The Rolling Stones in COCKSUCKER BLUES (1972)

COCKSUCKER BLUES
(1972)

directed by Robert Frank

THE ROLLING STONES
THE 1972 TOUR OF DEBAUCHERY

Stones '72 tour exposed - With the release of their definitive album Exile on Main Street, the Stones
sought to document their own burgeoning celebrity and self-mythology by hiring renowned photographer /
filmmaker Robert Frank (known for his documentary study of madness Me and My Brother as well as the
brilliant cover photography for Exile itself). The resulting movie was at once so dreamy and harsh -- crowded
with scenes of the Stones nodding out, roadies balling groupies, and assorted tour hangers-on shooting up --
that the band refused to permit its release. Eventually Frank secured right to screen it once a year, but it
has only appeared on video in bootleg form. - Marshall Crenshaw, Hollywood Rock

After having the debacle of Altamont caught on film in the fascinating documentary "Gimme Shelter" (1970),
shrinking-violet Mick Jagger commissioned a film of the Rolling Stones 1972 U.S. Tour. Photographer
Robert Frank got the nod as director, and took a much artier approach to filming the Stones on stage and off.
Footage of drug consumption, (staged) orgies and a decidedly non-commercial title prevented "Cocksucker Blues"
from getting an official release. But it's long been widely-available on video as a bootleg.

Perhaps Franks' relative inexperience as a director is the culprit here. The film never gains any momentum
and we never see past the band's public pose. One striking detail that emerges in the film is the deepening
of Keith Richards' drug problem in the interim (1969-1972) between concert documentaries. We see Richards
nod-off backstage at a show and the beginnings of the massive wear-and-tear on his haggard face today.
The film would've benefited from more live footage of the band instead of the endless scenes of the Stones
killing time between gigs. By 1972, their decline as a live band had begun, but having said that,
they still were capable of scattered moments of brilliance. - Retro-Rocket.com

Excerpt from Robert Frank interview with BorderCrossings magazine, 1997

BC: I’ve got a question about Cocksucker Blues. Those scenes on the plane are pretty wild and it occurs to me
that some of them were orchestrated. Were they set up or were you just present as a documentarian?

RF: They really didn’t want me to make the film. They enjoyed having us around but not to film. I was with my friend
Danny and he had good connections for dope, much better than they had. And at one point I said to him nothing ever
happens on these plane trips. It would be nice to have something happen.

BC: So you were a director then, not just a shadow?

RF: That was one of the few things I said in all the time we spent on the plane. When the film came out the
Stones agreed not to cut anything, although I had to cut some things with the officials from the record company.
That’s what adds up; your experiences. Making a film is an experience really; more so than going
around photographing. Making a film is a real trip.

Because of a bizarre court order, Robert Frank’s legendary Rolling Stones documentary is the most
underground of all underground films: it literally can’t be shown unless the director is present at the screening,
and even then with much legal difficulty. This makes such screenings more precious than a layman’s chance
to see the insides of a Mormon church. No wonder the single showing of the film was a complete sellout at
this year’s San Francisco Film Festival. Incredibly, Cocksucker Blues lives up to all of the hype and anticipation.
It may be the best movie ever made about rock and roll. The film offers an unflinching look at the side of rockstardom
that was touched only glancingly in movies like "Don’t Look Back"and "The Last Waltz." Many
of the antics of the badboy Stones are not as shocking to us today as they may have been when the film was
first made, but what’s ultimately so special about this documentary is that it hasn’t dated a day. Robert Frank
has a knack for exposing the cheap and degrading dullness and the desparate boredom of the day-to-day
touring life for all involved. - Film Threat Weekly

According to Ginsberg in From New York to Nova Scotia, immediately after a private screening of
Cocksucker Blues, Mick turned to Frank and told him, "It's a fucking good film, Robert, but if it shows
in America we'll never be allowed in the country again." Jagger, I suspect, wasn't so much afraid of the
film's lurid and potentially incriminating images -- the heroin use, Jagger masturbating, or even the extended
sequence of questionably consensual group sex with a reluctant groupie at 30,000 feet (after all, this was
rock and roll) -- what Mick probably found most disturbing was the bleak and accurate portrait of the
obvious despair and loneliness of life on the road. Frank's obsession with pursuing truth destroyed
the illusion of glamour for the world's most famous rock and roll band.

The Stones took Frank to court to prevent the film's distribution. It became, legally, a question of who
owned the film, the artist who created it or the patron who paid for it. A split decision of sorts was finally
worked out. The film, the judge decreed, could only be screened if Robert Frank himself was present
in the audience. By then, the filmmaker was living a reclusive life in Nova Scotia.
The film was effectively banned. - SFBG Film