[.ca] Paul McCartney - Wingspan: An Intimate Portrait (2001)

From Amazon.com:
Paul McCartney's account of his second famous rock band only glosses over his personal and professional life during the 1970s, clocking in at 88 minutes. Still, choice footage and photographs, along with a McCartney interview by daughter Mary interspersed throughout the program, make this an entertaining history of an often unfairly maligned group. Wingspan is also a valentine to McCartney's late wife, Linda, who was always by his side, in and out of Wings. On his insistence, Linda became part of the band, went on tour as nominal backup singer and keyboardist, and even sang lead on a song called "Cook of the House," which didn't endear her or Paul to feminists. The fact remains, though, that their marriage, which some pointed to as contributing to the Beatles' breakup, lasted far longer than either of Paul's bands. --Kevin Filipski

Additional Features:
The choicest DVD bonus is 22 additional minutes of interview footage cut from the program; much of it is McCartney's fascinating discussion of how songs materialize, with "Picasso's Last Words," "Mrs. Vanderbilt," and "Let Me Roll It" played as examples. Three videos are included: "Rockestra" immortalizes an historic session involving dozens of musicians, while "Jet" and "Let 'Em In" are taken from McCartney's concert film, Rockshow. --Kevin Filipski

Wingspan, hits and misses:
Like most fans, I wish they could have found some more performance/video clips to include here (might've made this into something you'd watch more than once). And hearing Paul interviewed by his own daughter is a little... well it's sort of reminiscent of the printed "self-interview" he included with early pressings of _Ram_ - almost more of a self-serving monologue than anything else. As others have noted, the fact that he and Linda are the only people whose recollections are solicited really underscores how dubious the notion of this being an actual "band" was all along. Following this line of thought further, Sir Paul also fails to explain how this tight-knit "family" managed to burn through four drummers and three lead guitarists in seven years (though thankfully, he does credit Henry McCullough for his song-saving solo on "My Love"). Still, this is the Big Mac we're talking about, so if you haven't contemplated these tunes in a while, or if you were around in the seventies, you may want to check this out.

It's good, but could have been really great!:
I'll try to keep this one short and sweet... Paul could have done more with "Wingspan" (in much the same way he could have done more with the CD release). It is clear that his intentions were not so much to tell the story about his band as they were to tell how he and Linda moved forward with their lives in the post-Beatles years (the 70's, that is). Denny Lane and the others are given short shrift on 'Wingspan". The various members of Wings come and go, but the focus remains on Paul and Linda. Paul really doesn't say all that much about any of the other members. It would have been nice if, at the end of the documentary, the viewer was given a little info on "where are the former members of the band now?". A little tribute to the late Jimmy McCulloch would have been cool... etc., etc. Now, if you are a Paul McCartney and Wings fan, you WILL find this entertaining and worthwhile. It just could have been much more. The extra interview out-takes are, for the most part, not all that exciting. However, you do get to hear Paul sing "Picasso's Last Words" to his daughter. That would have been enough as far as "out-takes".... and the three videos included are cool. Included are two performances from the "Wings Over America" tour, which begs the question: Why the heck isn't "Rock Show" available on DVD yet????

An Incomplete Documentary:
I wish Alister and Mary would have spent more time trying to find footage to make this documentary more complete. If anyone has connections on how to get more newsreel and music video footage it would be Paul, and his daughter Mary and son-in-law Alister. I have seen important Wings footage on MTV, etc. that was not included on this DVD. For example: Where is the Wings over the World footage when Ringo visits them backstage, and the 1976 Rockshow interview with a very confident sounding Paul? How about the footage from the James Paul McCartney show where Wings plays several songs live? How about the Rockestra band playing "Lucille" live during the Concert for Kampuchea? I have them playing that on my bootleg video, and Mary could not get it? How about asking the detailed questions about the events in these videos? They should have definitly interviewed Denny Lane! Since he recently made a CD of old Wings hits, I'm sure he would have been available to answer a few questions from Mary. Speaking of questions, Mary should have asked the more detailed and tougher questions. Since she didn't do this, she shows me that she is not the biggest Wings fan out there, and she should have consulted her dad more about what questions would make this story sound complete in order to make this a world-class video like the Beatles Anthology. Her questions only let us see the tip of the iceberg, and are nothing that any big Wings fan does not already know. I have seen many, many Wings videos on bootleg tapes that would have fit nicely into this DVD, such as: Goodnight Tonight, and Mull of Kintyre. Almost every video they showed on this DVD was cut and just partially shown. They should have shown the entire length of all the "good" music videos, and shown partials of some of the "mediocre" ones. Better yet, they should have archived ALL the videos in the Special Features section of the DVD. I speculate that Paul just left everything in the hands of Alister and Mary and just let them do it all themselves, while he acted like executive producer and provided the majority of the funding for this DVD. Mary is inexperienced and should have taken more time to do this right. 2/5 stars for this one.

A must have for any McCartney fan:
If you like Paul, get this video. It is a nice look at his life post-Beatles, not just about Wings. A very nice touch is that his daughter, Mary, is interviewing him.

A must have for any McCartney fan:
If you like Paul, get this video. It is a nice look at his life post-Beatles, not just about Wings. A very nice touch is that his daughter, Mary, is interviewing him.