Shine a Light (2008)

(On Cable TV, September 2020) Look, if you’re going to shoot a concert film for **The Rolling Stones**, obviously you’re going to get **Martin Scorsese** for it. Legends to present legends, right? It makes more sense than most picks—Scorsese, after all, has directed concert films before (most notably The Last Waltz) and considers the Stones a formative influence. It certainly helps that The Stones, as of 2008, were still incredible performers: Mick Jagger can’t just stand still and sing when there’s dancing and crowd-hyping to do. Combined with behind-the-scenes footage, celebrity testimonies (the recorded concert at New York’s Beacon Theater was a benefit for the Clinton Foundation, so you’ll never guess who shows up), archival footage and swooping moving cameras, Shine a Light is at once majestic and intimate. Inevitably, the music is iconic, the energy is infectious and Scorsese clearly knows how to package everything into one great package.