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Keith Richards talks rock doc
By LIZ BRAUN -- Sun Media
Keith Richards perma-smiling at a gala red carpet walk-in?
Keith Richards?! Hard to picture.
"People have been pointing cameras at me! I've had more red carpets in the last year than you'd believe," the legendary Rolling Stones guitarist says with mock exasperation, in an exclusive Canadian interview with Sun Media, while summing up promo activities for Shine A Light.
Shine A Light is the performance film for every Rolling Stones fan who never got to have front-row seats. It opens in theatres on Friday.
Directed by Martin Scorsese and filmed by a Who's Who of famous cinematographers, Shine A Light is an unusually intimate concert movie that captures the Stones over two nights at New York's Beacon Theatre.
The show is all about performance and energy, and includes guest appearances from Christina Aguilera, Jack White (of the White Stripes) and legendary bluesman Buddy Guy. What it doesn't include are the visually irritating, razzle-dazzle cuts and camera work so beloved by the music video world. As Stones' drummer Charlie Watts has so succinctly said of Shine A Light, "It's not boring."
In the film, Scorsese has interspersed the concert footage with snippets of old interviews and some archival footage, and his choices are judicious; in the midst of the "hope I die before I get old" ethos of 40 years ago, here's a young Mick Jagger being asked if the Rolling Stones might still be performing and touring when the band members are in their 60s.
"Yes," says Jagger, without hesitation.
The shows at the Beacon were filmed in autumn 2006, when the band was in the midst of the 144-date Bigger Bang world tour.
Over the phone from a holiday in the tropics ("I'm just gettin' my things out of the sun, which is more than you can do in Toronto,
darlin', " he says, laughing), Richards says that being part of Shine A Light "is another side of life. I'm a guitar player. I write a few songs, I play guitar," he says in understatement, "but this is a whole other side of the affair, of entertainment. I'm trying to get the hang of it. It's weird. I did (long-ago Stones documentaries) Gimme Shelter and C---sucker Blues -- no problem," he rambles, laughing. "The only other movie was the pirate thing, which was a shot in the dark, but here we're dealing with the movie business and the way they operate, and it's quite different."
Aside from "the pirate thing" -- his cameo as Captain Teague in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End -- Richards and the rest of the Stones in fact are documentary veterans. There are more than 18 such films about the band, several by leading directors, including the rarely seen C---sucker Blues, (from Robert Frank), which outlined the whole sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll life on the road. The Maysles Brothers made Gimme Shelter, Hal Ashby directed Let's Spend the Night Together, and in 1968, Jean-Luc Godard featured the band in Sympathy For the Devil. Richards was also a part of Taylor Hackford's Chuck Berry documentary, Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll; like that film, says the guitarist, Shine A Light is a superior rock movie. Did we need another Stones movie? Actually, we did.
"We were on the road for about two and a half years," Richards says, "and someone said, 'You know, we're going to have to make a movie about this,' and I was, 'Oh, God, not again,' but then they said that the interesting thing was that Martin Scorsese would be behind the camera. And that makes all the difference! Suddenly you're talking about making film, making cinema, not just documenting something. When I found out it was Martin doing it, I was in like Flynn. And I do mean Errol, darling."
Mind you, Richards says that the last time he saw Scorsese they were together on a private plane, and while everybody else headed off to Los Angeles, Richards was dropped off in Newark. "The last thing Martin saw of me, I was being collared by the cops and dragged off. Which I really thought should have been the ending of the movie. But maybe it's the beginning of the next one."
Something was dodgy with the numbers on Richards' passport, but he soon talked the law into letting him go home. Says Richards, philosophically, "I'm a different kind of guy and I wanted to stay out of Martin's hair as much as possible. Apart from the fact he never bothered to find out if I got out of jail, I love the man."
Does Richards know how Scorsese picked the title, Shine A Light? It's an Exile On Main Street song.
"I do not," says Richards. "I never found out how Her majesty -- Mick -- and Martin arrived at that one, because we don't even play it in the movie. I think it's something to do with shining lights and music, movies, blah blah blah. You're better off asking them. I'm just schlepping around up there with a guitar around my neck. I think Martin thinks it's a good visual title."
Richards saw the finished Shine A Light when it opened the Berlin International Film Festival last month.
"I saw it with an audience there, and I hate looking at myself like that. When you do the shows we do, you're used to cameras pointed at you because there's a video screen behind you and they're documenting every pimple. So it wasn't weird in that respect.
"But the Stones have to be sort of unconscious that you're filming, and I told Martin, 'I think that will be very difficult with Mick. You know what Mick's like, he'll be flim-flamming and putting too much on it, just because he'll know you're shooting.' But Mick got over it."
Scorsese assured Richards he would never see a camera. "And it was a joy to do. He must have had 17 cameras, and I didn't see one."
Richards says he made a suggestion for the soundtrack CD of the movie, but otherwise tried to keep a low profile on the project. Always happy to skewer Mick Jagger and maintain that Glimmer Twins sibling rivalry, Richards says, "Apart from asking Martin, try to stay out of Mick's face as much as possible -- because the more you get into Mick's face, the more makeup goes on -- Martin just wanted to shoot a Stones show ... and I didn't need to know more than that to just do what I do."
Capturing what Richards and the rest of the Stones do on film is hugely complicated, but Scorsese was up to the task. The director has used Stones' music in his movies and for filmic inspiration several times: In Mean Streets, Casino, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and The Departed. (He has used the song Gimme Shelter in three movies -- The Departed, Casino and Goodfellas.)
The Oscar-winning director has talked about the music's drive, authority and edge, and says that even before he became a filmmaker or saw the band in concert, "Their music was an inspiration. The Stones were key in creating images in my imagination, feelings and impressions that found their way into a lot of my movies."
Shine A Light is the latest in Scorsese's body of music movies. He worked as an editor on Woodstock, and directed both The Last Waltz, a film about The Band, and No Direction Home: Bob Dylan.
Richards, meanwhile, was more than happy to learn that the dates at the Beacon Theatre would be filmed. He knows the venue from playing there with his other band, the X-pensive Winos (which, originally, was Richards, Steve Jordan, Bobby Keys, Waddy Wachtel, Sarah Dash, Charley Drayton and Ivan Neville.)
Which reminds him: They might tour again one day.
As for the Stones? Oh, absolutely.
Noting that he's on holiday right now, Richards says that despite having finished up the mammoth Bigger Bang tour fairly recently, he has no doubt the Rolling Stones will tour again.
"At the moment, everybody looks at each other and goes, 'Are you kidding me? F--- off!' But I know I'll get a phone call in a few months," he says, laughing.
"Otherwise, I'm doing the red carpet bit. I found out that there's really only about 100 yards from where you get out of the car to the doorway, but the red carpet is about three miles long because they put curves in it, and then you're led up to it -- you know, there's CNN! And blah, blah!! And it takes half an hour to do 10 yards. That's probably why they paint it red.
"I wrote Paint It, Black," he adds, "but this red s--t is another thing."
http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Artists/R/Rolling_Stones/2008/03/28/5133151-sun.html |
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| BONOISLOVE |
This not-mentioned-politic-of-not-mentioning-Hillary Clinton, makes Bono terribly sad. |
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| open-g |
Doesn't bother me...
I rather like this bit:
Richards, meanwhile, was more than happy to learn that the dates at the Beacon Theatre would be filmed. He knows the venue from playing there with his other band, the X-pensive Winos
Which reminds him: They might tour again one day.
As for the Stones? Oh, absolutely. |
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| speedfreakjive |
just hope i'm not disappointed by Shine A Light, I hope no ad hoc/sloppy playing by Keith |
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| Sister Morphine |
 "Her Majesty" Love ya, Keith!
Made me spill my tea all over the place.
And Madame, I was thinking about PIB, too, when I read "they painted it red" and it's sorta fun Keith referrs to it in the next line.
Thanks for posting this interview, I enjoyed it so much. Gotta love good ol' Mr. Richards. 
And also, there's another bit about continuing, na! I can't wait for Keith to get that call! Absolutely thrilled already!  |
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| fireontheplatter |
the above article was a fun read...thanks for posting.
way to go rolling stones.
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| pdog |
Did you hear about Mick's terrible singing...? |
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quote:
BONOISLOVE wrote:
This not-mentioned-politic-of-not-mentioning-Hillary Clinton, makes Bono terribly sad.
too-cool-for-school:
The Stones are informed they're doing a meet-and-greet with the Clintons - Bill, Hillary and Hillary's mom - which, while being exceedingly polite, they treat as a completely unremarkable event. |
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