Friday, September 18, 2009

Martin Scorsese

Albert Maysles at work
Buddy Guy in performance
Keith Richards performing in NYC

A NYC appearance by the Rolling Stones during their "A Bigger Bang" tour is thoroughly documented by Martin Scorsese in Shine a Light (2008). The wrinkly but very high-energy band is the focus of the film -- few audience members are shown (in contrast to Town Bloody Hall or A Perfect Candidate) and the only visible ones, in the front rows, look like models hired for the occasion (bottom still). The "coverage" is phenomenal, with plenty of cameras capturing multiple angles. This over-the-top blanket-bomb coverage pays off with several lovely sequences, such as the "Champagne and Reefer" performance with Buddy Guy (middle). Albert Maysles (top still) shows his hand-held, chest-high camera technique.
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Documentary Starts Here by Nancy Kalow is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.