NEW YORK — Mick JAGGER, dressed in lean, tailored perfection, was encamped recently in the bright, two-level tower suite atop the Carlyle Hotel on the Upper East Side, where he welcomed a visitor by offering a cup of English breakfast tea. Later that same day, 21 floors lower, Keith Richards greeted the same scribe with a rasping laugh and, with a Marlboro red and skull rings at his fingertips, held up a glass of vodka and orange soda on the rocks. "It's called a nuclear waste. You want one?"

The music industry may be a diminished and uncertain mess this century, but the Rolling Stones, bless 'em, still don't disappoint or stray from the expected iconography; if anything, Richards seems to be going back in time with his pirate curtsy and eternal bluesman leer while Jagger, the whippet-thin rock star who once attended the London School of Economics, is the imperious archduke in full control. When his visitor pointed out that Jagger seems to be single-handedly keeping the Stones together through sheer force of will, the 64-year-old sighed through a smirk. "Oh," he said, "do you think?"

It was in the same room at the Carlyle a few years ago during a bad storm that a skeptical Jagger met with Martin Scorsese and an early production team to discuss the prospects of a concert film. The result is "Shine a Light," which arrives in selected theaters (and on IMAX screens) Friday and may boast the most accomplished team ever assembled to document a rock show. Scorsese brought in Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson ("JFK," "The Aviator") to lead a team of fellow Oscar winners in John Toll, Andrew Lesnie and Robert Elswit, whose collective resume includes "There Will Be Blood," "Braveheart" and the "Lord of the Rings" franchise.

The "Shine a Light" team used swooping cameras to capture the Stones in the intimate confines of the Beacon Theatre, the grand old 2,800-seat palace on Broadway. For the film, the band tears through a 22-song set list with the usual-suspect hits ("Brown Sugar," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Start Me Up"), some surprise excavations (like the rare revisiting of "As Tears Go By" with Richards on acoustic 12-string) and some guest stars (Jack White, Buddy Guy and, oddly, Christina Aguilera).