Paul McCartney: Back in the U.S. - Live 2002 Concert Film
by Amy Tinkham, Mark Haefeli

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DVD Reviews of Paul McCartney: Back in the U.S. - Live 2002 Concert Film

DVD Review: Triumph Of The Paul -- will someone please give Paul a hug?
Summary: 2 Stars

I'm a longtime Beatles fan, but Paul's latest self-aggrandizing promotional juggernaut appears more the action of psychological desperation than any kind of artistic regeneration (notwithstanding that multi-million dollar commerce always gets the loudest vote.) Even if the public demands it, Paul does not have to be the faux teenaged "oldies act" he has drawn for himself (and such a dead self-portrait speaks of unquenchable and unexplored emotional anguish in his present, I fear.) As a wealthy pop music leader, Paul has earned the freedom to be among the first of his generation to redefine cultural (read: "media") definitions of aging. Investigating such a virgin territory requires both fearlessness and foolishness - both the privileges of tribal elders - but on this DVD, McCartney mostly indulges in self-congratulatory foolishness ... and an artistic dead-end.

What is a senior citizen rocker to do? The challenge is to fight the petrifaction of nostalgia and see things anew. The world blossoms into a fruitful, eternal present for self-aware artists willing to learn and grow in their sunset years (like post-near-death Dylan). And, after all, who better than a surviving Beatle to lead his global baby boomer fans into the wisdom of life's "Back Nine"? (Tellingly, "When I'm 64" - now that it is finally relevant three decades after its debut -- is not on the concert playlist.) Unfortunately, this DVD superbly documents Paul's continuing artistic atrophy into the dinosaur nostalgia act doling out soma to the sleeping (just call it Pete Best's revenge). Good thing McCartney was a Beatle, and not only a Wing, or he'd be stuck touring with KC and the Sunshine Band from state fair to state fair.

Perhaps due to his mother's early death, Paul has always needed to be liked and, back when a willful avant-garde attitude was necessary for acceptance into the hippie generation, Chameleon Paul used his significant musical talent to push the envelope of pop music and truly "speak to his time". As the "cheerful Beatle", one should never expect from Paul the probing existentialism of Lennon's "Mother" or Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" but, as is evident in "Eleanor Rigby", "Lady Madonna", "Helter Skelter", or even "Figure of Eight", he has been able to process life's fear and confusion into alluring, yet observant, insights. Now, instead of the elder McCartney contemplating his youth in search of enlightened meaning - as was hinted at in the grieving Paul's exploration of his 1950s musical roots and, more tellingly, in his earlier break-it-down-to-build-it-up "Unplugged" performances - Paul's "whistling in the dark/let a smile be your umbrella" glad-handing has successfully air-brushed any anxieties about aging and mortality from his theme park ride of a concert. But such primal fears cannot be fully erased.

The first tip all isn't artistically well is that the songs are largely note-perfect "just like the record" renditions that Paul and his minimum-wage mates grind out in oxymoronically "authentic Beatlemania" fashion (the key exception is the "Unplugged" and "tribute" sections that, while still nostalgic, hint at mild self-awareness and aesthetic reassessment). Yes, the show is about kissing up to memory, not exploring the unknown (the very opposite mission of The Beatles) and, if anyone has the right to a Beatlemania tribute, it is Paul McCartney, but are we just watching some billionaire's world-class retirement party or are there deeper needs expressed? Look to the grating gloom of McCartney's shrill mythologizing.

The key is in the film's relentless "Triumph of the Will" editing which, on every song, cuts between the refulgent McCartney and his sweaty, groundling audience of "8-to-80" dancing, singing, crying and - there can be no other word -- glorifying Paul's embodiment of their past. ("Paul IS the audience" the editing pounds into us while also making sure to show Paul meeting his elite celebrity peers of show biz and government backstage far from the screaming masses. The intentionally contradictory image is that Paul is both "common man" and "royalty", but the private jet and limousines tell us where he gets his mail delivered.) However, since most viewers have presumably purchased this DVD to watch McCartney, and not other versions of the viewer, such incessant inclusions of awestruck fan reaction speak more of an artist's emotional insecurity than aesthetic choice.

Does Sir Paul McCartney doubt his pop cultural iconography and, if so, is such doubt the provocation for his rampant egomania on this DVD? (This is an in-house promotional film funded by-and-for McCartney. One assumes he gets the last word.) From this perspective, the endless shots of adulating audiences resemble cattle being branded "Property of MPL Communications Ltd." as the Peter Panned wind-up toy stamps his rusty resume into trademarked global memory. Such strident desperation - like Paul's unseemly battle with Lennon's tomb to obtain solo credit on "his" Beatles tunes -- represents a confusion of psychological discontent with artistic impasse. Such tragic behavior obfuscates the real danger that McCartney's flamboyant retreat into past glories inevitably cashes in on a withered future.

The cruel, open secret of age-phobic nostalgia is that you have to be old to use it and that its past-perfect dream of memorialized delusion actually prevents one from seeing the present clearly. When the end of every day brings tomorrow, not yesterday (no pun intended), and the fight for life is always over the next horizon, who couldn't use a vital and far-seeking Paul McCartney as trusted troubadour on that journey? Please, somebody (paging Mr. Dylan?) give Paul a hug so he can grow old and new!

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