Rolling Stones’ long party: Documentary film tells of children

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Few albums are as soaked in the mythology of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll as Exile on Main St by the Rolling Stones. Although its woozy, raw sound has seen it hailed as one of the greatest records ever made, the music itself has tended to be overshadowed by the lurid tales of Bacchanalian excess that accompanied its creation.

Now a new film that screened at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday has returned a surprising additional element to the story: children. Stones in Exile, which is also showing on BBC One on Sunday night, concentrates on the band’s epic six-month residence at Villa Nellcote, in Villefranche-sur-Mer on the Cote D'Azur in 1971.

Sixties optimism had foundered with the killing of one of their fans at a concert in California and the band was regrouping after leaving England and its 93 per cent top tax rate. As Sir Mick Jagger explained at the premiere, they had no idea if their popularity at home would ever recover. “When you leave for tax reasons it’s really not very cool.” Nellcote, a half-hour’s drive up the coast from Cannes, was the rented residence of Keith Richards, Anita Pallenberg and their one-year-old son, Marlon.

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