As I await the opening of SAL anxiously, I am wondering whose film is it - Marty Scorcese's or Mick Jaggers?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-02-20 05:48 by chelskeith.

>> I was surprised to hear Mick say it was his idea to invite Scorsese to film them, not the other way around.<<

is that what he's said? i thought he's said his idea was that he should film the Rio de Janeiro show,
as in "since you've been saying you want to do a Stones film" ... but then, with all these interviews
all of them have no doubt said a lot of things.

>> I also, like Keith, agree that in a way, it is more about the lead singer than the band.<<

what is? (sorry, not trying to be funny: i don't understand what the "it" is in that sentence.)
the film is, but since you haven't seen it yet i'm guessing that's not what you mean.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-03-31 17:53 by with sssoul.

have to see before judge of course
then, i think that ladies and gentleman could be seen as well as a movie about mick jagger and the rolling stones
it is not strange at all that the focus is on him i mean he is mick jagger not phil collins!
anyway what charlie said about the movie and about the fact he has never seen mj perform before i think is pretty telling of the focus
i think is martin more than micj that wanted it this way
because "he moves"
anyway the short clips i saw were not particularly "obsessed" on mick
love the long pans i saw, looking forward to the whole cake



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-03-31 18:00 by maumau.

>> then, i think that Ladies and Gentleman could be seen as well as a movie about Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones <<

yep, and so is Gimme Shelter. so is Stones in the Park. there are a lot of them.
now there's another one. so it goes :E

ps: if the gallant chelskeith felt like correcting the spelling of Scorsese in the title of his first post
we wouldn't have to keep changing it by hand in each of our posts ... please and thank you kindly



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-03-31 18:39 by with sssoul.

I think chelskeith has a good question, too. At one point mick said, "oh, I took those bits out" or "had them taken out." I can't remember what sort of "bits" he meant--I think shots where he looked old--and he was at least partly joking (in a couple of senses), but he's made other comments too which suggest that he was heavily involved in at least the editing, not to mention the pre-film directing choices. This might be BS on his part to make himself sound like a convincing Film Person--why not then take a credit for his work on the film? But it's easy to imagine him involved all the way through.

well i take for granted that mick is the person who followed the whole process of this film making from beginning to end for the band. i think he is the "business" leader of the band, ansd has been that for a while
even keith plainly recognizes that when he says something like "mick calls and it's time to tour again" and things like that
then mick has been working for a long time with scorsese on "the long play" project
but when it comes to the "cut in cut out" i dont know, i mean, he is not a nobody he is scorsese and also working with an acclaimed film editor so...
scorsese is not the yes man mick loves to have around when making music. dont forget he refused mick project of filming rio and turn it completely to the opposite (thanks Martin!)

>> i take for granted that Mick is the person who followed the whole process of this film making from beginning to end <<

smile: i'm right with you up to that point in the sentence.
(and when it's time to tour again, it means all the Stones are ready willing and able.)
meanwhile, i agree that chelskeith's question is an interesting one.
i think Mick's said that with Jagged Films he makes a conscious effort to be a "hands-off" type of producer, right?
so that's a contrast with what he's been saying about his close involvement in this one.
since i'm not well-versed in the language of film-making, i'll be interested in hearing
the impressions you well-versed Scorsese aficionados have, once you've seen it



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-03-31 19:06 by with sssoul.

that quote from keith - repeated in many interviews - i used just to underline the fact that is mick that apparently phone to get things started and not the other way around and the others are ready willing and able to start

about he speaking of having this in and this out at his pleasure I think he is just joking and that doesnt exclude he might have been involved a lot in the overall sense of the movie. To be explicit i think when Martin shifted from the idea of a kind of biopic of the band to the concert movie he sure had one of these phone calls with mick where he express to mick his ideas pretty much the same as the (staged?) call where he explains to him that it'b better to have camera move... staged or not i think it tells the truth about the way things worked. also mick was touring so i dont think he could have such a grasp

for sure they're both "control freaks" so i can imagine a lot of sparkling moments..)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-03-31 19:29 by maumau.

Scorcese is the director - thereby default it's 'his' movie.
The Last Waltz was not Robbie Robertson's movie.

Directing a film; no amount of input from the 'star' or 'stars' take that away from either an artistic or technical point of view.

[thepowergoats.com]

hi james are you talking out of some kind of evidence of this specific case or out of theoretical speculation about how things usually go or should go?
there's plenty of movies where first there's a script and the producer then there's the star and last AND least there's the hired director that depends both on the producer and the star

of course scorsese is not that type of director!

I'm not so sure that mick is joking about his editing involvement on this film. (though I don't know what he's said about his vision for Jagged Films, sorry!). What I'm pretty sure of is that Scorsese is _not_ as involved frame by frame on this project as he is for his fiction films. Scorsese is involved in a lot of documentary projects all the time. There's no way, especially at his age and with all the ancillary tasks someone as Big as he is has to fulfill--how many events can he go to just for Shine a Light?--that he is immersed in all of these. Supposedly he's working on Harrison and Marley documentaries right now... I think to a large extent he must oversee these, make crucial decisions, then add his narration (as in No Direction Home), but I can easily imagine him being absent on this film to a great enough extent for mick to step in and work with Scorsese's assistants.

there was an article around here somewhere a few months ago from the viewpoint of a writer (?) involved with Shine a Light -
i was looking for it because i think i recall a few statements that shed some light (ahem!) on some of this -
whose ideas were whose and all that, i mean. among other things, the guy was talking about
a meeting with Mick at which he and Scorsese were "pitching" their ideas to Mick, but were seated
in a position that didn't let them see Mick's face due to the (ahem!) light shining straight into their faces -
does anyone but me remember that article?
it might be somewhere in the last few pages of Rockman's beautiful "Stones Connections" thread
(which won't open for me these days - i think it's gotten too full of great stuff for my puny computer).

Quote
with sssoul
there was an article around here somewhere a few months ago from the viewpoint of a writer (?) involved with Shine a Light -
i was looking for it because i think i recall a few statements that shed some light (ahem!) on some of this -
whose ideas were whose and all that, i mean. among other things, the guy was talking about
a meeting with Mick at which he and Scorsese were "pitching" their ideas to Mick, but were seated
in a position that didn't let them see Mick's face due to the (ahem!) light shining straight into their faces -
does anyone but me remember that article?
it might be somewhere in the last few pages of Rockman's beautiful "Stones Connections" thread
(which won't open for me these days - i think it's gotten too full of great stuff for my puny computer).

Yeah, I remember it. There was also something about Scorsese talking about that meeting like "did he like it? did he hate it? I don't know!"

>> "did he like it? did he hate it? I don't know!" <<

yeah, that's the one - thanks for reassuring me i'm not hallucinating, Lorenz!
now if anyone could find it, maybe there is something in there that's related to this discussion.

ps: damn, life would be so fine if Scorsese were spelt right in the title to the thread!
changing it each time by hand is ... it gets me down! especially since i keep forgetting.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-03-31 21:38 by with sssoul.

yeah, I remember it too (except for where it was posted) and it seemed to clash with the current narrative of the film's creation.

>> the current narrative of the film's creation <<

... care to elaborate on which narrative you mean? i feel like i've gotten a bit lost in all the narratives.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-03-31 21:43 by with sssoul.

me too, which is why I didn't elaborate!--but hasn't mick been saying during the publicity jag that he/the band suggested a movie to Scorsese, specifically to be done in Rio? or has mick been saying that it was Scorsese who pitched, and that his reply was "ok, how about Rio?"

let me search for that story in the interim...

the narrative of a thread about the making of a thread about the making of shine a light of course

you know tha-that movie of that guy wha-whatshis name? ha Scortcheesy, Ma'tin Scortcheesy isnt he?

here it is; for convenience I'll paste in the text rather than just the link [www.iorr.org]. thanks to DaveG.

The Making of "Shine a Light" Anybody else read this article?
Posted by: DaveG ()
Date: December 14, 2007 15:28

I found this article in a recent supplemental magazine with Conde Nast Traveler. It contains some great nuggets of information about how the film was conceived and put together. This may not be anything new, but I found it fascinating.

Soul Survivors
By Mitch Glazer
Nobody does rock 'n' roll like the Rolling Stones. Nobody uses it like Martin Scorsese. MITCH GLAZER joined the team as the legendary band and director filmed Shine a Light
Producer Steve Bing has an idea: Martin Scorsese and the Rolling Stones. It's February 2006, 36 years since the last, best Stones film, the Maysles brothers' masterful Gimme Shelter, and the Rolling Stones are in the middle of a record-shattering world tour, playing with more daring and heart than ever. It's time, way past time, for the world's greatest director to capture the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band in concert. Bing's just co-financed Jonathan Demme's soulful Neil Young-concert film, Heart of Gold, but to a lifelong music fan, a Stones-Scorsese movie is the holy grail. Steve Bing is in.

Nobody uses rock 'n' roll like Martin Scorsese. Nobody gets rock 'n' roll like Martin Scorsese: Robert De Niro's slow-motion, "Jumpin' Jack Flash" descent into a hellish Little Italy bar in Mean Streets or Ray Liotta's coke-fueled implosion in GoodFellas (a 10-minute rocket sled: Nilsson, Stones, the Who, Muddy Waters, George Harrison) or Jack Nicholson in The Departed, humiliating a pedophile priest to the Beach Boys' breezy "Sail On, Sailor." Scorsese has a great musician's feel. He finds the groove, weds the ideal song to a scene like a bluesman bending a note. It's instinct and immersion.

He heard doo-wop (and Verdi) on the stoops of Little Italy, rocked in the Brooklyn Paramount Theatre in '57 to Buddy Holly, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis, and then found himself onstage at Woodstock with N.Y.U. buddy director Michael Wadleigh and (future Scorsese editor-for-life) Thelma Schoonmaker. Scorsese actually edited Sly Stone's delirious, defining "I Want to Take You Higher" sequence from Woodstock. A couple of years later Scorsese cut The King, receiving "montage supervisor" credit on the 1972 film Elvis on Tour. And all of this a prelude to his grand re-invention of the concert film, the Band's rocking elegy, The Last Waltz. Toss in Michael Jackson's "Bad" video; producing an encyclopedic blues tribute, Lightning in a Bottle; and a peek behind the mask in the revelatory Bob Dylan documentary No Direction Home, and you have the greatest practitioner, interpreter, and champion of rock 'n' roll in film.

The Rolling Stones are special for Scorsese as well. They are a constant in some of his finest work; "Gimme Shelter" alone floats ominously through GoodFellas, Casino, and The Departed. As Scorsese says, "No matter what, we always thought of the Rolling Stones as our band. New York's band. The conviction, the soul, the attitude ... there's something New York in their music, you know? They may be from London, but they're a New York band."

Scorsese is in.


Mick Jagger has an idea. Actually two ideas: Scorsese should multi-camera-shoot a huge stadium show in Amsterdam. (Jagger sees the size and spectacle, the theater, of the Rolling Stones' stadium show as inherently cinematic.) He also has a notion for a scripted narrative, a written intro and coda that will frame the concert, give shape and drama to the movie.

Steve Bing has another idea ... me. After the Heart of Gold premiere, on February 7, 2006, he calls and asks me, "Would you be interested in writing the scripted intro to ... " Yes. I'm in.

The next night, Scorsese calls. I don't remember too many details of our first chat–it's like Randy Newman fantasizing about hanging with Bruce Springsteen in "My Life Is Good": "Oh, we talked about some kind of woodblock or something. And this new guitar we like ... " Me and Marty (that's how he introduced himself), you know, two movie guys talking about everything from Robert Graves and the ancient Greek philosophy of performance to the Rolling Stones. I do remember he's inspired (inspiring), funny, fast, and collaborative. He recommends one of his favorite concert films, Bert Stern's documentary about the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, Jazz on a Summer's Day. Scorsese and Jagger have spoken about using it as a template–it's Jagger's favorite as well. Scorsese is neck-deep in editing his new movie, The Departed, and eager for ideas. This can't just be another concert film. The Rolling Stones have shot and sold virtually every world tour they've ever done. There has to be a reason: the bittersweet finality of The Last Waltz, murder and the death of the hippie dream in Gimme Shelter, Newport's class-color war in Jazz on a Summer's Day. A context, a story.

A few weeks later, I fly to New York for the first of several meetings with Scorsese. They take place in his office, on 57th Street, and in his Upper East Side town house. He invariably strides in from editing The Departed, shaking his head, laughing about the insanity, the chaos of the movie: "Is it shit? Is it great? I don't know. I have no idea. What the hell is it? We've got some great things. I know that. Some great scenes, but it's crazy, a crazy puzzle. This one could go any way. It's happening right now. Right next door." Sitting down on the other side of the coffee table. "So ... the Rolling Stones." And off we'd go. Our meetings, prefaced by Emma Tillinger (Scorsese's Sikelia Productions head) with "Marty's only got an hour today," always wonderfully stretch all afternoon. Somewhere in the middle of these marathons, we find the heart of the beast, the reason for his concert movie–the Stones, the city, and, at my insistence, Scorsese. Create the dream Rolling Stones concert in a small, sweaty venue in New York City and let Martin Scorsese's passion loose in front of and behind the camera. Simple. Bliss.

Keith Richards says he'll do whatever Martin Scorsese wants.

Steve Bing gets Mick Jagger to agree to a meeting in New York where he and Scorsese can present their notion of a more intimate venue, officially pitch the idea of a Stones-Scorsese-New-York-City concert film, face-to-face. I'm invited, I assume, as a human sacrifice.

We meet in the Carlyle lobby around three in the afternoon, March 14, 2006. Everybody seems slightly ... jangly, Scorsese more caffeinated than usual. Bing calls up to Jagger's room; we pile into the elevator and head to the penthouse. Somebody ushers us into the suite's living room. A love seat and a single chair face an overstuffed armchair positioned in front of the picture window. Michael Cohl, the Stones' longtime tour director, greets us and gestures to our seats. Cohl is bearded, intense, and seems to be glowering. Fortunately, Victoria Pearman, president of Jagged Films and an ally, steps into the suite behind him.

Bing takes the offered chair, and Scorsese and I sit side by side in the love seat. As Mick Jagger glides in, smiling, subdued, regal, and sits in the armchair facing us, I can't help but notice that Scorsese and I are staring into a blinding sunset. The sun is setting in the picture window directly behind Jagger. His face is completely in shadow: a total eclipse of the Mick. After a few moments of casual industry chitchat, Bing says something like, "Well, I think Mitch has some ideas for the movie." I swallow, fix my gaze at what I assume are Jagger's eyes, and launch into the Stones-Scorsese-and-the-city pitch about an intimate, roots, rock 'n' roll venue, the band sharing the stage, he and Richards sharing a mike ... Fairly quickly we're in the elevator heading down to the lobby. Silence. Bing clears his throat: "Hey, I think that went pretty well." Scorsese jerks a look at me and says, "Could you see his face? I couldn't see his face. Was he happy? Sad? Did he hate us? Could you tell? I don't know. I couldn't tell. I have no idea."

Six months later, on Sunday, October 29, and Wednesday, November 1, 2006, in New York's elegantly wasted Beacon Theatre, the Rolling Stones give two heart- stopping performances (the second show is already considered legendary by Stones aficionados). Martin Scorsese and his hall-of-fame cinematographers (Albert "Gimme Shelter" Maysles, Bob "The Aviator" Richardson, John "The Thin Red Line" Toll, Emmanuel "Children of Men" Lubezki, Ellen "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" Kuras, Stuart "Once Were Warriors" Dryburgh, etc.), with their 17 cameras, shoot the shows to death, while Scorsese hunches over a bank of monitors in the dark director's booth in the rear of the theater. The band roars, the hall shudders, all 17 camera shots flicker before him, total rock 'n' roll chaos. "I'm gonna vomit," Scorsese says to no one in particular. Months later he'll reflect, "It's pure adrenaline. It's like a car race. I mean, you're just going. And it felt to me the concert was over in 20 minutes. I have no idea what happened. That's the fun of it. The fun of it is the anxiety. The fun is not knowing what you're going to get."

The concert film, Shine a Light, is everything the shows were: raw, soulful, furious, ageless rock 'n' roll ... and more. The cameras are where we've never been before: a shot from behind Charlie Watts's drum kit catches Jagger as he spins his crazy, teenage body away from the audience, smiling and rolling his eyes at his exertion; Richards' hands, permanently gnarled around his guitar neck; Ronnie Wood, all Popeye grin and rooster cut, delighted at his own newly sober skills; Mick and Keith, brothers for 50 years, touching foreheads, sharing a mike and a wink during "Far Away Eyes."

The context, the reason for Scorsese's Rolling Stones film, in the end, transcends the venue or the city or Marty Scorsese himself; it's the fragility and triumph of this wonderful moment. Last year Keith Richards underwent brain surgery, Ronnie Wood fought his addictions in rehab, and Charlie Watts battled throat cancer. This will not go on forever, and they know it. And the Rolling Stones are still younger, tougher, cooler, and play better than you. This show, this film, is the Stones' gift. Their joy and virtuosity, their casual rock 'n' roll heroism, is caught and celebrated by perhaps our finest director. Rip this joint, indeed.



Previous 1 2 3 Next Movies Rock © 2007 CONDÉ NAST. All rights reserved

thanks a lot for retrieving this

well, it leaves unclear how the principals all got involved, and in what order. But I was wrong, this does confirm mick's narrative. And it suggests that most of the ideas used in the film--down to mick and keith sharing a mike--were in fact Glazer's, who along with Bing, has been nowhere in sight since the film was released, as far as I know. I imagine Scorsese's chief input was in planning and conducting the actual shoot, and in having the prestige to sell the band on the project.

I love all the extra information included that contradicts the writer's own thesis that Scorsese "gets" rock and roll like no one else: as much as rock and roll, he listened to doo wop (related to but not really r'n'r), Verdi, and Newport Jazz festival stuff. It seems to me that for Scorsese, r'n'r is but one element of a multicultural NYC immigrant experience. He's a true believer only for the movies; rock and roll is part of the content he uses to make work in the film form.

ahhh thank you cc!
some of that would have come in handy in a few threads lately - now i'll know where to find it.

to think of the relation between a director and a movie as that of say a painter with his/her painting is quite naive i think

each movie is the work of a team (and what a team in this particular case)

each director has his/her own style of course about his/her involvement in every stage of the making

scorsese seems both the type of director that is willing to delegate the work to others and someone who wants to control every detail. I think planning is a good choice to describe it.

I'll wait till i've seen it but from what i've read it seems that also the vision of "The stones and NY" - that seems the core of Glazer's ideas - was dropped in favour of the "Performance". Nonetheless there seem to remain traces of that (in the setlist for example)

Quote
maumau
hi james are you talking out of some kind of evidence of this specific case or out of theoretical speculation about how things usually go or should go?
there's plenty of movies where first there's a script and the producer then there's the star and last AND least there's the hired director that depends both on the producer and the star

of course scorsese is not that type of director!

No he's not. The producer rarley finds his/her way into the editing room. The star is the focus of the project, but the film his the vision of the director. I'm speaking out of experience I've gained through my own work with film, television, radio, editing, sound editing as a participant and an observer, onscreen and behind the microphone, and behind the scenes.

[thepowergoats.com]

maumau, i hope you're keeping a list of all the stuff i want to hear your impressions of :E
Glazer's vision also seems to include "at my insistence, Scorsese ... in front of and behind the camera".
someone tried to bite me on another thread when i said it's a documentary of a movie being made
but ... well, you'll tell me once you've seen it.

"Create the dream Rolling Stones concert in a small, sweaty venue in New York City and ... " :E

sssul i'll be sure posting my impressions around here trying to keep track of your list
apparently many glazer's ideas (mick keith sharing the microphone, and first and most the idea, as it seems, of the "being on stage with the band") has been kept
we probably wont know if glazer is telling all the story or if what we see in the end is the result of those ideas developed and worked on in time thru dialectics with the director which seems also likely

sure scorsese has a "feeling" about the stones and is a "designer" so i am expecting to see at least his interpretation of Glazer's ideas.

about you James I respect your knowledge. It occurred also to me to be behind some movie productions as spectator and have seen different approaches. But your experience is sure more than mine.

Anyway I beg your pardon but I keep my idea that your view of the director's power is valid in many cases but doesn't apply to, say, hollywood (or the local like in many countries) mass productions (and has been this way since the very early cinema) where the close up shot of the star is not a matter of cinematic discourse but a matter of celebrating the gloss. Of course there have been many directors in the history of cinema that have stepped out of this industrial constraints and shadow. Still I think most of the industry products that you see in theatres, dvds and exspecially on tv have very little to do with a pure "director's vision". Those directors are respectable workers that give their bit of know how to the project.

The role of people like Glazer even in a Scorsese project is telling.

Think of another "author" with a veeeeery personal vision like David Lynch and his relation with long time collaborators like writer Barry Gifford or editor Mary Sweeney. I remember him telling in an interview how the core details of Twin Peak's story came to him listening to Badalamenti's famous melody which was invented before the story was developed.

In my view, these facts dont diminish in any way the status of Scorsese or Lynch as authors, that is, people that give their vision thru the movies they make. For me it is just to acknowledge a different notion of the author exspecially in forms of art like cinema where he or she has to rely (and take advantage) on the work of so many people.

>> the result of those ideas developed and worked on in time thru dialectics with the director which seems also likely <<

well yeah! more than likely, i would think. a few assorted questions for maumau:

~ the Stones-and-the-city thing being reflected in the setlist: do you mean Some Girls being the "featured album",
or something else as well? (Miss You not being in it is quite concrete. )

~ to me it's not that apparent from the article that the "on stage with the band" thing
was Glazer's idea rather than a collaborative one - could you say more about your seeing it that way?
we all know i am easily confused ... i also need to see the film again to decide
whether i get that sensation from it, more than (say) from L&G.

~ meanwhile i'm glad this article makes a point of the "scriptedness" of some elements of the film -
it doesn't bother me at all that those bits were scripted, but it seems worth bearing in mind.
the film seems to me to include a lot of clues meant to make it clear - maybe especially to Stones fans -
that this is a movie, but that idea doesn't currently seem very umm popular. i'm not sure why.

~ do we know (or have any educated guesses about) whose idea the mix was -
the way it heightens the audio of whatever instrument the camera is on, i mean?
(that's one element that seems to me to deliberately underscore the "movieness" of the film,
as opposed to a "you are there" sort of effect.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-04-01 13:31 by with sssoul.

very interesting points
point one yeah the somegirls set was maybe a thing mick turned to when they first spoke of stones and ny and maybe survived the change (maybe the change in the theme was actually defined after the gigs. who knows? if someone does please shine a light on! but yes missing miss you is a weird in this context
point two yes it is my speculation about him speaking of the "small and sweaty place and the scorsese behind and in front" actually this is telling more of the metanarrative theme which you point at in point three and that i dont know why is not popular. to me it is quite normal that a doc has "per se" a metanarrative nature that can be worked on by the director or not. I usually like movies with embedded metanarrative
about the audio mix i dont know. my simple "educated guess" is that it is a work of the sound editors with Scorsese. it is not a first time in the history for sure. yes it can sure have the meaning you give.
well, i'll wait and see, but you know considering for example how many times i've seen "cameras in camera" in those few short clips it would be hard to deny a kind of metanarrative quality of the movie itself. The nature and strenght and meaning (to me of course) of this quality i cant tell now of course

>> very interesting points <<

only since you're taking an interest! (thanks)

the meta-narrative thing ... i need to see the film again. the first time, i wasn't prepared for that aspect of it
and when it got in the way of what i was there for - the band performing - i resented it. but ... okay, i'll try again.
meanwhile that's why i've brought up the "movieness" of it on a few threads - not to knock the film,
but because it seems like some people might dig it better if they view it as a documentary of a film being made
rather than if they expect it to be a "straight-up" concert film like we're used to.
well and because it generally seems to me a good thing to distinguish between reality and fiction :E



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2008-04-01 22:52 by with sssoul.

somewhat related, the All Music Guide review of the soundtrack pointed out something I don't think has been noted here: Scorsese's name is on the cover of the album! Right under the band's. So even the soundtrack is meant to be a collaboration...