Stories From The Edge

“Once upon a time you dressed so fine…”. So begins “Like a Rolling Stone”, one of the best-known and most recognizable songs of the Sixties by Bob Dylan, a folk-rock triumph that nods to Muddy Waters and would soon (we're in 1965) inspire, alongside the name of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards's band, the title of a magazine that would prove pivotal for rock and for American (and not only American) mass culture. Rolling Stone, the magazine founded in San Francisco in 1967, would from that moment on be both a blessing and a curse for artists and fans alike, criticized by some for its scant attention to certain scenes (metal, for instance), for leaving names like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai off its list of the greatest rock guitarists, yet praised by an ever-growing crowd of readers.

It's impossible not to have come across the names of Cameron Crowe at least once - known to us also as a director (“Singles”, “Almost Famous”, “Vanilla Sky”, “Pearl Jam 20“) - who as a young man fulfilled his dream of interviewing Led Zeppelin for a magazine that initially didn't treat them with kid gloves; or of Annie Leibovitz, at the time a photographer who was hardly well known, yet welcomed by two stars like John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Or Jon Landau, who immediately grasped the potential of Bruce Springsteen after his first two albums met with lukewarm response, and went on to become his friend and producer. And who hasn't heard of the gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson, of Ben Fong-Torres, of a pivotal figure like Ralph J. Gleason, and of the magazine's very own founder, Jann Wenner? These are the protagonists (along with other figures no less significant across fifty years of the magazine's history) of the revolutionary editorial project born to explain what was happening among young people, to decode the new American culture, and to mark the decades that followed - not only through the images and words of world-famous artists and bands, or accounts of huge live events and festivals packed with massive crowds, but through sharp, original analysis of what was unfolding in American politics, often with a biting tone and corrosive pieces.

On February 23, 2021, Amazon Prime Video released, through 102 Distribution, the documentary “Rolling Stone – Stories From The Edge”, tasked with meticulously retracing, through the voices of past and present figures who cut their teeth at the magazine, and through footage and invaluable video documents, a full fifty years of music and pop culture. Yes, because Rolling Stone has been far more than just a magazine for music fans. And not only fans of rock music, even though over the decades it has profiled and interviewed artists such as the Beatles, Jethro Tull, Ike and Tina Turner, and the Sex Pistols: the editorial staff knew how to spot in the hip-hop scene the seeds of a new language and a new culture, tackled matters of lifestyle and society, and examined phenomena such as boy bands, like Justin Timberlake's N' Sync (we see them in the documentary tackling “I Want You Back”) and the then-rising pop lolita Britney Spears, a phenomenon curiously compared to that of Fifties pop artists, from her rise all the way to her nervous breakdown.

A steady commitment to connecting with youth culture, telling its story and, above all, giving it a shape. It all began with $7,500 borrowed partly from Jann Wenner and partly from his girlfriend; calling the tools with which the first articles were written and published spartan and bare-bones is a definite understatement (the first real proofreader, who held a degree in languages, was working at the same time as a zookeeper). Since then, giant strides have been made. Passion and sheer stubbornness produced a unique editorial product, one that treated with care and seriousness a scene that few, perhaps, truly took seriously at the time. The lengthy docufilm, directed by Alex Gibney and Blair Foster, opens with rock and roll, and it could hardly be otherwise. 1967 was the year of the Monterey festival, two years before Woodstock, boasting an impressive lineup: the debut of Janis Joplin, the breakthrough of Jimi Hendrix, but also Jefferson Airplane, Canned Heat, Simon and Garfunkel. But that same dedication carried through in the decades to follow, hitting the mark almost every time (even with the Clash, for example, on whom not everyone in the States was willing to bet). Once the editorial staff relocated to New York in 1976, movie stars increasingly took over the covers. Today, many still consider the film reviews found in Rolling Stone to carry real authority.

Not just rock, then, as mentioned: alongside Elton John and Kris Kristofferson, there was also room for reviews of albums by Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett. And not just music: from Richard Nixon to the present day, the magazine's writers have also covered American election campaigns - taking a stance without hypocrisy, given their hippie roots and liberal leanings - and called out the televangelism of preacher Jimmy Swaggart, engaged in genuine investigative journalism (think of the Watergate scandal or the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst), and in the Eighties adopted a lighter touch - criticized by some, even among its own veteran writers - leaning into pure entertainment and more than once drifting into gossip. The magazine has been able to rely on ever-growing content, improved its visual design, and above all it has manufactured image itself.

A visionary's dream turned into an established reality, Rolling Stone is recounted in this documentary (split into four episodes) by the very people who made it possible. Jann Wenner, of course, but also Charles M. Young and the aforementioned Cameron Crowe, who joined the staff while still a teenager, not to mention Tom Wolfe and Matt Taibbi. The narration is provided by Jeff Daniels (“The Martian”, “The Newsroom”). Thanks to Annie Leibovitz, Richard Avedon and Mark Seliger, we've been given some iconic photographs and photo-reportages that have left an indelible mark on pop culture.

There's more than one reason to enjoy and be moved as previously unseen interview footage plays out on screen, featuring Lennon and David Bowie, who invited Cameron Crowe to follow him on the road during the “Station to Station” era. At one point we even witness a match between Rolling Stone staffers and members of the Eagles (among them was a genuine outsider, Chicago's Peter Cetera). It's food for thought how some of the criticism the magazine's Italian edition still receives today (“stick to music, leave politics alone”) fails to take into account the very mission of the publication itself, far more layered and complex than the container of interviews and reviews it appears to be to part of the audience - and even more so how a magazine born in the age of the first great rock festivals managed to write about Elvis Presley just as it did about Ice-T, or put Hall and Oates and Michael Jackson on its cover, or, more recently, Rihanna or Beyoncé, without ever losing its identity.

The commitment to making young Americans aware, informed citizens and getting them interested in politics didn't stop with Richard Nixon: the documentary also devotes ample space to the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, Obama's election, and the public apology for a major journalistic blunder in 2014, when Rolling Stone published a story about a fabricated rape case meant to expose sexual abuse on college campuses. Being accused of spreading fake news shortly before Donald Trump's rise can't have been pleasant. But the story goes on, and the magazine keeps its eyes fixed on society, keeps making headlines and keeps getting people talking about artists, even though the very nature of stardom has since changed profoundly.

“Stories From The Edge” is a dense, rich documentary, one to watch closely and savor a little at a time in order to fully take it in. It's a celebration of American culture from the Sixties to today, but also a chance to reveal behind-the-scenes stories and offer the occasional mea culpa. The only advice worth giving is to get comfortable and enjoy the show.

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