Man on the Run review – Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles archive dive is a welcome return visit | film

AAnother huge legacy project for Paul McCartney, who serves as an off-camera guest and executive producer on this Morgan Neville documentary. Man on the Run consists of archival film, photographs, and audio recordings of McCartney, his late wife Linda, his children, and others. Some of McCartney’s overlaid comments appear to be new and some are pre-existing.

The film traces his tense, complex, and fruitful career from the end of The Beatles in 1969 to the eventual demise of his next band, Wings, in 1981, just months after John Lennon’s death—although the exact psychological role that Lennon’s life and death played in the beginning and end of Wings is never explicitly discussed. (The film shows us, once again, that strange, startling, seemingly off-the-record interview McCartney gave after Lennon was shot, his shock leading to an apparently cold shoulder — but what he may have really been thinking is something else not explored here in detail.)

When the Beatles broke up, McCartney seemed to be withdrawing from the world, and ended up in rural Scotland with his wife and children – working on music intermittently, but also collecting new songs on his four-track tape recorder. He made solo albums, including the poorly received Ram, whose “contrary course” insults towards Lennon led to further acrimony. While Lennon was leading the New York counterculture, McCartney experimented with a new, uncool pop aesthetic, including a bizarre television special of an obscene vaudeville song. Later, along with Christopher Lee and James Coburn, he put Clement Freud and Michael Parkinson on the front cover of Band on the Run; Strange, considering the level of fame he could certainly have secured. The film’s title, by the way, is a clear hint at how Paul, not the band, is really the star of this show.

Among the musicians he recruited for Wings was his wife, Linda, who rose above cynicism with humor: “I’m not here because I’m the greatest keyboard player; I’m here because we love each other.” Fans understood the Wings’ “family” spirit. The band played sell-out tours, answered post-Beatles naysayers with the best-selling single Mull of Kintyre and seemed to settle very comfortably into a mainstream identity. However, the film makes no mention of Wings’ political debut single “Give Ireland Back to the Irish”, which was released in 1972 and was conceived in response to Bloody Sunday.

The Wings lineup had changed a lot (sad Spın̈al Tap gags), and it now seemed as if Denny Laine was really the third and only other Wing; The others were little more than musicians, and their turnover perhaps indicates some unspoken dissatisfaction. You may find yourself wondering why we’re going like this again, but it’s an engaging film, and there’s always something charming about McCartney’s face: angelic, yet sharp and alert.