Scorsese & the STONES

While he was growing up in New York's Little Italy, Martin Scorsese recalls, the neighbourhood record players and jukeboxes sang the soundtrack to his life. As he wandered from street to street, he'd hear the skittering sounds of swing, the sighing notes of a sweet-tempered ballad, and the rich wailing tones of opera.
For Scorsese, however, it was the sound of the blues in all its varieties that appealed most of all. "The whole thing was like a series of mini concerts," he sighs, "and I loved to hear the Rolling Stones. The sound of their music, the chords, the vocals, the entire feel inspired me greatly and became a basis for most of the work I've done in my movies, going from Mean Streets to Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Casino. The nature of the music is timeless, for me."
Indeed, the Rolling Stones have entranced Scorsese for so long that the 65-year-old director suggests that he has been filming the band for the past 40 years ("This is the only Scorsese film that doesn't contain our track Gimme Shelter," jokes Mick Jagger), and the culmination of that experience has now been rendered as a single two-hour movie, Shine a Light.