Marking the 50^th anniversary of the formation of The Rolling Stones, Brett Morgen’s illuminating documentary CROSSFIRE HURRICANE both commemorates and studies their extraordinary legacy. Compiling a wealth of rare and often unseen archive materials, ranging from newsreels, personally filmed backstage videos and a host of live performance footage, Morgen has sculpted a loving tribute to a milestone of British rock music, taking an insightful and evocative approach to the genre.

…  a certain percentage of the public saw them as catalysts for social and civil unrest …

Collaborating with the band, Morgen has created a timely and inspiring distillation of The Rolling Stones’ illustrious and eventful fifty-year tenure, and the film explores the lows as well as the highs, ranging from the premature death of original band member Brian Jones, Keith Richards’ frequent run-ins with the police, and the band’s questionable reputation as anti-establishment rabble-rousers. It is perhaps here that CROSSFIRE HURRICANE finds its most interesting groove. Charged with inspiring a counter-cultural movement in both England and, subsequently, wherever their infectious success took them, the Stones were lambasted by a certain percentage of the public who saw them as nothing more than catalysts for social and civil unrest. Their dizzyingly lively concert performances, in particular the disastrous events at their self-organised free festival on the Altamont Speedway, sparked disorder and casual mayhem in their wake.

Yet, with their shaggy hair and unconventional looks, The Stones were carelessly typecast as the unkempt bad guy counterparts to The Beatles’ sleek and sunny white knights. An excellent juxtaposition of the band’s rebellious attitude with British culture comes in the form of an expertly pieced together montage of their activities and the fans they so enthralled, cut together with a number of advertisements that outline the supposed ideals of domesticity and the nuclear family.

… well educated men who know exactly what they want and how to amass their talents to get it …

Never letting their ostracism from certain distinguished figures get in the way of consistently producing record after record, The Rolling Stones only intermittently became prey to the lure of their profession, letting drugs, sex and booze cloud their better judgement. The best thing about Morgen’s film is that it paints them as intelligent and very well educated men who know exactly what they want, and how to amass their talents to get it. The spine of the film is a series of interviews with the current band members set in the present. Morgen was not, for whatever reason, allowed to film them: only to record their voices. This produces a series of unadulterated sequences where the blackness of the screen gives the audience a break from the gloriously flashy havoc and allows us to fully comprehend and listen to the pain, the joy and the fulfilment expressed in their voices.

Rarely conveying anything particularly new about the band, as it inescapably sketches over large portions of the band’s foundations, CROSSFIRE HURRICANE is a reflection and celebration of their justified success. Just like the lyrics from which the film takes its title, they were born into a hurricane of incongruity and fervent popularity. Yet as the finale (and a recently announced comeback tour) suggests, this band fully deserves whatever merit one throws at them, as does Morgen, whose film is a gas.

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