A movie directed by one of the most famous directors ever - of one of the most famous rock groups ever. 'Shine a Light' is reviewed by Andrew Jones.

There’s an easy test to apply to see if you’ll like this film. Here it is. Ask yourself two questions:

1. Do I like the music of the Rolling Stones?

2. Do I like films of concerts?

If the answer to both questions is ‘yes’ then you’ll love this film. ‘Shine A Light’ is Martin Scorsese’s record of two nights played by the Stones at New York’s Beacon Theater in 2006. It’s got many of the Scorsese trademarks – wonderful editing, great camera angles and a little self-deprecating humour. The concert experience is captured and enhanced in the filming. And the Stones? For a bunch of nearly sixtysomethings they still rock harder than a Brighton sweetshop.

But, what if you answered ‘no’ to both the test questions? Shine A Light still raises all kinds of interesting issues. Does fame and age neutralise your ability to protest? (the film opens with the Stones schmoozing with the Clinton dynasty. In contrast, vintage footage shows Jagger clashing with various Establishment figures of the 1960’s). The Stones have become ‘The Man’.

Is there a legitimate celebration of desire? The Stones have always written songs about the gut and the groin. They’ve avoided the occasional faux-intellectualism of The Beatles. A telling point in the film is when Keith Richards is asked what he thinks about on stage. He says that he doesn’t think when he’s playing guitar, he just feels. The Stones capture many of the primal impulses of what it is to be human – aching desire, unfulfilled longings, a sense of wonder. Yet. the desire described is often disordered and spills into something negative.

Finally, Shine A Light raises questions about public celebration. The band and audience feed off each other. The film had to be shot in the USA – a British audience would have stood, arms crossed, tapping the occasional toe. The energy at the Beacon Theater is almost tangible. The journalist Barbara Ehrenreich reflects on public celebration in her book "Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy" (Granta Books, London 2007). She makes a halfway speculative case that a literature of melancholia emerges in Western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries as a response to the suppression of carnival and feasting.

The Christian tradition has always held fasting and feasting in tension. We fast because we are still awaiting the coming kingdom and are conscious of our need for redemption; we feast since we know that the kingdom has come – Christ is risen and we live in the age of the Spirit of Life. In an oblique way Shine A Light asks us to reflect on our celebratory feasting. How does the community of the church engage in authentic communal, creaturely celebration to the glory of God?

But, don’t overthink Shine A Light. After all, it’s only rock and roll (but I like it).

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