Cocksucker Blues

Cocksucker Blues is an unreleased documentary film directed by the still photographer Robert Frank chronicling The Rolling Stones American Tour 1972 in support of their album Exile on Main St.

For the song, see Schoolboy Blues.
Cocksucker Blues
Directed byRobert Frank
Daniel Seymour
Produced byMarshall Chess
StarringThe Rolling Stones
Music byThe Rolling Stones
Edited byRobert Frank
Paul Justman
Susan Steinberg
Release date
1972
Running time
93 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Production

There was much anticipation for the band's arrival in the United States, since they had not visited there since the 1969 disaster at the Altamont Free Concert, in which a fan was stabbed and beaten to death by Hells Angels, with the incident being caught on camera. Behind the scenes, the tour embodied debauchery, lewdness and hedonism.

The film was shot cinéma vérité, with several cameras available for anyone in the entourage to pick up and start shooting. This allowed the film's audience to witness backstage parties, drug use (Mick Taylor is shown smoking marijuana with some roadies and Mick Jagger seen snorting cocaine backstage),[1] roadie and groupie antics, and the Stones with their defenses down.[2] One scene includes a groupie in a hotel room injecting heroin.[3]

Fate

The film came under a court order which forbade it from being shown unless the director, Robert Frank, was physically present.[1][4] This ruling stemmed from the conflict that arose when the band, having commissioned the film, decided that its content was embarrassing and potentially incriminating, and did not want it shown. Frank felt otherwise, hence the ruling.[1][3]

According to Ray Young, "The salty title notwithstanding, its nudity, needles and hedonism was supposedly incriminating and the picture was shelved—this during a liberal climate that saw the likes of Cry Uncle! and Chafed Elbows playing in neighborhood theatres."[5] Deep Throat was released in the same year. A Rolling Stones concert film, Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones, was released instead, and Cocksucker Blues was indefinitely shelved.

The court order in question also enjoined Frank against exhibiting Cocksucker Blues more frequently than four times per year in an "archival setting" with Frank being present.[1][3][6]

The film was screened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on October 3, 2009 (curator Jeff Rosenheim, introducing the movie, mentioned that Robert Frank was "in the building," but pointed out that the building was over two million square feet); the film has also been screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in November 2012 as part of a two-week festival, "The Rolling Stones: 50 Years on Film".[2] The film was also screened November 15, 2013 at the Cleveland Cinematheque.[7] At one point the film was shown multiple times late at night at a Santa Monica, California theatre. In order to discourage attendance, a stink bomb was placed in the ventilation, but the film was shown anyway. The film screened at the Chuck Jones Theater during the 2015 Telluride Film Festival. The film was shown at the Rotterdam, Netherlands 2015 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) as part of a Robert Frank retrospective, with Frank in attendance.

Inevitably, the film was eventually uploaded online for those interested in viewing it.

The fourth section of Don DeLillo's magnum opus, Underworld, is titled Cocksucker Blues. The Stones' song/film is referred to in the narrative of that section.

See also

References
  1. "The Trouble With 'Cocksucker Blues'". Rolling Stone. 3 November 1977. Retrieved 2 June 2013.
  2. Fricke, David (20 November 2012). "The Greatest Rolling Stones Movie You've Never Seen: 'Cocksucker Blues'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2 June 2013.
  3. Doyle, Patrick (26 October 2009). "Rolling Stones' Controversial Tour Documentary "Cocksucker Blues" Screens in New York". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2 June 2013.
  4. "Cocksucker Blues (1972) – Trivia". IMDb. Retrieved 18 December 2016.
  5. Young, Ray (2004). "Cocksucker Blues". Flickhead. Film Review. Archived from the original on 30 September 2015. Retrieved 18 December 2016.
  6. Famous movies that have been banned all over the world. Upbeat website. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
  7. Petkovic, John (15 October 2013). "Scandalous Rolling Stones film '(expletive) Blues' makes rare screening Nov. 15 at Cleveland Cinematheque". Cleveland.com. Retrieved 18 December 2016.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.