“Historians may declare it a landmark in the decline of the British Empire: The Beatles are breaking up.” So a reporter announces in one particularly hysterical news broadcast that appears in Man On The Run, Morgan Neville’s persuasive account of Paul McCartney’s determination to forge a creative path through the 1970s. This includes the recording of his first solo album ‘McCartney’ (critically dismissed at the time but now hailed as a classic), the formation of Wings and the steadying influence of his wife and bandmate Linda, who died in 1998.
Neville, who boasts a rich pedigree in rock docs having profiled everyone from Brian Wilson to Keith Richards, presents an impressive cast list of interviewees – including Macca himself, as well as his children, former Wings members and even his old sparring partner Mick Jagger. These commentators appear offscreen, their observations and recollections laid over an elegant collage of archive footage.
The director does an excellent job of capturing the weight of expectations laid at McCartney’s door in April 1970, when he casually revealed that the Beatles were no more – despite the fact that John Lennon had quietly requested a “divorce” from the group seven months earlier. With Paul cast as the villain and a business dispute with ruthless manager Allen Klein grinding on, there’s little wonder that he retreated to a remote farm in Scotland where he worked on the gorgeous (though, again, initially misunderstood) ‘Ram’.
Neville neatly summons the vibe of the time: occasionally he chops up his archive footage, with individual elements pasted onto pastel-hued backgrounds, like a rudimentary cartoon. McCartney, too, was focused on work that felt handmade and earthy – a natural response, perhaps, to the chaos and superficiality of the showbiz world that The Beatles found themselves enmeshed in.
Focused on his young family (Mary, the first of the couple’s three biological children together, was born in 1969), Macca sought to combine domestic bliss with the life of a touring band; Wings proved to be the answer. Although McCartney executive-produced the film, Man On The Run is no whitewash. It’s obvious how achingly uncool Wings were, while former band members complain of being treated like hired hands and, worse, grossly underpaid. McCartney claims he was not across financial matters.
Still, the subject is vindicated when Wings strike gold with their third album, 1973’s revelatory ‘Band On The Run’, and embark on a blockbuster American tour that rendered the opinions of their critics redundant. Even then, Neville is candid about Wing’s creative decline and the collective shrug that met their final album, 1979’s uninspired ‘Back To The Egg’.
You may wonder why McCartney didn’t store up his tunes and release a few truly great ‘70s albums, instead of spreading his genius so thinly. The idea, it seems, was just totally alien to him. At one point, he insists he’s not a workaholic but a “playaholic”, which might be the ultimate Macca-ism. In fact, that quip sums up his depiction in Man On The Run: goofy and a little corny, but always endearingly himself.
Details
- Director: Morgan Neville
- Release date: February 19 (in UK cinemas) and February 27 (on Amazon Prime Video)