Film: Marley
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Featuring: Bob Marley, Lee Scratch Perry, Bunny Wailer
4/5
Marley’s daughter recounts the difficulty in having friends to stay, explaining how they would retort, “all your parents do is smoke and play music”
Marley’s daughter recounts the difficulty in having friends to stay, explaining how they would retort, “all your parents do is smoke and play music”
Marley is an enthralling demonstration of exemplary documentary making from director Kevin Macdonald. The film comprises a selection of incredible archive footage, much of it previously unseen and a series of intimate interviews with the likes of Lee Perry, Jimmy Cliff and Bunny Wailer. In addition there is the insight from Marley’s own family; his wife Rita Marley and children Ziggy and Cedella Marley.
Viewers are given a forcible impression of Marley’s charisma, warmth and joy in music and life.
We also hear from the various women Marley knew over the length of his multifarious career as a reggae artist, football enthusiast and noted womaniser including former Miss World Cindy Brakespeare, and the daughter of the dictator of Gabon. This mix of voices works together unexpectedly well, affirming what the film seems to be saying throughout: Marley’s greatest accomplishment was his power to bring people together.
Cashing in with its 4/20 release on the haze of cannabis culture that surrounds its namesake, the film actually surprises with its level of depth and seriousness. Macdonald visits ‘the door of no return’ in Ghana used to ship slaves to the West Indies before moving his camera through the green hills of St Ann, the shanty style town of Marley’s birth and into a violent 1970’s Kingston, rooting the film in the humble reality of his beginnings.
The film then follows Marley through his induction into the recording world with the Wailers and gives an intelligent and interesting perspective on Marley’s cannabis use and Rastafarianism and its influence on his music. Macdonald’s skill in blending footage from Marley’s visits to London, Africa and Tokyo succeed in almost resurrecting him. Viewers are given a forcible impression of his charisma, warmth and joy in music and life.
Marley places a largely positive gloss on its story, but the reality at times inevitably breaks in. The interviews with his daughter Cedella Marley are a little fraught; at times she seems on the verge of tears. While Ziggy laughs his way through anecdotes and Rita Marley talks without bitterness about Bob’s numerous relationships with other women, it is clear Cedella has been affected by an unconventional and at times difficult upbringing. She recounts the difficulty in having friends to stay stating they would retort, ‘all your parents do is smoke and play music’ finishing simply with ‘nobody wanted their children around us’.
Coming in then at just under 2 and ½ hours, ‘Marley’ is a truly ambitious biopic. At times the length works against it, and the film seems to drag out into infinity, but mostly the sense of scale delivered is appropriate. Perhaps anything less would not have done justice to the richness of Marley’s life. Originally a Martin Scorsese project, ‘Marley’ fell finally into the hands of Kevin Macdonald, and Macdonald, to credit him, has handled the all the material sensitively and creatively. His documentary style is minimal and non-intrusive, allowing an amazing story to speak for itself.
