‘Shine a Light’ shows Stones’ pure brilliance

By Colin Covert

The footage was shot at an intimate venue in New York City.

It’s a rock ‘n’ roll royal wedding. An iconic band and a legendary director join forces. Martin Scorsese meets the Rolling Stones in “Shine a Light.” The synergy is so brilliant it’s nearly blinding.

They’ve met before, of course. Robert De Niro made his slo-mo entrance into an ominous Little Italy bar in “Mean Streets” to the tune of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” “Goodfellas,” “Casino” and “The Departed” all feature the satanic moans of “Gimme Shelter.” The Rolling Stones have been a musical touchstone for Scorsese. Now, with a revelatory concert film, he repays the favor with compound interest.

The film turns every expectation on its head. It opens with Scorsese on camera, fretting over the band’s inability to decide on a set list. Rather than promise us new insights into the players’ personalities — is there anything left to say? — Scorsese works in some old interview clips of the flippant Stones to show how little they’ve changed over the decades.

In place of a spectacular stadium show, he bottles the band’s energy for maximum impact in New York City’s 2,800-seat Beacon Theatre, an intimate venue by Stones standards. No tongue logos. No Jumbotron video screens. Instead of an over-reverent tribute to the Founding Fathers of rock, the show features jaunty walk-ons by the White Stripes’ Jack White and blues god Buddy Guy. Christina Aguilera, perhaps the only singer on the scene who can match Mick Jagger for prancing, hip-shaking sass, joins him on a boisterous version of “Live With Me.”

The music, of course, will have fans searching their safety-deposit boxes for new superlatives. Almost half a century into their career, these weathered old pros have the energy of jacked-up newcomers in “Start Me Up,” “Brown Sugar,” “Sympathy for the Devil” and “As Tears Go By.” Jagger’s vocals are rough-edged for the first couple of numbers, but once his pipes warm up he performs with heroic authority. The pristine sound was mixed by Bob Clearmountain, an acclaimed producer and studio engineer.

Scorsese balances the sonic assault with visuals of surpassing elegance and simplicity. The film features an astounding all-star team of cinematographers including Robert Richardson, an Oscar winner for Scorsese’s “The Aviator”; Robert Elswit (”There Will Be Blood”); Ellen Kuras (”Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”); Emmanuel Lubezki (”Children of Men”); John Toll (”Braveheart”), and 81-year-old Albert Maysles, who documented the Stones’ Altamont disaster 38 years ago in “Gimme Shelter.”

The images are so crisp and flawlessly lit you can see every fissure on Keith Richards’ grinning-skull face, the taut skin on Jagger’s 64-year-old marathon-runner frame, the gnarled glory of Ronnie Woods’ fingers on the fretboard of his Emmons pedal steel guitar.

The operatic camera moves of Scorsese’s tribute to The Band, “The Last Waltz,” are held to a minimum here. In their place is a determination to see every aspect of the performance with eagle-eyed clarity. The experience is a jolt of concentrated pleasure.

Richards greets the crowd by joking, “It’s good to see you. It’s good to see anybody!” You’d have to be awfully blas not feel the same delight after seeing this celebration of sonic and visual virtuosity.