| Cocksucker Blues | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Robert Frank Daniel Seymour |
| Produced by | Marshall Chess |
| Starring | The Rolling Stones |
| Edited by | Robert Frank Paul Justman Susan Steinberg |
| Music by | The Rolling Stones |
Release date |
|
Running time | 93 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Cocksucker Blues is an unreleased documentary film directed by the still photographerRobert Frank chroniclingThe Rolling Stones American Tour 1972 in support of their albumExile on Main St.
There was much anticipation for the band's arrival in the United States, since they had not visited there since the December 1969 disaster at theAltamont Free Concert in which a fan was stabbed and beaten to death byHells Angels and the incident was caught on camera.[1] Behind the scenes, the tour embodied debauchery, lewdness andhedonism.
The film was shotcinéma vérité, with several cameras available for anyone in the entourage to pick up and start shooting. This allowed the film's audience to witness backstage parties, drug use (Mick Taylor is shown smokingmarijuana with someroadies andMick Jagger seen snortingcocaine backstage),[2]roadie andgroupie antics, and the Stones with their defences down.[3] One scene includes a groupie in a hotel room injectingheroin.[4]
The film came under a court order which forbade it from being shown unless the director, Robert Frank, was physically present.[2][5] This ruling stemmed from the conflict that arose when the band, having commissioned the film, decided that its content was embarrassing and potentially incriminating, and did not want it shown. Frank felt otherwise, hence the ruling.[2][4]
According to Ray Young, "The salty title notwithstanding, its nudity, needles and hedonism was supposedly incriminating and the picture was shelved—this during a liberal climate that saw the likes ofCry Uncle! andChafed Elbows playing in neighborhood theatres."[6]Deep Throat was released in the same year. A Rolling Stonesconcert film,Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones, was released instead, andCocksucker Blues was indefinitely shelved.
The court order in question also enjoined Frank against exhibitingCocksucker Blues more frequently than four times per year in an "archival setting" with Frank being present.[2][4][7] Frank personally introduced one such rare screening of the film on February 23, 1988 at Boston's Cinema 57 theater in Park Square in conjunction with promoting the release that week of his new film,Candy Mountain.[8]
Other screenings have included theMetropolitan Museum of Art in New York on October 3, 2009 (curator Jeff Rosenheim, introducing the movie, mentioned that Robert Frank was "in the building," but pointed out that the building was over 2,000,000 square feet (190,000 m2)), theMuseum of Modern Art in New York in November 2012 as part of a two-week festival, "The Rolling Stones: 50 Years on Film",[3] theCleveland Cinematheque on November 15, 2013,[9] the Chuck Jones Theater during the 2015Telluride Film Festival, and theRotterdam, Netherlands 2015International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) as part of a Robert Frank retrospective, with Frank in attendance.
