"COCKSUCKER BLUES"
(Dir. Robert Frank/Daniel Seymour)
This film, produced by Marshall Chess, has never been afforded an official release. (This may be partly due to it's title, but is probably mainly down to the fact that it is extremely ordinary.) Even when it was first distributed, it could be seen only under strict license, at late night showings in members-only clubs, and even then it had to carry the title "CS Blues". The DVD pictured here was acquired in 2004, and appears to be a bootleg of a bootleg, as it's source is clearly a VHS tape. Snowy tracking lines are abundant during the first 20 minutes or so and the tape seems to be threatening to snap at a couple of points. All in all, though it's watchable and listenable.
The film itself, it has to be said, has not aged well. It presents itself as positively juvenile at times in it's attempts to 'shock'. Even though it is now common knowledge that much of the 'decadence' portrayed by the film was carefully staged, the viewer might still have been able to forgive this had it not still have all looked so uninteresting. Producer Marshall Chess was probably using the Maysles brothers' "Gimme Shelter" as a benchmark (as indeed it is, in cinema verite) but if he reckoned that in the absence of the chaos, calamity and brutality that presented itself to the Maysles cameras in 1969 he could pad this picture out with scenes of himself and many other unremarkable people taking recreational drugs and talking at indescribably tedious length about the taking of recreational drugs, lots of 'risque' imagery (man grabs crotch. woman with no clothes on etc) and the like then he was quite wrong.
There is much worthwhile material, of the Stones themselves in conversation, preparing for showtime etc; of the sharp end of the logistics of undertaking a big tour and of course, on stage. The footage of the band playing live are among the few segments of "Cocksucker Blues" which are in colour, with the rest being in fairly grainy mono. This may or may not have been the inspiration for U2's 'legendary' tour film "Rattle And Hum", but who cares?
As a collector, I hankered after a copy of this picture for years, and after procuring it found myself massively disappointed at having wasted so much hankering. Any future 'official' release for it is surely doubtful, but given that such a release would probably have to be on the authority of Abkco, can not be entirely ruled out.
(Dir. Robert Frank/Daniel Seymour)
This film, produced by Marshall Chess, has never been afforded an official release. (This may be partly due to it's title, but is probably mainly down to the fact that it is extremely ordinary.) Even when it was first distributed, it could be seen only under strict license, at late night showings in members-only clubs, and even then it had to carry the title "CS Blues". The DVD pictured here was acquired in 2004, and appears to be a bootleg of a bootleg, as it's source is clearly a VHS tape. Snowy tracking lines are abundant during the first 20 minutes or so and the tape seems to be threatening to snap at a couple of points. All in all, though it's watchable and listenable.
The film itself, it has to be said, has not aged well. It presents itself as positively juvenile at times in it's attempts to 'shock'. Even though it is now common knowledge that much of the 'decadence' portrayed by the film was carefully staged, the viewer might still have been able to forgive this had it not still have all looked so uninteresting. Producer Marshall Chess was probably using the Maysles brothers' "Gimme Shelter" as a benchmark (as indeed it is, in cinema verite) but if he reckoned that in the absence of the chaos, calamity and brutality that presented itself to the Maysles cameras in 1969 he could pad this picture out with scenes of himself and many other unremarkable people taking recreational drugs and talking at indescribably tedious length about the taking of recreational drugs, lots of 'risque' imagery (man grabs crotch. woman with no clothes on etc) and the like then he was quite wrong.
There is much worthwhile material, of the Stones themselves in conversation, preparing for showtime etc; of the sharp end of the logistics of undertaking a big tour and of course, on stage. The footage of the band playing live are among the few segments of "Cocksucker Blues" which are in colour, with the rest being in fairly grainy mono. This may or may not have been the inspiration for U2's 'legendary' tour film "Rattle And Hum", but who cares?
As a collector, I hankered after a copy of this picture for years, and after procuring it found myself massively disappointed at having wasted so much hankering. Any future 'official' release for it is surely doubtful, but given that such a release would probably have to be on the authority of Abkco, can not be entirely ruled out.
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