Cocksucker Blues (1972)

Saw this movie last night in Toronto at TIFF and can well see why this film had a court restriction attached to it back then. This film could have done serious damage to their tours. From what I have read, cameras were left for anyone to pickup and film whenever and whatever which can explain how some of these scenes were taken. Considering this film was made just a few years after Brian Jones's death due to drugs this fact obviously didn't make much of an impact on anyone. Movie is shaky and loud at times and dialogue not clear but you take it for what it is ... a piece of music history.

I really liked this movie, I think it works on many levels, and the fact that it has many levels is itself interesting. It neither analyzes, glamorizes, or de-glamorizes anyone. It's a fly-on-the-wall. It's nonlinear and linear. Linear in the sense that it follows both the tour and playlist, at the same time. Non-linear in that no storyline is imposed and no agenda or imposed concept. And the editing is phenomenal, interweaving color and b/w, and sound from one scene into and out of another. The sound editing especially, the switch from the mayhem outside the concert to the silence of walking across the tarmac to border the plane was great.I would have loved to hear more about what happened in Montreal and what happened to Leroy, but that would have destroyed the basic idea of the film, and I'm sure there must have been more stories worthy of expansion.This film, to me, is not some much about the Rolling Stones, but more about a phenomena, and the real people that live it through.

As an artifact of rock n' roll in the 70's this film is hard to beat. . The movie demystifies the band - Mick, Keith etc. seem extremely ordinary going about the day to day drudgery of being on tour. As far as the music goes this was the band at their peak both live and on record. I didn't realize what a good country/blues piano player Keith is. There are also a couple of interesting moments showing both Jagger and Richards composing. Visually, director Frank's purpose seems to be to re-create the pictorial equivalent of a heroin trip. The film is an at times almost unwatchable series of grainy images, disembodied voices muttering banalities, and freakish distorted faces. The in-famous sex/rape (?) of the groupies on the plane accompanied by the Stones playing cabalistic percussion says a lot about the attitude the group took to the various women who flocked to them. It is disgusting/haunting/ and comical all at the same time. Tough viewing but essential for any fan of rock music.

An East Village guitar-store owner sold me a bootleg copy of this legendary Robert Frank documentary, which was suppressed by its subjects, the Rolling Stones. Full of arty effects and stony, fragmentative editing, the movie intermittently fascinates in its depiction of a day in the life of the Stones--a life that alternates between massive, almost unthinkable amounts of ego-gratification, and routine, torpid, everyday boredom. The intent seems to be an anthropological portrait of the habits of visiting alien gods: the Stones are made both otherworldly-regal and incalculably drab. Because of the scenes of groupie-shagging and substance abuse, Frank was forced to credit the Stones as "playing characters" in the end credits (if memory serves, Keith Richards plays "Pizza Delivery Man"), and the picture is available to be screened, by Mick-generated court order, only when Frank is present.