Even though I had great faith in both Peter Jackson's skills as a documentarian (see: They Shall Not Grow Old) and the Beatles's conviviality (even near-death), I never got back to finishing that ambitious, 468 minute-affair that made headlines some three years ago. Much ado about nothing, and most gravely, the music was way more interesting than the process.
And now, in the wake of the rockumentary's resurgence, Paul McCartney and his team have remastered the 1974 live in-studio film Paul McCartney and Wings - One Hand Clapping, following the album of the same name's release earlier this year. Paul McCartney and Wings, the most whimsical growth sprung from the razed Apple yards of the Beatles's dissolution, have their philosophy neatly summarized by McCartney in the film: "A steady group that works together, where there's just enough looseness." Looseness in mood, in music and in format.
Recorded at Abbey Road Studios during 1973 album Band on the Run's seventh week at the top of the charts, McCartney and co. deliver a greatest-hits set of their work to that point, alongside some demos and deep cuts. Though the performers are limited physically by studio equipment and therefore don't have much room to duckwalk about, the energy conveyed through the music remains. McCartney soars through all-time classics like "Jet" and "Maybe I'm Amazed" with the same vigour as the cabaret piano jaunts he wrote as a teenager.
They're not the Doors or Mötley Crüe or some other group that uses the profession as an excuse to exorcise personal demons in public forums. Wings don't need that. McCartney sings of love with his dearest backing him on the electric piano, the brief smiles shared between them mid-song filled to the brim with implicit history. They're content with quaint, and very good at it, too.
Director David Litchfield takes a disarming approach to the direction. He highlights the quotidian nature of studio work, favouring nonplussed reactions and disaffected gazes into the middle distance. When an orchestra of tuxedo-ed James Bonds show up to assist with "Live and Let Die," the focus is on the members who aren't doing anything. Reading the newspaper, making faces, hand-rolling cigarettes, it's a decidedly uncommercial perspective, partially explaining the 50-year gestation prior to release. Even "Band on the Run," the ostensible centrepiece, is struck up without any fanfare whatsoever. It's cute enough, although it intimates that Litchfield has no clue what we're all here for.
The editing shows a playful fondness for the visual non-sequitur, but the footage quality is still quite poor, even with the 4K remastering justifying this wide release. Most of the technological benefit can be found in the excellently preserved studio recordings. Wings were always DIY in philosophy anyway, driven by McCartney's lust for life and unperturbed by pesky distractions like civil unrest surrounding their studio and airport pot busts.
As a bonus, "The Backyard" is used as the film's coda. Here, McCartney pays homage to the pelvic gyrations that shaped him with solo acoustic covers of Eddie Cochrane, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry. It's the highlight of the movie, showing McCartney's magnetism isn't simply rooted in his interactions with others — he's just a man, a few chords with flourish and his musical truth.
This is as spartan as music docs get. McCartney asserts the title was made up randomly; after all, what's the point of clapping with one hand? We know better. It's about the motion, not the sound of your own skin slapping against itself.