Product Description

Wingspan is the inside story of how Paul and Linda McCartney dared to follow the Beatles with their rock band Wings. The story of Paul and Linda McCartney's early years together is intimately shared through series of candid conversation with their daughter, Mary. Home movies, family photos, and rare footage draw viewers into a very personal story of love and family. Combined with the against-all-odds success of Wings, Paul and Linda prove that there is life after The Beatles. 90 minutes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26309 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-11-13
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Best of, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 120 minutes

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

Customer Reviews

It's A Family Affair
For this "rockumentary," Paul McCartney is interviewed by his daughter. He is very playful and relaxed, given his familiarity with the interviewer. At the beginning of the program we witness the dissolution of the Beatles and the marriage of Paul and Linda. Interestingly, none of the other Beatles were in attendance at the hastily arranged nuptials. Later, Paul wonders if he can make it as a solo artist. After releasing a couple of solo albums, he decides to form a new band. His wife Linda would be a member of the group, even though she had little musical experience. Paul admired Denny Laine's guitar playing and singing with the Moody Blues. Denny was asked to join his new group Wings. As it turned out, Denny Laine was the ONLY member of Wings to stay with the group from start to finish, other than Linda. However, his musical contributions - what songs he wrote and sang on, or contributed a guitar solo to - are never discussed. Mr. Laine was not interviewed for this DVD, nor are any clips of old interviews with him included. Other band members are only mentioned in passing although, to be fair, most only lasted with Wings a short time.

As Paul said near the end of the program, he proved that he could have major hits and successful world tours with another band after the Beatles. After Paul's infamous drug bust in Japan, he felt that it was time to give everything a rest. Thus Wings ended, not with a bang but with a whimper. Surprisingly, there is no booklet or even an insert included with the DVD. The extras include complete live performances of two songs - "Jet" and "Let 'Em In" - as well as the studio session for the instrumental "Rockestra." The discography contains mistakes; when you click on the song list for "Wings Over America" it displays the song list for "Wings At The Speed Of Sound." A little more attention to detail and interviews with other band members could easily have made this a 5 star DVD.

"Wingspan" satisfying but could have been expanded
In intimate conversation with daughter Mary (whose husband directed), Paul McCartney discusses life after the Beatles, and how his next challenge was to form a band, pack up the family, and hit the road. 88 minute film seen on ABC-TV is satisfying for fans but footage shown could have been expanded. We just get snippets of great songs and rare concert footage, and there isn't any interviews or commentary with the rest of the band (save for Linda's posthumous comments) especially from loyal, talented, long-suffering Denny Laine who was there from start to finish. DVD extras include an additional 22 minute discussion between Paul and Mary, promotional videos for "Jet" and "Let 'Em In" (which were both taken from the "Rockshow" film) and the superstar jam "Rockestra". Just three videos? Also included is a discography and a photo gallery, with 100 pictures. A neat package, but they should have alloted themselves more than 88 minutes to cover a nine-year career, especially with all the great music involved.

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.