In his 1968 film “The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus,” director Michael Lindsay-Hogg takes the observational mode of making a documentary film to its extremes in presenting timeless moments while maintaining such a disciplined detachment from the events that the viewer is left feeling both appreciation and guilt that Lindsay-Hogg went to such lengths to perfect the one event that summed up in its greatness the spirit of the late sixties. Though Lindsay-Hogg’s expertise in unobtrusive documentary filmmaking and his large role in crafting the film is immediately apparent, the man most responsible for the triumph of this film is the lead singer of the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger. The film doesn’t necessarily rely on cause-and-effect logic which causes a certain unevenness to rear its head infrequently within the film, but what does make it classify as a narrative documentary is its presentation of its subjects, all of whom seem like characters, Jagger being the ring-leader, and, fittingly, bearing the dress of a ringmaster. Throughout the film, Jagger’s presence is so great that, were he to be the only man on camera during the film’s entire duration, he would be capable of referring the viewer not just to a satisfying story but also to a complex reality, thus creating the powerful narrative documentary he had hoped for simply by being himself.
The ambitious project was originally conceived by Jagger as a way of branching out from conventional records and concert performances. Jagger approached Lindsay-Hogg, who had directed two promos for Stones songs, to make a full-length TV show for them. According to Lindsay-Hogg, the idea of combining music and circus came to him when he was having a hard time trying to come up with ideas; he drew a circle on a piece of paper and free-associated. Hogg’s idiosyncratic intermingling of different modes of documentary filmmaking was a perfect match for Jagger’s well known intermingling of rock, blues, and rhythm and blues music. It is crucial to add, however, that this film never aired and it took 28 years for it to finally be released to the public. While shooting the film, the event was plagued with numerous technical difficulties and the setting up of equipment between acts became time-consuming and a serious problem. By the time the Stones took the stage, it was almost 5 A.M. the following morning (filming began at 2 P.M.)
Hours before the Stones’ performance, the Who performed their rock-opera “A Quick One While He’s Away,” to the delight of screaming fans who hailed their showmanship as, far and away, the best thus far. As one of the first acts of the show and fresh off a tour, complete with an introduction from a cigar-chewing Keith Richards, this was unavoidable. Though this is where the complex reality brought forth from Jagger is made apparent. Rumor had it that Jagger felt his performance was subpar and they were vastly upstaged by the Who, so no one would ever see the film. This is vastly in Jagger’s favor as, for a man who conceived the event, brought all of these acts together, introduced the event, kept careful watch over his then-girlfriend Marianne Faithfull (who also performed on the show), staged skits with John Lennon, performed a flawless six-song set list complete with moments of impromptu audience participation, among countless other things, to still hold this level of excessive glory as not to your standards shows the makings of what the Rolling Stones can rightfully claim as their legacy.
In contrast to a similar documentary film that was released around the same time, D.A. Pennebaker’s “Don’t Look Back,” the main subject of this film transcends everyone around him in a gloriously self-confident and expressive way. Jagger is not even the sole centerpiece of this film, a big part, yes, but the film revolves around his whole band. Bob Dylan, on the other hand, is the centerpiece of “Don’t Look Back,” though he comes across as an uneducated, hateful buffoon who surrounds himself with sycophants and a manager filled with just as much bile as Dylan. Dylan’s surroundings are the stuff of Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno,” very much in contrast to Jagger’s environment where to preside grandly, as the Stones do, over everyone is to be Augustus during the Pax Romana.
In this regard, again proving my point, editing is not the cinematic technique that offers the documentary filmmaker the greatest influence over the material. Neither the static camera nor the long take are needed to strongly connote the idea that the viewer is an invisible observer watching events unfold. To paraphrase Godard, “All a filmmaker needs for a movie is Mick Jagger.” This is true in the case of Robert Frank, Nicolas Roeg, Jean-Luc Godard, the Maysles Brothers, and, most recently, Martin Scorsese. The masters of late 20th/early 21st century photography, experimental film, existential film, documentary film, and narrative film all made arguably their best work because of this man, the raison d'être of “The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus.” The film is a showcase for his polished, taunting performance style and shows why his rock-and-roll bravado has lasted so extravagantly for almost 50 years.
