There had been other dark tinges to the film library. The "Rock and Roll Circus" (recorded in 1968 but not released until 1996), directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, turned out to be a grim time capsule as the last public performance of Stones guitarist Brian Jones. The politically ominous "Sympathy for the Devil" (filmed in 1968 and released in 1970) was beset by a studio fire, the arrest of Jones on drug charges and a dispute between director Jean-Luc Godard and the producer that climaxed with a fistfight at the premiere. Then there was "Let's Spend the Night Together," directed by Hollywood rebel Hal Ashby, who filmed the band in 1981 at Arizona's Sun Devil Stadium and then hours later was wheeled out of the band's hotel on an ambulance gurney after slumping into a drug overdose.

There's certainly reason to presume the shadowy hazards have receded as the band closes in on its fifth decade. In recent years, the Stones (down to the core quartet of Jagger, Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts) have been starring in slick advertisements for mortgage companies and luxury sedans, so the sense of dark hazard is reduced significantly.

Don't try telling that to Scorsese, who has a longtime romance for the encoded menace and vamping decadence of the Stones songbook. The director has used Stones music to great effect as a backdrop to scenes in "The Departed," "GoodFellas" and "Casino," and he jumped at a chance to film them.

Producer Victoria Pearman said the director quickly seized on the opportunity to add the Stones to his recent suite of music documentaries. Scorsese had the 2005 success of "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan" for PBS and, in 2003, the seven-part PBS series "Martin Scorsese Presents: The Blues."

(Scorsese was not available for interviews, his representatives said, because of the work schedule for his next feature film, "Ashecliffe," an adaptation of author Dennis Lehane's "Shutter Island" that is due in theaters next year.)

The Stones certainly knew Scorsese could make a concert film -- he was the auteur behind arguably the greatest concert film of them all, "The Last Waltz," the farewell show by the Band recorded in San Francisco on Thanksgiving 1976. This made Richards especially eager to work with him while, not surprisingly, Jagger came to an opposite point of view.