Cocksucker Blues (1972)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Don't Believe the Hype

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

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.

The film is excellent, is uncensored, but with good breeding. That was the real life not only of the Rolling Stones, but of 90% of hippies in that period. In this film you can see the Glory of those golden years! Rolling Stones was not release this film officially, easy to figure out why! All rock stars are doing the same thing backstage, not only the Rolling Stones; When you're bored, Sex, drugs & Rock'N'Roll is the solution... The Rolling Stones had enough courage to put it on film! After seeing this movie, I've been thinking at "Fire and Loathing in Las Vegas" :) "Cocksucker Blues" was the title of a song Mick Jagger wrote to be the Stones' final single for Decca Records, as per their contract, but the track was refused by Decca and only released later on a West German compilation in 1983, although the compilation was discontinued and re-released without the song. You can find the lyrics of this track on the Internet, and you will see why Decca Records refused it... Of all the tours the Rolling Stones have made across North America, the 1972 tour is still remembered as the most outrageous, most provocative, most inventive musical outing the fab five from London ever performed. The film was shot cinéma vérité, with several cameras, making it a real masterpiece of those times. If you like real music, you must see this !

I like the Stones older music, not so much in love with the dudes that I would defend them though. This movie starts good, or fair enough. I didn't mind initial scenes of excess-- was to be expected from what I had already heard about the film...Problem; heroin taking, groupy fondling, and much of the gabbing wasn't done by the Stones but by some dude, who knows who the hell he was, who was enjoying the excess. So I have to agree with Mick and the gang, this movie's exploitive in that it features them, and keeps cutting to some scumbag getting his kicks from the attention he got out of association. Not my bag.The Stones are stoned, who cares. Best line, when Mick is messing with some 16MM cameras and looks up at the documentarian, in a very stoned out scene, saying 'Do you wear the same socks everyday?'Worst is the scene that looks like something out of a Bucky Beaver 8MM porn stag film... Don't worry ma, I didn't see anything because obviously they hadn't invented razors back then...Rent "Give Me Shelter" instead (if you haven't seen it on DVD.) Trust me, if you were missing out I'd tell you.

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.