Rolling Stone

Over the course of almost four hours, this two-part documentary chronicles the history of one of the twentieth-century's most influential magazines. Rolling Stone, first published in San Francisco in 1967, began as a periodical dedicated to rock-and-roll music and youth culture. From its inception, Rolling Stone was propelled by the vision of its founding editor and publisher, Jann Wenner. Like such historic American journalists as James Gordon Bennett, Horace Greeley, and Henry Luce, Wenner ultimately proved successful in both media innovation and the development of a journalistic vehicle with significant cultural and political influence. This documentary examines how Rolling Stone, at the height of its popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, helped shape widespread perceptions about musicians, the music industry, and American youth, while simultaneously popularizing new forms of participatory and subjective magazine reportage for a huge national readership. Yet Rolling Stone: Stories From the Edge, is not a comprehensive history of the magazine. This documentary is far more commemorative than critical. Though the directors Alex Gibney and Blair Foster do an admirable job of combining numerous visual and audio elements (including still images, archival film, both old and recent interviews and musical performances, old news clips, and creative animations that enliven article text), the project feels curated to portray the magazine as consistently visionary. The film hails Rolling Stone as the nation's premier authentic voice for youth culture over five decades, even after its political ambition and close ties to the music industry sparked criticism about “selling out.” Except for brief and incisive commentary by the journalist Robert Sam Anson, critique is left largely unexplored. Rolling Stone: Stories from the Edge is precisely the sort of authorized history one would expect from Rolling Stone Productions (which co-produced the film), and co-executive producer Wenner

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