At The Max

At The Max

It could have been foreseen that the Rolling Stones the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world, according to themselves would join forces with the IMAX format, which is undoubtedly the greatest movie format of all time. What they came up with is “At the Max,” which stands as the most impactful concert film ever made. I don’t mean it’s the best film about a concert; there are better ones (like “Woodstock”). But no other music film I’ve seen has so completely inundated my eyes and ears or pulled me into a rock concert.

If you’ve been to Museum of Science and Industry (where this movie opens today), or any of those other museums or tourist centers that sound a little like Disneyland and include an IMAX theater for educational purposes, you know what this format is like: The screen is four stories high, give or take; it occupies your field of vision entirely (some people even get vertigo); and there are speakers blaring sound from every corner of where you’re sitting a whisper sounds like God’s message.

The image itself is both gigantic and crystal clear, projected from special 70mm film. It looks real life-size because it practically fills your whole field of vision. My first experience at an IMAX was seeing “Antarctica,” where we went inside icebergs, but I’ve also traveled through space with NASA. There was one bad movie at Polynesian Cultural Center that had sort of a condescending view toward Pacific islanders. No matter what it’s about, an IMAX film always startles visually.

And now here come the Stones (“At the Max”), recorded and filmed in IMAX during their 1990 tour. The whole show’s here; most reels are limited to 40 minutes because they’re too cumbersome for projectors to handle much more than that before changing over, but this one is double length, with an intermission.

The impact you get from seeing this film is better than being at a Stones concert. It’s like being up there with the Stones, except even one of them wouldn’t have such a view the cameras cut across the huge stage from side to side and provide cigarette closeups of Bill Wyman (we can even count ‘em). The cigarettes, not Wyman.

Julien Temple (“The Great Rock and Roll Swindle”) shot the movie with several of those big IMAX cameras. He has edited it together so that it preserves concert impact rather than tries to upstage it. Some of his most important shots are taken from way back in the arena, so we can see what a massive thing a modern rock concert is around 50,000 people or more; others are so close we get four-story closeups of Mick Jagger’s lips or Keith Richards’ fingers.

But for the most part Temple keeps his camera far enough back to let us see full body lengths and preserve our sanity about how enormous these people really are (and besides, we might be too mesmerized by their clothes).

The Mick Jagger’s physical and psychological energy as a performer is what sticks with you after any Stones concert, whether live or on film. In this movie, the camera follows him as he scales scaffolding to sing 100 feet above the stage, or when he does a weird duet with enormous inflatable dolls. (Those mildly suggestive dolls, and the language, gave the movie an R rating; but most teenagers won’t hear anything they haven’t already heard.)

What’s eerie about IMAX is that it takes such passages and makes them both performance and documentary. They work as part of the show, but because the screen is so large and the picture so clear, we also feel like part of the experience; no other movie has communicated so well what it must feel like to be a rock star.

Do I have to write about the music? There are few surprises; this is your basic Stones concert. Many of the Stones standards are here, and some new songs, and they sound great coming through those big surround speakers. But it’s not really about music; it’s about going to the movies.

In the computer world they talk about “virtual reality,” a kind of cyberspace in which computers would take over what we see, hear and feel, so that we could have sensations of experiences without actually having them. “At The Max” is a rock concert brought close to virtual reality.

Watch At The Max For Free On Gomovies.