We were joined on the Popternative show by Academy Award-winning director Morgan Neville, whose 2013 documentary, 20 Feet from Stardom, earned the 2014 Oscar for Best Documentary, to discuss his latest project exploring a music legend. Man on the Run, which premiered on February 27 on Prime Video, traces the journey of Paul McCartney’s career after The Beatles as he confronts new pressures and personal hurdles while trying to create a fresh sound.
Drawing on exclusive, never-before-seen footage and rare archival discoveries, the documentary paints an intimate portrait of McCartney’s reinvention, revealing a more candid and emotionally open side of the musical icon. Man on the Run takes place after the breakup of The Beatles and chronicles the formation of the band Wings in 1971 with his wife, Linda.
Neville highlights the remarkable amount of archival material he had at his disposal, from personal home videos to photographs captured by Linda McCartney, all of which helped create an deeper experience for viewers:
“Paul married Linda McCartney who was a photographer. So, she was documenting everything and they were making home movies and all of these things that we used in the film that [people] hadn’t seen. But once I saw how rich that was, I realized I could actually tell the whole film just with audio. We could be immersive. There was enough material to keep the spell of that time going visually through the whole film and it freed us up in so many ways to suddenly not feel like we’re looking back on it, but we’re living through it in real time.“
Neville also stresses the importance of uncovering new perspectives on well-known figures, offering audiences a different appreciation for McCartney’s songs. “In this film, you really [get to] understand how some of the music was made and what [Paul] was going through when he was writing these songs, so I like that idea of taking [something] that’s familiar and suddenly making it new again.”
Watch the full conversation with Morgan Neville below.
Man on the Run is streaming on Prime Video.
_