How one Beatle coped with 9/11

On Sept. 11, 2001, as the first plane struck the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. EST, former Beatle Paul McCartney was on the tarmac at John F. Kennedy International Airport, preparing to depart for London.

The pilot on McCartney’s flight informed the passengers that the airport was closing as he and others witnessed smoke billowing into the morning sky. In the days following the attacks, McCartney, like so many others, started wondering how he could help the millions who were affected by 9/11.

“I thought, ‘What can I do?’” McCartney says to an interviewer early in Paul McCartney: The Love We Make, Albert Maysles and Bradley Kaplan’s 2011 documentary, which the Northwest Film Center is screening this weekend at the Whitsell Auditorium.

McCartney’s answer to his question was “The Concert for New York City,” the Oct. 20, 2001, benefit concert at Madison Square Center that featured McCartney, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, The Who, Bon Jovi, Elton John, Billy Joel and David Bowie among many others. The concert raised over $35 million for the Robin Hood Relief Fund, which dispersed money to victims’ families, the rescue workers and others affected by the economic consequences of the attack and its aftermath.

The Love We Make opens with the sound of sirens (a powerful aural cue for the viewer) as black-and-white images of emergency responders come into focus. It’s an arresting and solemn introduction to our subject matter that immediately transports the viewer back to those desperate days following the attacks, a time as terrifying as it was unifying. All of the footage in the film was shot in October 2001, and the sheer proximity to Sept. 11 infuses it with a kind of awe.

The film’s promotional materials bill it as “a chronicle of Paul McCartney’s cathartic journey through New York City in the aftermath of 9/11,” which is a fairly accurate description of The Love We Make. McCartney’s catharsis has both public and private facets. We see him sitting down with Dan Rather and Pat O’Brien for formal interviews but also walking the streets of Manhattan signing autographs and chatting with star-struck fans.

The private moments with McCartney provide much-needed levity that prevents the film from collapsing under the weight of its depressing subject matter. The viewer is privy to McCartney’s version of sports talk with his driver, George: “I saw my first game in 2000,” McCartney tells the camera. “I’ve played all those stadiums, but I’d never seen a game.” These casual moments humanize McCartney for the viewer and make some of his cornier statements on freedom and what he calls “the huddled masses” easier to swallow.

McCartney comes across as unfailingly earnest, an admirable quality from somebody with his fame and tax bracket. McCartney doesn’t claim to be more than a singer and songwriter who thinks that “with humor and music” we can persevere through the darkest times. It’s McCartney’s earnestness that makes his 9/11-themed single—titled, of course, “Freedom”—at least marginally palatable.

Large chunks of the film are devoted to McCartney explaining and humming this simple-minded tune to Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend, who both look like…well…rock stars accepting a teenager’s desperate bedroom demo. To watch Paul Fucking McCartney attempt to convince a fellow musical genius why a five-and-a-half hour, star-studded concert should culminate with a song that begins, “This is my right, a right given by God,” and that contains 26 utterances of “freedom” is as cringe-inducing as it is sad.

“Freedom,” in fact, highlights the film’s central shortcoming: Since none of the footage is more recent than October 2001, The Love We Make lacks any true perspective on 9/11. It does survive as a document of the time, which is certainly useful. But just a few years after the release of “Freedom,” McCartney stopped including it on his set-list and was quoted as saying, “Immediately, post-9/11, I thought it was the right sentiment, but it got hijacked, and it got a bit of a militaristic meaning attached to it.”

Instead of this more nuanced perspective, The Love We Make gives us Jon Bon Jovi in a cowboy hat and an acid-wash American flag denim shirt, then-senator Tom Daschle canoodling with celebs backstage, a NYC police officer telling Osama Bin Laden he can “Kiss my royal, Irish ass” and, most uncomfortably, we get thousands cheering wildly as The Who tears through a raucous rendition of “We Won’t Get Fooled Again,” a song that sums up the U.S.’ post-9/11 approach to foreign policy and domestic surveillance better than any other.

Those utterly unique September and October days in 2001 are important to cherish and are an indelible part of U.S. history. The Love We Make reminds us what once seemed possible. But so much of that possibility has faded, and the film’s myopic perspective leaves the viewer more disheartened than invigorated.