It was a surprise to see this on Australian TV. It was unheralded but worth staying up late to see the way that the chaos of Keith Richards life was translated into an album of rare if unself-conscious depth. I am constantly amazed by how good the Stones look in retrospect compared to many of their contemporaries. I think Keith is the key to much of it but the link between his ideas and Charlie Watts drums and Bill Wyman's bass playing is another factor that is highlighted here. Mick Jagger's casual admission of the cut and paste way that the lyrics flowed together is another revelation. Mick Taylor's input is of course a highlight. I would have enjoyed seeing him jam with the the other band members for a contemporary take on a couple of the songs.I was particularly intrigued to hear the out-take of a song called Exile On Main Street at the end of the film. It seems to be a pastiche of bits of lyrics from other songs on the album.A delightful peek into a world we all wanted to be part of back in the heady days of the early 70's and into an album that is dense with unexpected rhythms and marvellous slide and saxophone work and a great series of lyrics, made from the detritus of the Stones love affair with America.The comments made by the band members and hangers on for this 2010 film are worth the price of admission. The Stones now seem to be able to poke fun at their youthful excess and their more preposterous behaviour and all without a taste of regret or pomposity.

Great band. Great album. Mediocre documentary.This is a patchwork of stills, video, and voice overs looking at the iconic album Exile on Main Street.The beginning was excellent staging the setting of how the Stones were forced out of England due to tax issues. Taking up residence in the South of France would lead them to cut this great album.But that is when the documentary began to drift. The story was cut with lots of recreations. Truly. Grainy black and white video with actors who are supposed to resemble the Stones are frequently cut in.What I would like to have seen (heard) is more music. Seriously.Perhaps gathering the band together, not scattered as they were (save Mick and Charlie) would have permitted more dialogue and insight into the creative process.

Before a recent showing on UK television, a BBC warning was read out: Warning, this film contains repetitive flashing images. You bet it does. This somewhat sanitised version of the story of "Exile" is worth seeing for Dominic Tarle's '70s period Stones footage and pics, but these are inter cut with modern footage shot in excruciating wobbly hand-held camera mode and edited with such quick fire dizziness that one might be watching 1980s "youth TV" all over again. Ugh. Example: Mick and Charlie briefly visit the defunct Olympic Studios in London and have a wander around, but the footage is deliberately badly shot so you can't actually see anything past Mick's ear. And the two old geezers barely remember being there, so they have nothing to say either. Nearly everybody then whines on for about an hour about how awful it was back then (yeah right). It's also worth noting that (probably sensibly) the current owners of Keef's villa refused permission for modern-day filming, so we don't actually see Nellcote either.

Stones in Exile (2010) *** (out of 4) Nice documentary covering The Rolling Stones' 1972 album EXILE ON MAIN STREET, which today is considered one of the greatest albums ever made. We learn that the "exile" in the title was very appropriate as we learn the Stones were pretty much forced to get out of Britain due to the high taxes they were having to pay, which pretty much left them broke. We learn that they took their families to France where they began work on the album. This documentary is pretty much hit and miss but in the end there are enough good moments to make it worth viewing for fans. One part of the good news is that it contains footage from their CO**SUCKER BLUES documentary, which up to this point had only been available from bootleggers. The footage here looks a lot better than we've seen before so hopefully an official release of that will come at some point (even if the film is pretty bad). We also get some footage from LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER, another true gem that needs to be released. We also get about fifteen-minutes or so of new footage with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Billy Wyman and Mick Taylor looking back on this period. We even get to see Jagger revisit the location of where the album was recorded. The biggest problem with the film is that it only runs 45-minutes so there's not too much footage here and one really hopes that at some point an extended edition comes out. The documentary starts and ends with a few thoughts from various fans including Martin Scorsese, Sheryl Crow, Benicio Del Toro, Will i Am and various others.