You either get the Rolling Stones or you don’t. I’ve always had a problem with their posturing, their studied rock’n’roll archness, and the sense that Jagger was akin to a softly spoken RADA graduate who suddenly adopted a reedy Harlem whine and a bad-ass troubadour persona whenever he mounted the stage.

Shine a Light, however, Martin Scorsese’s recording of the band’s 2006 charity concert in New York’s relatively intimate Beacon Theatre, is a revelation. It begins with a brief black and white pregig preamble that tries to establish a tongue-in-cheek tension between Jagger and Scorsese – the latter needs the set list to plan his camera moves, while the former is apparently refusing to supply it.

When the Stones, introduced by Bill Clinton, eventually charge on to the stage, everything changes. The movie turns to colour, and Scorsese’s nine different cameras, some roving, some embedded, pick out the band in often harrowing detail. This is disturbing at first. As the sixtysomething foursome charge through early numbers about hot sexy women and tough love encounters, they look like X-rays with wigs, or ancient marionettes tottering around in bug-eyed delirium.

Yet three or four songs in, the music takes over, and they become, well, possessed. It’s particularly sweet to watch Keith Richards beam with orgasmic joy as he rams his guitar up against Charlie Watts’s drum kit. And by the time they get to Jagger’s delicate rendition of As Tears Go By they’ve reached strange poetic heights. Here he sings, with startling tenderness, about children “doing things I used to do/They think are new/ I sit and watch/As tears go by.” As he does, Scorsese’s camera slowly caresses his old and crumpled face, the reality of his age becomes something more than an ironic joke, and the movie becomes something sublime.

12A, 122mins

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