Marley (2012)

Marley is an interesting documentary because it conveys not so much the narrative of a life, but an impression. Of course, it doesn’t hurt any that the life in question is that of music icon Bob Marley. What the film does well, though, relying mostly as it does on interviews and historical footage, is manage to be simultaneously about a man and an icon. Do we get to know Bob Marley through this film? Not in any real new way, no. But we do get a feeling for what it was like to know him.

Whatever agenda Marley might have, it wears lightly. There is no obvious “message.” There is no voice-over narration. When explanations are needed, they appear as on-screen text. The bulk of the film comprises anecdotes and reminiscences from a surprising number of Marley’s contemporaries, colleagues, and family. In some cases, people who you can be sure would not speak to each other in real life both spoke to the same documentarian. There is also little frame. The film opens with a nod to the slave trade, but there is a refreshing lack of what-iffing and influence charting at the end. The scope of the documentary is the span of Bob Marley’s years on earth. Marley seems to want to let its subject’s life speak for itself, in the voices of people who shared it.

And that life itself is plenty interesting. Bob was born in 1945 in rural Jamaica to a white father (called “Captain,” but with no obvious military credentials) and black mother. In a deeply race-conscious society, this background put young Marley on the boundary of a struggle between racial and economic groups. Early in life, he seems to have felt left out of this battle; later, after he embraces Rastafarianism, Marley almost comes to seem himself above it. The man that emerges from the stories and music presented here is one who has no use for divisions. “One Love” is his song and his creed and, if we can believe what we see here, his ambition. Music for Bob was a passion and a mission. He made money – and gave a lot of it away. He bought a huge house in an upper-class neighborhood  - and opened it to all and anyone who would abide by his Rasta standards. Watching this, I felt as though I was watching the antidote to every “True Hollywood Story” episode I saw as a teenager.

It is exactly this kind of unconcern that makes Marley both so compelling and so remote. I couldn’t help but feel that everyone interviewed – friend, former bandmate, lover, or child – was a little in awe of Bob while he lived. An unapologetically spiritual man, Marley lived by strict lifestyle standards. Yet he also fathered eleven children by seven mothers. A Rastafarian woman interviewed notes, “Was [Bob] faithful? Faithful to Jah? Yes. Faithful to any one woman? No.” And yet, even years later, every woman we see onscreen who was involved with him in life still lowers her eyes and blushes a little when she speaks of him. He had charm, and conviction. To see him perform (which the film wisely lets us do, a lot) is to see a man in near-religious ecstasy. Whether he was onstage before 100 or 100,000 people, Marley was always before Jah. His music was his faith lived out. Before a benefit concert he was to headline in Jamaica in 1976, Marley’s house was shot up by a gunman, wounding Marley and two others. Many saw the violence as a result of Jamaica’s violent political party divisions, wherein Marley had friends on each side. Each side claimed the other was to blame, but, in a taped interview, Bob himself has a bigger conflict in view: asked who he says did it, he replies, “the Devil.” Marley, a bullet-hole in his arm, did the show anyway. Two years later, he did another Jamaican show, got the leaders of both political parties up on stage to shake hands, and prayed over them. The Devil lost that round.

Part of the Marley legend is, of course, his early death. Convinced by bad advice not to pursue treatment for melanoma in its early stages, Bob let cancer claim him at age 36, just as his popularity peaked. The film shows him performing almost until the end, which came after last-ditch holistic efforts at a clinic in Germany failed him. Onscreen, we see that even the frail, dying Marley could still cast a spell over those who cared for him. He was who he was, right until the end. For his funeral in Jamaica, mourners lined the streets. Under the closing credits, we hear people from nations around the world sing along with Marley’s music. Everyone, it seems, knows the words. It’s a tribute both powerful and somehow understated, and – I think, at least – just the sort of remembrance Bob Marley would have wanted.

I’ve known and enjoyed Marley’s music for years, but knew little about his life. Marley gave me some facts I did not know (his ancestry, and that he lived in Delaware for a while! Represent!), but more than that it gave me respect for the power of a life. This film has little to nothing of the exposé about it, and seems to have been met with goodwill by those involved. It’s a chance to get a fuller feeling for a man too often known for the number of shirts his image decorates on any given beach weekend. It’s a chance to remember that even icons have friends and lovers and conflicted kids. If nothing else, it’s a chance to spend two-plus hours soaking up the soulful music and presence of Robert Nesta Marley.