When I was a teenager, a friend of mine gave me rather large tie dye t-shirt bought somewhere in Spain. In the colours of the Rastafari movement, it featured a giant face of Bob Marley at the centre. Having stolen my father’s copy of The Very Best of Bob Marley & The Wailers, and playing it on loop for around 6 months, I was quite taken with it even if I would never go out in it in public. Mainly because it made me look like an absolute idiot. However, the fact that another random Scottish teenager could, this very minute, be listening to Marley in a horrendous t-shirt bearing his likeness says a little about his pervading global presence many years after his death – albeit a more flippant one than his influence on music, perceptions of the Rastafari movement and his homeland of Jamaica. It is the latter, more serious, aspect that Kevin Macdonald’s epic documentary MARLEY attempts to capture, largely successfully.
Making use of The Wailers discography, interviews with those who knew and worked with Marley, as well as archive interviews and images of the man himself, the film charts Marley’s entire life from his beginnings in St Ann Parish through to his death from cancer in 1981. With Chris Blackwell (Island Records producer) and offspring Ziggy Marley holding executive producer credits, this runs the risk of being a long hagiography – especially given previous director Jonathan Demme left the project over “creative differences”. Fortunately, these accusations are handily dodged by looking at the rise of Marley as a cultural and political icon, rather than an intense examination of his personal life. The end result is a truly fascinating film full of insight and humour.
The end result is a truly fascinating film full of insight and humour
By following Marley throughout his career, Kevin Macdonald illustrates the cultural significance of Marley and how his own upbringing as an outsider (the son of an absent white father) informed his Rastafarian faith and political viewpoints. Throughout this, members of the Wailers and some of those close to Marley also bring forward facts of interest about the development of reggae and the nation of Jamaica itself. Combining all of this makes for an excellent biography for those with either extensive or restricted knowledge of the man.
Format-wise, MARLEY isn’t breaking any moulds or doing anything remarkable with the documentary format – it is the well worn talking heads plus archive formula, albeit augmented with some excellent music and archive footage. Although some landscape shots of Jamaica give some cinematic quality to the visuals, it is really the narrative quality of Marley’s life which delivers the je ne sais quoi that most documentaries need to justify being seen in a cinema. The ‘story’ and scope of the film is arguably what makes it cinematic, rather than anything visual. Those going in with knowledge will, of course, enjoy numerous aspects from the music to the history. However, newcomers will enjoy the film and be left in no doubt as to why someone would make a 144-minute documentary about Bob Marley.
…newcomers will enjoy the film and be left in no doubt as to why someone would make a 144-minute documentary about Bob Marley
The film isn’t without problems, and it’s easy to see how Marley’s critics could be frustrated at the manner in which his complicated personal life, he had 11 children by 7 mothers, is somewhat backgrounded. However, the film does deal with this, even if you get the feeling Cedella Marley has far more to say about her father’s child-raising qualities. Macdonald prefers to focus on Marley’s rise to that of global icon. To put it callously, it is also the more interesting story.