Martin Scorsese: "The Stones Freed My Mind"

You and Jagger seem to bang heads over his refusal to tell you the set list.
Yeah, until he felt the audience, he wouldn't decide. It's like being a handicapper, the guy who doesn't bet but who takes the temperature of the race, like, "Is the jockey having a bad day?" Jagger does that. He feels the vibe. So the opening song is changed at the last minute. My problem is that when I'm shooting a picture, I like to complain — I complain constantly — but from Taxi Driver on, I've learned to see the humor in things.

How did the other Stones react?
I tried to say certain things. I don't know if they understood them. Keith said, "I'll do anything you want," but he did what he wanted. He'd get caught up with it. So I said, "Keith, if you want to go to the front of the stage and hang over the edge, fine, we'll find you." You don't tell the Rolling Stones how to move.

That brings up the audience. And it's not just any audience, you've got the Clintons, and we see Hillary introducing her mother to the Stones.
I know [laughs]. That was interesting, because a lot of the audience was from the Clinton Foundation, so that has a certain nature to it. The second night, it was different: The Clintons weren't there. I was outside shooting Stones fans, who waited for days to get tickets.

How many shows did you shoot?
Two.

Is what we're seeing in the movie mostly from the second performance?
It's all second performance. Instead of "Start Me Up," they opened the show on the second night with "Jumpin' Jack Flash." Then the show went up from there. It just moved like lightning, and we happened to capture it.

Does the fact that the concert was a benefit explain the cuts in some lyrics? No one asks, "Who killed the Kennedys?" in "Sympathy for the Devil," and in "Some Girls," Jagger never sings, "Black girls just wanna get fucked all night/I just don't have that much jam."
That was the band's decision, that's the way they played it, and I didn't mention anything about it. We did have the four-letter word that starts with an "f."

How many "fucks" were you allowed for the rating?
We're allowed two. Buddy Motherfucking Guy had the "Motherfucking" taken out. We tried to plead the case that it's part of what he's called. We didn't win that one, so we put a drumbeat in there.

How does age factor in? The Stones are all in their sixties.
If it is a factor, it's that the Stones wear their age more elegantly. You can see it at the end, particularly in "Satisfaction." You can see it on Mick's face and Keith just hanging onto his guitar, trying to catch his breath. They give their all and make you think about the nature of rock & roll forty years into its history.

I heard you were the one who pushed Keith to do "You Got the Silver."
Absolutely. And he doesn't even play an instrument, it's Ronnie on guitar. I thought it was very moving, like a poem. Imagine going back in time and being the shaman and getting up and telling a story, through sounds. And the sounds are music, probably our first form of communication, before language and before drawing pictures. There's something very primal in the way he performs it.

Keith didn't resist losing the guitar?
Not that I know of. He may have, but I couldn't tell [laughs]. I probably didn't know what the hell he was saying.

In the film, you use interviews with the Stones — not interviews you've conducted, but old ones. Why?
Just to give an impression of their history. All the hubbub, all the circus and the living and the dying that goes on in a life, ultimately all that fades away. So many wonderful films have been made about the Stones, going from the key one — Godard's One Plus One, about the actual composition of "Sympathy for the Devil" — to the Maysles' Gimme Shelter, where the music is almost secondary to the tragedy at Altamont. There is rebellion in Robert Frank's Cocksucker Blues and a lot of joy in Hal Ashby's Let's Spend the Night Together. And I want to wipe it all away in Shine a Light, until all that's left is what started it: the music.

So what is it that has made the Stones last longer than any other rock band?
The playing of the music itself and the response of the audience is what keeps them going. There's a life force in them, and it's defiant and very beautiful.

[From Issue 1050 — April 17, 2008]

Click here for the Mick Jagger Q&A and here for Jack White's conversation with Keith Richards.