Shine a Light

Director Martin Scorsese and a battery of expert cameramen record the Rolling Stones in concert (a composite of two shows) at New York’s Beacon Theatre in 2006. The movie opens with scenes of Scorsese and company setting up the shoot, and is interspersed with snippets of interview, newsreel and performance footage of the Stones during the 1960s and ’70s (they were rock’s “bad boys” then, but remarkably, those shots of them look sweet and almost wholesome now). Still, most of the film’s 120 minutes show Mick Jagger, Keith Richards et al. in performance, every bit as energetic and exciting as they were 40 years ago—maybe even more so. At one point, Dick Cavett in 1972 asks Jagger if he can see himself still rocking at 60, and he says, “Oh yeah, easily.” And by golly, there he is in 2006 proving it.