Stones In Exile
Director: Stephen Kijak
151 minutes, 2010
"Stones In Exile" is a 2010 documentary film about the recording of the 1972 "The Rolling Stones" album "Exile on Main Street" Directed by "Stephen Kijak".
In the spring of 1971 "The Rolling Stones" departed the UK to take up residence in France as tax exiles. "Keith Richards" settled at a villa called Nellcôte in Villefranche-sur-Mer and this became the venue for the recording of much of the band s masterpiece "Exile On Main Street". "Stones In Exile" tells the story in the band's own words and through extensive archive footage of their time away from England and the creation of this extraordinary double album, which many regard as "The Rolling Stones" finest achievement.
It simply concerns itself with a band that was almost at the point of implosion.
Instead there was an explosion of Rock and roll.


The group would go down to the basement at the villa "Keith Richards" had rented to put together the album that would become "Exile On Main Street".
In the movie "Mick Jagger" suggested that after six months the wild living and drug taking got a bit out of hand and they were spent.
But the crazy behaviour led to what many now regard as a musical masterpiece.
The album has been re-evaluated time and again and it's considered the group's best.
Although there's a poignant moment from Richards when he talks in the film about how he initially started taking drugs, 'to hide from fame'.
He added: "With a hit of smack, I could walk through anything and not give a damn".
He wasn't advocating the use of heavy drugs, rather giving a sense of how the demon narcotics dug into him personally.
The film consists of old footage and hundreds of black and white still photographs taken while the Stones were in residence in Nice, plus recent interviews with the Stones.

Remarkably, considering all the illegal substances they admit taking at the time, their recollections are pretty coherent.
"Stones In Exile" has contributions from all the band members who were involved in making the album plus "Martin Scorsese", "Jack White", "Don Was", "Caleb Followill" ("Kings Of Leon"), "Benicio Del Toro", "Will.I.Am" ("Black Eyed Peas"), "Sheryl Crow", "Anita Pallenberg", "Ronnie Wood", producer "Jimmy Miller", engineer "Andy Johns", photographer "Dominique Tarlé" and sax player "Bobby Keys" all share what Exile means to them.