REVIEW: STONES IN EXILEBrand new Rolling Stones documentary, Stones In Exile, tells the extraordinary tale of how the original rock n roll rebels accidentally made the greatest album of their career.
By all accounts, Exile On Main Street should have been a car crash album. The recording sessions were spread over nearly four years, with occasional tracks put down at Olympic Studios in London, the bulk laid down in the south of France and several songs finished in LA. As a result the album isn’t exactly the most cohesive, with a massive 18 tracks spread over two vinyl discs featuring a vast array of guest musicians, and encompassing everything from blues to country to soul. The record is dirty and loose, with little to no production sheen and certain members of the Stones were in the early stages of a spectacular drug and alcohol binge that would have finished off lesser mortals.
And yet, it’s a widely acclaimed masterpiece. So how the hell did that happen?
Stones In Exile focuses largely on the time that the band spent in Villa Nellcôte in the south of France after they were forced to leave England due to a mammoth tax bill. A cursory scene-setting opening reinforces the fact that the tax bill handed to the band somehow totalled more than the Stones had even earned, leaving them with a choice of either bankruptcy or exile – so they packed their bags and off they went, taking their shambolic rock n roll circus with them.
The film’s staggering amount of footage and photos of the Stones at work (and play) are a joy to behold. It’s an oddly immersive experience that almost gives you the feeling you are at the villa. When the Stones are in the basement jamming a new song, you feel like you’re right there with them. The dark, damp walls practically ooze from the screen courtesy of French photographer Dominique Tarle’s stunning snapshots. The stunning live footage (largely drawn from the film Ladies & Gentlemen… The Rolling Stones) is also a real treat, bringing to life the intensity that no other band has EVER brought to a stage before or since the heyday of the Rolling Stones.
Narration is provided by the various protagonists in the Exile story as they tell their own tale, with all of the Stones (including Taylor and Wyman) and other crucial figures on board, including (amongst others) record exec Marshall Chess, producer Jimmy Miller, photographer Dominique Tarle, Anita Pallenberg and saxophonist Bobby Keys. The lack of talking head scenes in the film gives Stones In Exile an autobiographical tone, rather than an investigatory one, and some of the stories are gems (Jagger’s wedding and Wyman’s Brit Abroad rant about the lack of Birds custard and PG Tips is hilarious), making this perhaps the most personal of all Stones films.
Some of the more sensational and particularly dark details of the various Rolling Stone escapades are overlooked, perhaps at the behest one or two members of the band who were integral in the making of the film or perhaps because they simply weren’t true (many of the myths that were birthed at Nellcôte have been denied by the band in the past, so it’s no wonder that they don’t address them directly here). The only really glaring omission is that Gram Parsons, who stayed at the Villa, proved a terrible influence and was then asked to leave, is not mentioned once in the film at all.
But this documentary isn’t the story of who did what to whom and what they took while they did it. The drugs are mentioned but not necessarily dwelled upon. "There was cocaine, a lot of joints. If you're living a decadent life, there is always darkness there. But, at this point, this was the moment of grace. This was before the darkness, the sunrise before the sunset," says Jake Weber, who was nine when his family was invited to stay at the Villa. Bobby Keys avoids such poeticism "Hell, yeah, there was some pot around, there was some whiskey bottles around, there was scantily clad women. Hell, it was rock'n'roll!"
And that’s Exile On Main Street in a nutshell. It is the incarnation of everything great about rock n roll – it’s raucous and loose, joyous and soulful, while sex and drugs pour out of every single second of the 67 minute, 18 track double album. This was Keith Richards’ soul come forth as a long player – and it’s undeniably Richards’ record, as Charlie Watts attests in Stones in Exile “…play it 20 times, marinade, play it another 20 times. He knows what he likes, but he's very loose." Or, as Keys once again beautifully surmises, it was "about as unrehearsed as a hiccup".
Stones In Exile may not be the exhaustive examination of the band’s time in Nellcôte, but what it does do with some extraordinary success is remind you of why you love Exile On Main Street and why it is such a special record. If you can watch this film and NOT want to go and immediately listen to Exile then, frankly, you’re just not right in the head.
Stones in Exile is on BBC1 at 10.30pm on Sunday 16 May and is released on DVD later in the year through Eagle Rock.
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