Documentary MARLEY is about the musician, revolutionary and legend, Bob Marley. Made with the support of the Marley family, the Magnolia Pictures film, MARLEY, from Academy Award-winning director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) features rare footage, incredible performances and revelatory interviews with the people that knew Bob Marley best.
More than 30 years after his death, Bob Marley (1945–1981), the reggae musician and revolutionary who embodies Rastafarian culture, remains a major force. His album Legend is one of only 17 albums to pass the 10-million mark in sales (in 2009) and continues to sell 250,000 copies per year. According to Billboard magazine, it’s the second-longest charting album ever. In 1999 Time magazine named Exodus as the greatest album of the 20th century.
Kevin Macdonald’s film opens with the song, Exodus, and continues its pulse with narratives by “Bunny” Livingston, the only surviving member of the Wailers vocal trio, the Wailer’s artistic director, Neville Garrick and Rita Marley, Bob’s wife and mother to Ziggy and Cedella Marley. Ziggy said, “I think what’s great about this film is, though there have been a lot of things done on Bob, this one will give people a more emotional connection to Bob’s life as a man—not just as a reggae legend or mythical figure. And it shows the struggles he went through.”
Viewers learn about Marley as both political force and as a flawed man who was father to 11 children with seven women. While Rita Marley sounds devoted and forgiving in the film, son Ziggy and daughter Cedella sound less so. Cedella’s disappointment comes through her resentful, bitter-sounding description of a man who was not a gentle and loving father. Ziggy shares stories that depict his Dad as a man who didn’t want to be bothered by taking care of children.
Bob Marley knew very little of his own father, Norval Sinclair Marley, a white Jamaican from Sussex, England. This documentary includes the one existing photograph of this elusive captain in the Royal Marines and paints a picture of a man who had no interest in his son, Bob, and died when Bob was only 10. The film suggests that Bob’s pain around his absentee father is what may have created his unrelenting musical force and mission to change the world through love and political awareness.
One of the highlights in MARLEY is the “One Love Peace Concert” footage during which Marley facilitates the joining of hands between two members of opposing parties in a political civil war in Jamaica.
Ja mon. One love, one heart. Let’s get together and feel alright.
Friday, April 20, 2012: Will stream live on Facebook also available On Demand. 145 min.
I did not have any contact with the Marley family. That was the director. I just wrote about the movie. Cheers, Dorri