If These Walls Could Sing

Mary McCartney's documentary covers ninety years of the Abbey Road studios in London. Her father, Paul McCartney, is among those who speak, and that proximity is both what makes the film possible and what limits it. Its best stretches are the ones not given to the Beatles. The early years when the studio was built around classical recording, the film-score sessions, the time Pink Floyd spent there, the recording techniques the engineers invented for the period. That sound engineering is creative work is the film's plain argument. Ringo Starr, Noel and Liam Gallagher and Elton John, among others, describe their own sessions. The telling is chronological and comfortable, and nobody criticises the studio or the music industry. That pushes the documentary toward celebration. Who it's for: those interested in popular music history and recording studio culture. Who it's not for: viewers looking for critical distance; the film asks no difficult question of an institution it loves.