Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stone Film Shine A Light Opens Fest
The 58th Berlin Film Festival officially kicked off last night with the gala premiere for Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stone film Shine a Light. It was also the first movie I saw here, though nobody rolled out a red carpet for the midday critics' screening.After a deft opening sequence in which Scorsese sketches his difficulties setting up the film -- in particular, some creative head-butting with Mick Jagger ("It would be nice to have a moving camera!"), Shine a Light quickly turns into a straightforward documentary of a benefit concert at New York's Beacon Theater. Granted, coverage and editing are great, and Marty's array of cameras -- including a few moving ones! -- get intimate images of the band on stage. But did we really need one more version of "Brown Sugar," "Start Me Up," or "Satisfaction?"
In front of an audience that looks like it wandered over from the set of a J.J. Abrams movie, Jagger does his usual strutting and prowling and mugging, but the most expressive thing on screen are the wrinkles on the aging band's faces -- those crow's feet and deep, deep furrows that have a thousand more interesting stories to tell than anything that's actually on screen. Guests add a bit of much-needed freshness: Jack White sits in for "Loving Cup," and Christina Aguilera joins for "In Between the Sheets," but the only moment the show truly takes off is when Blues legend Buddy Guy comes out with his polka-dot guitar for "Champagne and Reefer." A forgettable if not altogether unpleasant overture to the festival.
After the screening, the Stones and Scorsese made the international press corps crammed into the conference room wait for close to an hour before they took the stage, costing me the screening of Neil Young's CSNY: Déjà vu. Mick opened the proceedings with a carefully phrased statement, taking pride in the fact that the Berlinale had never opened with a documentary before, and Scorsese added that he hadn't been to Berlin since 1982, when Raging Bull played here. There was some talk of "poetry in motion," and Jagger joked that Shine a Light was the only Scorsese film that didn't feature "Gimme Shelter." (You can watch all press conferences through a live feed. Paul Thomas Anderson, Paul Dano, and Daniel Day-Lewis are scheduled for about 2:45pm Central European Time today.)
