The explosive impact of Beatlemania on popular culture has still not faded: see the veritable bombardment of Beatles documentaries in recent years, as well as Sam Mendes’s forthcoming four individual cinematic biopics. While we wait to see Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, here’s a highly entertaining documentary about Macca’s other band.
Man on the Run offers an intimate, funny and sometimes emotional charge through the 1970s as McCartney tried to escape the aftermath of being in the biggest band in the world by forming Wings – who would go on to become one of the biggest bands of the decade.
A fast-moving opening montage of Beatles footage may seem overly familiar, yet there is a reassuring wit and energy about the way images are mashed together with zippy animations and colourful photo cutouts, all contrasting with a ruminative voice-over by the older McCartney as he guides us through the Beatles’ painful breakup.
With McCartney going to ground amidst absurd rumours that he was dead, the first glimpse of him post-Beatles arrives in shaky 8mm footage captured by interlopers showing a distant, ragged hermit glancing up from a scraggy hillside in Scotland.
’A spartan unheated barn’: Wings recorded much of their beloved music in McCartney’s tiny, remote Scottish studio – Linda McCartney/Amazon Prime Video
The Mull of Kintyre emerges as one of the stars of this film, the windswept Scottish island where McCartney retreated to lick his wounds, raise his family, and grow the bushiest beard of a career in which he has never been afraid to experiment with facial hair.
Even now, it almost defies credence that one of the richest and most famous celebrities in the world was living in a tiny, ramshackle croft in the middle of nowhere with a saggy ceiling and peeling wallpaper. Top session musicians recruited to record in his home studio describe their astonishment at discovering it is just a spartan unheated barn with children and farm animals wandering about.
There is footage of McCartney clambering on his roof, effecting DIY repairs. There is no hint of false humility in such joyous family footage, with commentary from his daughters Stella and Mary reinforcing how important the rustic simplicity of the setting was in helping McCartney regain his confidence, firm up his core values, and rediscover his musical mojo. His sometimes derided 1977 folk anthem Mull of Kintyre really delivers an emotional payoff in context, as islanders, bagpipers and moist-eyed rock stars mingle around a bonfire to sing together.
McCartney’s late wife Linda is another shining beacon in the documentary: a calm, smiling, supportive and playful presence always up for fun and musical adventure, even with children constantly hanging off the hems of her colourful skirts. Her style is a joy to behold, a blend of glam rock and patchwork children’s TV presenter that helped shape the look of Wings as much as her harmonies (and simple keyboards) became an integral part of their sound.
Footage of McCartney’s late wife and bandmate Linda shows how much of a captivating, influential presence she was – Linda McCartney/Amazon Prime Video
In retrospect, it is disturbing how dismissive and cruel critics could be towards her, and, indeed, towards the formerly idolised McCartney, constantly being judged harshly against his own past. Yet this film, directed by Morgan Neville, is too open-hearted and humorous to bear any sense of real grievance. Early Wings recordings may have indulged McCartney’s more whimsical side, but ultimately his lo-fi indie aesthetic has proved influential and enduring.
By the time we see footage of Wings playing Madison Square Garden in New York in 1976, the band and its leader are firing on all cylinders. Audience members are overcome with awe and emotion that matches the Beatlemania of the opening sequences. Watching McCartney performing with such pleasure and power, Man on the Run reveals itself to be a story of a man finding his way back home.
Man on the Run is in selected cinemas on Thursday February 19 (tickets from manontherun.film); streaming on Amazon Prime Video from February 27
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