Shine a Light

Top 10 Fun Facts

1. Director Martin Scorsese chose to create an intimate concert-going experience by filming Shine a Light at New York's Beacon Theater. The "intimate"​ Rolling Stones experience was then shown across the United States on six-story-high IMAX screens.
2. If you look closely at shots of the audience in Shine A Light, you can see a man in a yellow hat - that's Bruce Willis! Nothing like a yellow hat to make you stand out in a crowd... just ask Curious George.
3. Mick Jagger said the Shine a Light concert crowd was not a good one, "nice people but not the kind of audience that is going to stir up a band." Not all 65-year-olds have as much energy as you do, Mick.
4. Martin Scorsese's film Mean Streets was inspired by The Rolling Stones' music. There is no word on Scorsese making a film inspired by Josh Groban's music, called "Nice Streets."
5. Arrrgh you serious? In Shine a Light,​ Rolling Stones' Guitarist Keith Richard wears a trench coat adorned with a pirate pin that was a gift from working on Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Thankfully he left the rest of his pirate costume at home.
6. In 1987, Martin Scorsese directed Michael Jackson's video for "Bad." After that experience, it would take 21 years before Scorsese would venture into directing another music related film, the Rolling Stones' Shine a Light. Is that bad?
7. The MPAA gave Shine a Light a PG-13 rating for brief strong language, drug references, and smoking. It had been edited for the FREQUENT strong language, drug references, and smoking that originally earned the film an R rating.
8. Martin Scorsese is a big Rolling Stones fan, frequently using their music in his films. Since the Stones didn't play the song "Gimme Shelter" during this concert, Mick Jagger remarked that it might be the only Scorsese movie without the song on it's soundtrack.
9. Co-founder of Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegun, suffered a fatal fall backstage during the filming of Shine a Light.​ Keith Richards delicately described the incident, "There we are on stage, rockin', and there he is backstage, croaking."
10. Shine a Light director Martin Scorsese was disappointed he failed to capture on film Rolling Stone Keith Richards' New Jersey airport arrest. The police were not. On a related side-note"...TMZ also missed capturing this footage because their photogs were busy shooting that other legendary music star"...Kevin Federline.

Cast

Crew