Scorsese hails Rolling Stones
2008-02-08 12:39
Berlin - Martin Scorsese cited The Rolling Stones as providing the inspirational soundtrack for his entire career at the world premiere on Thursday of his concert movie of the British rock legends.
"The music was part of my life through the 60s, but I never saw the group perform until maybe the early 70s," the Oscar-winning director told reporters after the screening of Shine A Light, which kicked off the 11-day Berlin Film Festival.
"So for me the sound of the music, the chords, the vocals, the entire feel ... inspired me greatly. It became a basis for most of the work I've done in the movies from Mean Streets on through Raging Bull all the way up to The Departed," Scorsese said.
"I experienced this music by hearing and seeing it in my head. It created images in my mind," he added.
The film, which the band co-produced, splices together highlights from two Rolling Stones benefit shows at New York's relatively intimate Beacon Theatre in 2006, along with archival footage and peeks backstage.
Individual Rolling Stones songs can be heard in numerous Scorsese films, with some tracks featuring repeatedly - a fact wryly alluded to by Mick Jagger, who attended the premiere with fellow band members Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts.
"I'd just like to say that Shine A Light is, I think, the only Martin Scorsese movie I know that doesn't have Gimme Shelter in it," the Stones frontman joked.
The film does, however, show the Stones ripping through other classics from their back catalogue, like Jumpin' Jack Flash, Satisfaction and Brown Sugar.
'Capture the performance'
Scorsese said he and Jagger had kicked around the possibility of doing a concert movie for years before the idea finally came to fruition.
"I didn't want to make a documentary, I just wanted to capture the performance," he said.
To achieve that, the American director used 16 cameras that tracked every aspect of the band's show.
Richards said the film succeeded because Scorsese ensured the cameras never got in the way.
"We didn't even see them. We didn't even know they were there," said the craggy-faced lead guitarist, whose crouched, stage-prowling presence provides the film's counterpoint to Jagger's lithe gyrations.
"That was important to me," Richards said. "If you're aware you're shooting a movie, things change ... and then you don't really capture the show.
"What Martin did brilliantly was take that out of the equation," he said.
Watts was more self-conscious. He admitted to getting no pleasure at all from watching himself on a giant screen.
"I hate it," the laconic drummer said. "It's beautifully filmed, but I hate doing it."