Rockumentaries are hardly the first -- or perhaps even third -- association that leaps to mind when you think of Martin Scorsese.
Still, in a recent interview, the director explained why he chose to follow up the critical and commercial success of 2006's Oscar-winning "The Departed" with "Shine a Light" -- the "ultimate Rolling Stones concert film" about the "world's greatest rock 'n' roll band," according to PR hype.
"I never saw any reason why not," Scorsese said. "So that question never came to mind."
Scorsese is part of a small group of acclaimed narrative feature directors who have chosen to tackle rock documentaries despite possessing a filmic skill set more suited to big-budget studio fare than showcasing fiery guitar solos and lighters-aloft audience rapture.
Oscar-winning "The Silence of the Lambs" director Jonathan Demme's filmography includes two rockumentaries: "Stop Making Sense," the Talking Heads' seminal 1984 concert movie (which was responsible for making lead singer David Byrne's exaggeratedly oversized suit one of the "Me" decade's most identifiable cultural touchstones) and "Neil Young: Heart of Gold," which documents the premiere of songs from the rocker's "Prairie Wind" album and debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006.
Demme explained the thrill he gets from filming live music in an interview with The Times two years ago: "There's something very pure about it, you don't have to do another take to make it realer."
At first glance, Peter Bogdanovich -- the Oscar-nominated writer-director responsible for the 1971 coming-of-age drama "The Last Picture Show," widely considered one of the defining films of its era -- might seem like a weird choice to direct a "Behind the Music"-style retrospective documentary about a rock icon.
But "Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream," Bogdanovich's four-hour documentary, establishes his true-blue rockumentarian bona fides. To get the necessary coverage, the director (most recognizable these days as an actor courtesy of his recurring role as Dr. Elliot Kupferberg, Dr. Melfi's meddlesome psychotherapist on "The Sopranos") spent most of 2006 on the road with the Florida rock stars and interviewing other musicians.
It helps to think of these celebrated moviemakers as following a reverse of the career arc traveled by directors such as Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry, indie auteurs who earned their stripes making music videos for the likes of Bjork, Daft Punk and -- in Gondry's case -- the Rolling Stones.
