -_-
gonna buy again sometime soon.

I saw this film, awful quality pirate copy. It seemed to me a picture what could be rock and roll without making music (which is clearly separated in the film )... maybe yes, people who just hanged on saw and participated exactly this (and really suffered, got hurt of this more than main personages)- stream of dangerous but, as a result of continuity (and colour of film)- sad, dull scenes. Is is like picture of a life of any artist without art - may be dull, may be even revolting, but senseless - because it`s only little and worse part, the real plot is at work in other place, in his head and then in his art (and we feel this in the film, if I remember correctly).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-06-06 12:47 by kater-v.

was tea really synonymous with grass?
wasn't "Doctor Robert" about acid?

not that it matters anything...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-06-06 12:57 by Amused.

The film served to enhance the Rolling Stones' rebel image and I guess it was only allowed to be made because the Stones themselves didn't give a shit as they were so out of their heads and caught up in the whole debauched, narcissistic rock'n'roll lifestyle.
The fact that it is still shocking today - nearly 40 years after it was made - shows just how tame rock'n'roll has become.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-06-06 21:52 by Silver Dagger.

No matter what Wyman says it's a masterpiece... an ugly masterpiece!
And Frank probably thought "why bother waste film stock on some boring old fart who doesn't even move onstage".
Wyman claims he loves photo and over a whole he couldn't find a minute to chat with one of the greatest photographers of the XXth century?

Bill, you make an @ss of yourself... or you don't like people more talented than you?

I don't know, I thought it was a bit boring. If they ever release it on DVD I hope they improve it by adding more live footage.

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Lynd8
I don't know, I thought it was a bit boring. If they ever release it on DVD I hope they improve it by adding more live footage.

Maybe just adding some footage of Bill Wyman?

[www.iorr.org]

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Harm
We know the stones took drugs and had sex... but do we need to actually see all that? The Stones aren't the only ones who did things that are better not shown on video. Amy Whinehouse is among one of them

Wanna see this?

Frank casually shows people shooting up heroin, including a beautiful young groupie in a hotel room choking off her veins and plunging a needle into her arm as Richards watches. He shows Jagger snorting a large mound of cocaine off a switchblade; Jagger filming himself in a mirror, with his hands down his tight pants, starting to masturbate; a groupie lying on a bed, her legs spread, rubbing semen into herself; Keith rolling up a dollar bill to snort coke. And, in the most disturbing scene, two groupies being jostled by roadies on a plane, then having oral sex performed on them as Jagger and Richards look on, nonchalantly banging tambourines.

The promotion of drug use and sexual abuse are just two reasons this film would be cut to pieces if it was ever positioned for an official release. It's nothing more than a curio for a few. They'd be better off editing the live clips onto another DVD and ditching the rest.

One of the most overrated rock movies of all time. Amazingly boring and tiresome.

I was at that 1980 screening (at the Fox Venice Theatre) mentioned in the article where someone set off a stink bomb and the whole place had to be cleared.


I always thought the film was overrated. But, as in the oft-quoted line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

It exists - i.e it's been made, therefore why should it be censored...censorship is basically someone watching it who thinks they are better placed to decide whether you or i should see it. I prefer to have the choice and just warned of the contents - that way it is mine and only my decision whether i watch something. I'm an adult why the @#$%& should someone else watcgh it and then decide that I can't.

As it happens, I've seen CS Blues several times nasty bits an all...big deal...a few shots of a groupie getting stimulated orally, Keith getting injected, etc etc etc....oh and re the bit about the groupie rubbing semen into her vagina - you see that on everyday porn films and worse. Double standards...puritanical, petty morality...and I thought we had moved on in the 20th/21st century. Get over yourselves

Interesting article. But the CS Blues I have on bootleg dvd isn't quite as filthy as in the description from the article:
"Frank casually shows people shooting up heroin, including a beautiful young groupie in a hotel room choking off her veins and plunging a needle into her arm as Richards watches. He shows Jagger snorting a large mound of cocaine off a switchblade; Jagger filming himself in a mirror, with his hands down his tight pants, starting to masturbate; a groupie lying on a bed, her legs spread, rubbing semen into herself;"

I wonder if those parts were edited out in 1977 as told in the article.
In the movie I've seen, you see Mick and Keith with the coke and the dollar bill, but no snorting off a switchblade. There's this naked groupie who talks with Mick T, but she ain't rubbing no semen as far as I remember.

Anyone seen the original movie?

Nice reads,thanks.

I don't remember the story of the groupie plunging a needle in her arm while Keith looks at her .I remember how much Taylor looked embarassed when he comes in the room & see the naked girl on the bed .And of course I do remember Jagger filming himself in a mirror.
It might depend on the bootleg version .



I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .

All those things exist on certain copies....the one in circulation in the uK at the moment doesn't have some of those situations on it...don't know why?

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crumbling_mice
It exists - i.e it's been made, therefore why should it be censored...censorship is basically someone watching it who thinks they are better placed to decide whether you or i should see it. I prefer to have the choice and just warned of the contents - that way it is mine and only my decision whether i watch something. I'm an adult why the @#$%& should someone else watcgh it and then decide that I can't.

As it happens, I've seen CS Blues several times nasty bits an all...big deal...a few shots of a groupie getting stimulated orally, Keith getting injected, etc etc etc....oh and re the bit about the groupie rubbing semen into her vagina - you see that on everyday porn films and worse. Double standards...puritanical, petty morality...and I thought we had moved on in the 20th/21st century. Get over yourselves

Well there's no danger it will ever be released so don't worry about it getting cut. I don't agree with censorship but here in the UK, I could not see this kind of film getting an uncut release. And PS, there are plenty of examples out there of films other people have decided you can't watch so get over that!

I am not sure how I would have reacted to the film if I had seen it back in the day. But I first saw it long after that time and it vaguely gave me the creeps. Taylor once said he got along with the band members, but it was the scene around the band that he couldn't handle. This film gives you more than a glimpse of that scene. Only when the music is being played does that life look glamorous. Isn't there a scene where Jagger and Taylor (they are often together in the footage of the time) are driving around in the middle of no where and Jagger expresses relief in getting away from everyone? Who thought making this film was a good idea? It's a project that backfired and only exposed the band's arrogance.

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Harm
We know the stones took drugs and had sex... but do we need to actually see all that? The Stones aren't the only ones who did things that are better not shown on video. Amy Whinehouse is among one of them

Wanna see this?

Frank casually shows people shooting up heroin, including a beautiful young groupie in a hotel room choking off her veins and plunging a needle into her arm as Richards watches. He shows Jagger snorting a large mound of cocaine off a switchblade; Jagger filming himself in a mirror, with his hands down his tight pants, starting to masturbate; a groupie lying on a bed, her legs spread, rubbing semen into herself; Keith rolling up a dollar bill to snort coke. And, in the most disturbing scene, two groupies being jostled by roadies on a plane, then having oral sex performed on them as Jagger and Richards look on, nonchalantly banging tambourines.

Harm...have you seen the film? and were those scenes in it? I own CS Blues and none of those scenes is in the film, not even the Mick scene.

Does anyone know how many versions exist?

I also found it excruciatingly boring but there are enough interesting and endearing tidbits to make worthwhile to see. It's also painful and tawdry/sad, to me.

- swiss

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swiss
Does anyone know how many versions exist?

I also found it excruciatingly boring but there are enough interesting and endearing tidbits to make worthwhile to see. It's also painful and tawdry/sad, to me.

- swiss

Yes,I've always find the movie very boring as well ,and it's the Stones movie that I've been watching the less often .Plus the pathetic footages with the girls slumped on the beds made me feel uncomfortable .Poor them !

The noticeable interest of the movie is the "inside" look of the band -although I am not sure they acted natural knowing that someone was filming them .

The part of the movie when Keith is backstage-drunk or stoned or both - holding his head into his hands is may be the most touching & sad part .

[www.cleveland.com]

Jet-Lagged Stones on Bootlegged Documentary
By Michael Heaton, The Plain Dealer
May 13, 2010, 2:29PM
I still love and hate the Rolling Stones. They have always had a difficult relationship with their fans (Altamont anyone?) and the press. But on Tuesday, the band is releasing a newly remastered version of its 1972 double album "Exile on Main Street," including a bunch of previously unreleased songs.

My new favorite radio station, WNWV FM/107.3, has been playing "Plundered My Soul" the first previously unreleased song from the new "Exile" package, and it has that raggedy, Southern-fried, junkie-eyed sound that became the signature rebel yell for the "greatest rock and roll band in the world."


The film was never released because the Stones felt that if the American government ever got a whiff of what their life on the road was like, they would never be allowed back in the United States. The Stones fought Frank in court and won a legal ruling ordering that the movie could only be shown if the director were present.

I watched it Saturday night on a computer. I was agog. If "Exile" is the greatest rock album ever made, as so many people claim, then this is the greatest rock film of all time.

Frank's movie is 95 minutes of brilliant cinematic impressionism. Images, phrases and pieces of music repeat and overlap as they form an unraveling narrative. It was initially hailed for its unblinking eye on the sex, drugs and rock and roll on the tour. And that stuff is there. But there is so much more to it.

Beyond Keith and heroin (his drug of choice) and Mick and Bianca (his drug of choice) you see these guys at the peak of their creative power, turning the impressive trick of enjoying success while making it work for them.

Television interviewer Dick Cavett presses Bill Wyman for drug gossip, and celebrities Truman Capote and Andy Warhol fawn backstage while taking photos. Tina Turner and Stevie Wonder open for the band, lending the Stones soul-roots credibility. Keith Richards nods off on a backstage bench, and the tone of the whole tour turns toward respectability when a bored-looking, but fabulously dressed, Bianca Jagger joins her husband for a leg.

Frank left spare cameras around so that anyone from a roadie to Mick Jagger could pick one up at any time and start filming. It's a detailed and amazingly intimate portrait of one of the most secretive and closed cultures on the planet.

In the end, more normalcy than depravity is exposed. That's probably what the band objected to most. They were captured as humans, rather than legends being themselves backstage, on airplanes and in hotel rooms.

It's a movie I never thought I'd get to see. And due to the Stone's lifelong, impossibly fussy, rock-royalty attitude toward their fans, the film was a huge pain in the butt to find and even harder (technologically) to watch.

But as always with the Rolling Stones, totally worth it.



I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .

>> Jagger filming himself in a mirror, with his hands down his tight pants, starting to masturbate <<
>> two groupies ... having oral sex performed on them as Jagger and Richards look on, nonchalantly banging tambourines <<

always wondered how anyone knows that's Jagger with his hand in his pants,
and what (if anything) the Glimmers with tambourines were really looking at.
ahh the wonders of film editing ...

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with sssoul
.
always wondered how anyone knows that's Jagger with his hand in his pants,

The ring is the same as he used to wear ,I am mistaken ?



I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .

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SwayStones

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with sssoul
.
always wondered how anyone knows that's Jagger with his hand in his pants,

The ring is the same as he used to wear ,I am mistaken ?

The watch, as well. I remember it as pretty obvious.
But (as I wrote in my previous post) there are a few things mentioned (particularly that one about Keith watching the heroin chick and Mick with the switchblade) that I don't recognize, and I wonder if there's a more complete version out there. (I have 4Reel's "Big" CS Blues, as well as another pretty clean but otherwise identical version).

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with sssoul
>> Jagger filming himself in a mirror, with his hands down his tight pants, starting to masturbate <<
>> two groupies ... having oral sex performed on them as Jagger and Richards look on, nonchalantly banging tambourines <<

always wondered how anyone knows that's Jagger with his hand in his pants,

That's the great debate!! (You might have to be British to get that one, British schoolboy humour!!)

I have seen the bootlegged DVD once, but share all your opinions that it is hardly worth
the effort to sit through it. Of the "sex, drugs and rock 'n roll" combination, I think
only the rock 'n roll part has some entertainment value on a screen. And there is too little
rock 'n roll in this movie to entertain me.

I don't care what they do with this movie. Play it in theatre, publish it on DVD or Blue Ray,
stream it on the internet, who cares? I am not gonna watch it again.