What do you do when you’re the most famous musician in the world and your band breaks up? A new documentary, Man on the Run, chronicles Paul McCartney’s first years after The Beatles’ acrimonious breakup.
Covering the period from 1970, when McCartney retreated to his bucolic ramshackle farm in Scotland and his first post-Beatles solo album, to 1980, when John Lennon was murdered and McCartney was arrested in Japan for cannabis possession, the documentary focuses on his attempts to create his first adult life outside of the Beatles.
Directed by Morgan Neville, Man on the Run premiered last August at the Telluride Film Festival, and it is being released worldwide on Thursday in theaters before heading to Amazon Prime Video on February 27.
With McCartney serving as executive producer, it’s obvious that the film is going to present his version of The Beatles’ ending, and of his search to forge his own identity. But given those parameters, Man on the Run is still entertaining and nostalgic in mullet-1970s way.
McCartney’s late wife, Linda, is a full co-star of the film and provided some of the home movies that reveal the couple as country farmers and hippie parents to their growing family. Suffice it to say that Man on the Run has the most shots of frolicking sheep ever seen in a rock documentary.
The film features nicely placed voiceovers from McCartney today, along with commentators like Mick Jagger and Chrissie Hynde, explaining both details of the Beatles’ financial struggles in the early 1970s as well as McCartney’s attempt to create his own post-Beatles identity, just as his other bandmates were doing. It’s a delight not to see the latter-day images behind the voices on screen, like most documentaries do.
'A Man on the Run' bogs down during Wings chapter
The early parts of the film retain a high level of interest, particularly the sections focusing on McCartney’s first musical forays after the Beatles, including Ram, his 1971 album, that is now considered by some to be the blueprint of the lo-fi indie rock movement.
But it bogs down when it attempts to chronicle the life of Wings, the band the McCartney’s formed. Aside from the interesting Band on the Run story of traveling to Africa to record the album that stands as his post-Beatles pinnacle, way too much detail is provided about the band members and group dynamics and the other less-than-stellar albums they released through the mid-1970s.
It’s not that the filmmakers didn’t try, but how excited can one get about hearing demos or rehearsals of "Let 'Em In" or "Silly Love Songs". And, sorry, but Joe English, one of Wings’ drummers, just doesn’t have the charisma of Ringo, and Denny Laine, despite his immense talent, was not a John Lennon foil to McCartney. All the attempts to elevate Wings to the Beatles status ring hollow.
It’s not that the film goes south, but the subject matter is so bland during this time that it’s impossible to care. To his credit, McCartney doesn’t shy away from including snippets from his 1970s nadir, "Mary Had a Little Lamb", or his 1973 TV variety special in which he reinvents himself as a crooner – the idea being put across that he now had the freedom to be inconsequential or fail.
The film picks up near the end, when the rivalry thread between McCartney and Lennon comes to an end when Lennon is killed. And the footage of an incarcerated McCartney, facing seven years in prison for bringing a bag of weed into Japan, is fascinating. Still, there were a number of times when I thought, ok, when is this going to wrap up?
Man on the Run (McCartney running from his Beatles identity, I guess) ends with McCartney deciding to close the doors on Wings, and doesn’t touch on Linda’s death from cancer and his re-emergence as one of the world’s top concert draws.
It’s always fun for a Beatles fan to see new footage of one of the Fab Four, and there’s plenty in Man on the Run. It’s not going to change anyone’s opinion who thinks that John or George was the substance of The Beatles over McCartney’s fluff, but it does spark admiration for the musician who faced an insurmountable task but eventually outran his past.
Man on the Run will be screened at the Jerusalem Cinemateque on February 20 and 21 at 9 p.m. – tickets at jer-cin.org.il