... the discovery of an old diary of mine set me straight on a couple things ... through much of spring 1981, prepping for exams I should've passed the year before, I was wrapped up in an academic cocoon ... hence, contrary to well-intentioned fiction fashioned over three decades, it seems I didn't hear of Bob Marley's passing until the morning after it happened ...
... I was downing breakfast and coffee before heading for the Library, and with nothing being particularly romantic about the experience, I felt extra-cheated in that moment by the news ...
... losing Bob was personal ... consequently I avidly devour every posthumous detail, anecdote, article, book and video ... the cosmic vacuum left behind on that May 11th, when he drew final breath en-route to Jamaica, subsists on persistent postscript ...
... enter Kevin MacDonald's film Marley, the brand-new-heavy, a two-and-a-half hour feature-documentary illuminating the life of musical icon Bob Marley ... it's the latest manifestation of a kept promise, Bob's own pledge of presence-in-perpetuity ... "you a go tyad to see me face, can't get me out a di race" - (Bad Card)
... the globo-ubiquity of
Brand Marley is remarkable for its straddling of high and low places ...
Anna Wintaur of
Vogue and
Laura of the Bushes can attest, similarly too the random street stencils spotted by my daughter in San Miguel, Mexico ...
... with Bob firmly ensconced in the pantheon of revered rockers, responsibility for turning out a product such as "Marley" surely daunts stout effort and best intention ... indeed, directors Stone, Scorcese and Demme publicly flirted with head credits, before MacDonald, just into his teens in '81, stayed aboard to deliver an updated primer on the sensibilities of his subject ...
... the thirty-odd year wait for family and key collaborators to sign-off on the film has seen gradual leakage of memorabilia and memories over time, feeding several tomes and bolstering the overall industry that is The Legend ... familiarity with many of the extant photos of Bob Marley only sweetens the freshness of an image that registers as rare or new ...
... as I become aware that so many people are yet
unaware of
Robert Nesta Marley's mixed racial heritage for example, or even the fact that dreadlocks can actually be kept clean, I'm reminded that the film's target zone is vast and ever-expanding ... future generations will now be challenged to place this extraordinary life in
context of a wider narrative ...
... Marley the documentary is poised to infuse some clarity into the smokescreen and engage viewers who are hip to only isolated aspects of this musician's mythology and mystique ...
... y'see, nearly everyone has an idea who shot the metaphorical sheriff John Brown, and accepts that a double negative is clumsy syntax unless you're singing No Woman, No Cry, but it behoves me to point out that too many settle for the reductive cliche of stoned Rastaman, an "irie mon" simplification of a real revolutionary ... this is about to change, say "hi" to Bob the man ...
... much of his story is a matter of public record, and we've watched and studied as the phenomenon grew ...
"
in the darkness there must come out a light,"
- (Could You Be Loved)
... but it hasn't always been clear where to start when initiating
new attention to the
Bob Marley allegory ... by beginning on shores
across the Atlantic,
Marley strikes a first note as crisp as
Carly Barrett's rimshot drumroll ... deliberate pacing and lengthier edits lend languid riddim to the film that, in the end, doesn't feel too long ...
... spiced with revealing footage of previously anonymous individuals like Bob's Bavarian nurse and the half-sister he never knew, in addition to new footage of the usual cast of characters, the final cut is consistently compelling, a story all should see ...
... the upshot is a linear look at
Bob Marley's timeline - a simple, modern approach if ever there was one - humanizing, touching the familiar and unfamiliar on the way to a choke-up ending, which we know is coming but get to experience all over again ...
... as we ponder what was, what might've been and what will be ...
