Stoned [DVD]

‘Stoned’, with all its nuances, is a good title for this production. Jones is stoned out of his mind throughout most of the proceedings, off his head on drugs, booze, or often on a heady combination of both, by turns incoherent, boorish and aggressive. A second reading of the word relates to his relationship with the tabloid and music press (not good). He was pilloried by it — stoned, in other words. Then of course the third reading of the word, he the original Stone, the founding member of the Stones. He was the greatness of the early Rolling Stones, the multi-instrumentalist blues player who gave the band their swagger long before Jagger and Richards teamed up to write original material. Yet it would be Jagger and Richards who prevailed and endured with the albums of the band’s middle great period — “Beggars Banquet”, “Let it Bleed”, “Sticky Fingers” and “Exile on Main Street”, the last two of which were made without Jones, as he was already dead and buried by 1969, another casualty of the Sixties. Mick and Keith over the long run would prove to be the greatest Stones. One can imagine The Rolling Stones without Brian Jones, but not without Mick and Keith.Plus Brian was never a songwriter. He couldn’t do it. These lines from Wikipedia:“In 1995, Mick Jagger told Rolling Stone magazine that Jones had been jealous of the Jagger/Richards songwriting team, and added: ‘To be honest, Brian had no talent for writing songs. None. I've never known a guy with less talent for songwriting.’”What he had were good looks, swagger and mystique. He gave the Stones their gravitas early on. His heroes were the American bluesmen Robert Johnson and Howlin’ Wolf (among others). On my side of the Atlantic we called the musical revolution of the Sixties the British Invasion. But in truth it was the American invasion of Britain. Black American bluesmen made the British invasion possible and we rightly hear the Stones (or the actors playing them) play a beautiful live version of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Little Red Rooster” early on in the film. I actually think it’s the highlight of the film. The young London lads could play the blues, haunted by the spirit of what they heard, attracted by the depth and pain of it. The Beatles were pop stars early on, but the Stones never were. They had that bluesy edge and kept it. The song “No Expectations”, for instance, sounds for all the world like it was written by Robert Johnson. It was not. Jagger and Richards wrote it, though the spirit of the old blues master is wholly in it. Such is the alchemy and magic of music.What’s to learn from the hedonism, decadence, narcissism and self-indulgence of yet another self-destructive rock star? The usual. Meaning that it’s not the way to go. Fame and fortune can be dangerous and deadly. They show no mercy for their victims, so one had better be strong and thick-skinned when they come stalking or they will devour a person. That’s what happened to Brian Jones. He was never all that pleasant as a person to begin with, apparently. But he was made worse by the excesses of stardom. Fame brought him a sense of privilege and entitlement and he used these to manipulate and abuse others. One of these was his German girlfriend Anita Pallenberg, whose black eyes, cuts and bruises were proof of what she had to put up with with him. He is said to have fathered at least five illegitimate children by five different women, evidence of reckless, irresponsible behaviour, not to mention selfishness. But at least these children were lucky not to have known him.Does the film tell us much more? Not really, as there isn’t much to say. The intriguing bit concerns the death of Jones “by misadventure” (the finding and wording of the coroner). He drowned in his swimming pool in Sussex. How did it happen? The film contends he was murdered, deliberately drowned by a builder on his property named Frank. In the film Brian toys with Frank, playing mind games to demean and humiliate him. One dumb and dangerous trick is to parade a beautiful half-naked girlfriend of his under Frank’s nose, allowing her to flirt with him but not be touched by him after she arouses him. This is asking for trouble and Brian eventually gets it, as playing with the manhood of another man is not exactly a clever idea.Brian died at age 27. Had he not died then he might not have lasted much longer anyway, as the coroner also noted that his liver and heart were enlarged from years of substance and alcohol abuse. He wasn’t happy and seemed almost proud of it, dementedly saying at one point in the film that happiness is boring, a cynical and self-indulgent remark if ever there was one. How he treated himself was also the way he treated others, spreading his pain and misery far and wide.He was the Syd Barrett of The Rolling Stones, the founder of a great group that survived his excesses and demise. He should always be deservedly remembered, loved and honoured as a great musician, but certainly not as a great man, since he clearly wasn’t.Incidentally, the film is brilliantly conceived and executed in non-linear fashion, with lots of flashbacks and rapid cutting to simulate excessive drug use and the general madness and mayhem of decadence. Brian Jones was a mess but this film is not. That in itself is quite a feat. I’m not sorry to have watched it at all. The four stars I’ve given it are for its excellent artistry, not content, as the acts of self-indulgence over time become repetitive and boring. Jones lived out one of the worst clichés of rock stardom, becoming a caricature of himself through a debauched lifestyle. Tragic? Hardly. Pitiful? Quite so. He remains idolized by some today as an idea and image, since the man himself was barely worth thinking about.

Stoned is an intelligent and witty take on Brian Jones's final days, whether or not it's the last word on the mystery of his drowning. Published accounts contain contradictory details, and ex-Stones employee Tom Keylock, consultant on the film, may have his own particular spin, but Stephen Woolley and scriptwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have fashioned a coherent and logical story out of the available material, supplemented by their own research: if his death didn't come about as suggested here, it makes sense in the context of the film.The growing interdependence of Jones and Frank Thorogood, hired to do up the Sussex farmhouse where Jones hoped to kickstart his creativity, drives the narrative; Leo Gregory, as the seductive, exasperating rock star, and Paddy Considine, the baffled but intrigued builder, are compelling in a relationship which alludes both to Joseph Losey's 60s film The Servant (scripted by Pinter) and, appropriately enough, Performance, in which Mick Jagger played a dissolute rock star with echoes of Jones.The mindgames with Frank are interspersed with flashbacks from Brian's point of view, allowing us to see key moments in the breakdown of his relationship with Anita Pallenberg (the one woman whose loss seems to have mattered), and glimpses of his slipping status in the group he once led, without sacrificing the immediacy of the central conflict. This device also creates a much-needed degree of sympathy, his constant need to pick over his past suggesting just how damaged Jones has become by this stage - it doesn't make him any more likeable, but it does explain his need to lash out at someone else for distraction.That said, while Stoned doesn't purport to be a conventional biopic - the last days, not the whole life - I wondered whether there might be too much shorthand for an audience not familiar with this star who died in the 60s. The director's commentary clarifies matters but details can whizz by in the actual viewing. It feels right that the focus is not on Jagger and Richards - this is not the Rolling Stones story - but is the brief (though powerful) scene with Brian's family enough to suggest everything in early life which shaped the man now messing with Frank's head?I also wondered whether the character of Frank was treated too gently. The biographies suggest that Jones was more scared of him than is implied here: for almost the entire film, in fact, he is more Frank's tormentor (and pretend-buddy) than victim. Similarly, the extent of Jones's continuing music-making seems downplayed, a bit of inconclusive jamming with Frank the only indication of any hope for his creative future. But this isn't a documentary, and these decisions serve to intensify the bleakness of the scenario, locking the two main characters into what might be termed a Stoney Endgame.The story's dictates may also be why we see little indication of the man capable (according to Bill Wyman's Stone Alone) of being gently supportive of Suki Potier after the death of her boyfriend Tara Browne or of spending a final, untroubled day with his parents. And it has to be said that despite the coup of persuading Janet Lawson, the nurse present on the last night, to tell her side of the story for the first time she, like Brian's girlfriend Anna Wohlin, is strangely characterless in the film. But then that also seems the case in the biographies, even Wohlin's own, and this is finally a film about two men - and the absence of one woman (Pallenberg).Essentially, then, Stoned succeeds in making an unwieldy amount of information into a playful, inventive - and touching - story. Whether or not it's the whole truth, it has its own truth, and there are undoubted insights along the way into the psyche of "this fragile monster," as Keith Richards once described his former bandmate.

if you were hoping for a film about the stones this is not it as this movie is more about brian jones than the doors was about jim morrison. having said that if it is brian jones and his mysterious death you are interested in then this is what you are looking for even if he is portrayed not exactly how you may have hoped being a fan like me it is i suppose an honest look at his personality. sadly there is very little seen of mick n'keef and how after forming the band his substance abuse led to him losing his controll of the group to the latter and being outcast shortly before his untimely death and one cannot help but think the way the doors movie was made would have suited this story better. the 'tragic' ending is basically what this movie is all about and this is where i beleive the director has it spot on as a man who according to his housekeeper(who does not feature in this but have read her account in the book golden stone)would swim many lengths in his own pool and had sobered up considerably if not completely could possibly end up drowning with very little alcohol or drugs in his system shortly after the two women present could see a situation flaring up between him and frank thorogood and had advised him to get out of the pool to avoid this which he did not and unfortunatley they had both returned to the house for a short time before thorogood followed and jones was discovered dead. frank thorogood admitted on his death bed he 'done him in' which is depicted in a way which i have always thought the truth and the only question is how can someone that famous be killed and there not even be a trial? and why were only charlie watts and bill wyman at the funeral? the making of documentory is an interesting watch revealing how facts were found.