Rolling Stone: Life and Death of Brian Jones screens this Thurs, Feb 13, at Ark Lodge Cinemas. Credit: OLAVI KASKISUO LEHTIKUVA

Rolling Stone: Life and Death of Brian Jones screens this Thurs, Feb 13, at Ark Lodge Cinemas.

Rolling Stone: Life and Death of Brian Jones screens this Thurs, Feb 13, at Ark Lodge Cinemas. OLAVI KASKISUO LEHTIKUVA

The prettiest Rolling Stone was also the most messed up—which is saying something in a group that has Keith Richards in it. Brian Jones founded theworld’s former greatest rock-and-roll band in 1962 with Keef, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Ian Stewart, and Dick Taylor (who later moved on to fantastic garage-/psych-rockers the Pretty Things), but his tenure was fraught with problems within and without the Stones.

Danny Garcia’s documentary Rolling Stone: Life and Death of Brian Jones surfaced around the 50th anniversary of Jones’s premature and controversial passing. It spends nearly half of its 96-minute running time diving deeply into the sordid details of this hugely talented musician’s demise—more on that later.

Dave Segal is a journalist and DJ living in Seattle. He has been writing about music since 1983. His stuff has appeared in Gale Research’s literary criticism series of reference books, Creem (when...