Marley

‘Exhaustive’ is hardly the word for the documentary Marley. In detailing the life of legendary reggae singer Bob Marley, the film covers a staggering amount of ground that will likely please newbies and purists alike. The project has a troubled background: before ending up in the capable hands of Kevin MacDonald, both Martin Scorsese and Jonathan Demme had a run at it, the latter having left in the middle of editing due to the old perennial, ‘creative differences’. 

 

It’s a welcome return to the format for MacDonald, who came slightly unstuck in 2011 with his dull, derivative Roman adventure The Eagle. Marley re-affirms his position as one of the finest documentary filmmakers in the business – in the past, MacDonald helmed the gripping docudrama Touching the Void and the impressive fact/fiction hybrid, The Last King of Scotland. 

 

MacDonald is terrific at placing things in context: Marley begins in Africa, where so many slaves were shipped off to the other side of the world. We’re taken to a door entitled ‘The Door of No Return’ and then we’re taken through it, a visual demonstration of how the past is an important factor in our understanding of this musical behemoth. 

 

Taking in everything from Marley’s roots in rural, poverty stricken Jamaica to his acceptance of the Rastafari Movement and his breakout success in the UK and America, it’s as comprehensive an experience as the great man deserves. Some noteworthy vignettes include the revelation that Marley’s birth father was white and that he was, at one stage, almost persuaded to adopt ‘Adam’ as his stage name. 

 

It’s an intelligently constructed piece, connecting Marley to Jamaica’s physical landscape, to its tortured past and to the equally tortured political turmoil into which he wandered as a young man. These multiple strands ensure the film is a well-bolstered success, although the most memorable moments are the candid ones: Marley’s children (Ziggy included) hinting at his failings as a father; photographs showing him playing football in London’s Battersea Park with the UK National Front.  

 

But, at two hours, twenty minutes, it threatens to blind us with science rather than dazzle us with the poetry of Marley’s music. The movie lacks the qualities of last year’s Senna, which triumphantly used archive footage, and only archive footage, to paint a haunting, nostalgic portrait of the great racing driver. MacDonald’s approach is more prosaic and conventional, blending talking heads and interviews with archive footage – it’s impressively researched and packed with information but rather draining. 

 

It’s also worth noting that the film probably holds more appeal for Marley newcomers than devotees. Although the amount of information is manna from heaven for the uninitiated, fans will no doubt be well aware of the facts concerning his background, parentage and so on. Nevertheless, so detailed is MacDonald’s project that even they are likely to take great pleasure in such candid moments as Marley uniting the Jamaican Labour Party and the People’s National Party during his One Love Peace Concert. The juxtaposition of these grand moments with the smaller, intimate ones serves to make Marley an engrossing, if unwieldy, experience. 

Rating: 7/10