Marley

Door of No Return

sugar cane cutters

 

Bob and Rita

Bob and Rita

I-Threes

Bunny Wailer

Cindy Breakspeare

Bob and Cindy

Cindy Breakspeare

Rita Marley

Ziggy Marley

Cedella Marley

Allan “Skill” Cole

Director Kevin Macdonald

MARLEY             B+                                                                                                                Great Britain  USA  (145 mi)  2012  d: Kevin Macdonald

I think what’s great about the film is though there have been a lot of things done on Bob, I think this one will give people a more emotional connection to Bob’s life as a man – not just as a reggae legend or a mythical figure, but his life as a man.

—Ziggy Marley

Maker of superb documentaries that include Academy Award winner ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER (1999), the extraordinary TOUCHING THE VOID (2003), the equally compelling Whitney (2018), and also the Idi Amin historical drama LAST KING OF SCOTLAND (2006), this documentary was made with the full co-operation of the Marley family, told in chronological order, filling in the void of his relatively unknown early life, where the director was surprised to discover there’s not a single piece of footage from the first ten years of his performing career from 1962 to 1972, and only a handful of photographs, despite having five of the top 10 singles on the Jamaican charts early in his career with the Wailers, as no one really took them seriously.  Nonetheless, film and music buffs looking for an immersive portrait of all things associated with Bob Marley will be satiated by this sprawling documentary offering an expansive, richly layered collage of music, vintage archives, partly unpublished material, including rare recordings of Marley songs and live performances, and numerous interviews old and new, feeling like a definitive portrait of the reggae legend.  One of the driving forces behind this film is to uncover the mystery surrounding the enduring appeal of Bob Marley, a rare Third World superstar who remains as popular as ever some forty years after his death, where royalties alone account for $25 to $30 million dollars per year for his family, where there are currently more than 12 million streams monthly on Spotify alone (Bob Marley Would Be Highest Earning Music Legend On ...), with over 6 million followers on his Instagram account, and more than 33 million fans on Facebook and Twitter, so he’s a greater, weightier presence today than he ever was when alive, an enigma that is never fully explained.  While the religious and political impact of his life have too often been overlooked, there’s a surprisingly small amount of concert footage, and few if any songs play in their entirety.  Executive Producers on the film include Marley’s son Ziggy and Island Records founder and record producer Chris Blackwell, both of whom appear in the film, though the majority of the input comes from step-brother Bunny Wailer (aka Neville Livingston), describing Marley’s early childhood, as both were raised in the green hills of Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish with no electricity, living under the same roof at one point in Kingston, Neville Garrick, the artistic director, graphic designer, and friend of Bob Marley who created the sleeve artwork for many of his albums, including Exodus, and also Cindy Breakspeare, Marley’s primary girlfriend since the mid 70’s when she was crowned Miss World 1976, who was all but omitted in Reinaldo Marcus Green’s recent release Bob Marley: One Love (2024).  These figures are onscreen more than the others, offering their own personal insight, expounding on what they know, suggesting they may have known him best.  Rita Marley, Bob’s Cuban-born wife, and Judy Mowatt, two of the I-Threes, the background vocalists for Marley onstage, and daughter Cedella Marley are also prominent figures, though Rita refuses to dwell on any of her husband’s personal transgressions, preferring to honor his eternal optimism, and instead inhabits the earth mother role of guardian angel holding everyone together, providing the necessary stability through fractured times.    

While this is the most comprehensive presentation of Bob Marley’s life that we have ever seen onscreen, taking us on a tour from Jamaica to America to London and on to Japan, Gabon, Zimbabwe, and Germany, what this film excels at is providing a thorough examination of Marley’s childhood and formative years, even finding his first music teacher, discovering he was bullied for being mixed race, as he had an older white father, Norval Marley, who was a British colonial officer who never recognized him as his son.  That family refusal obviously pained him as a kid, angrily writing a song about it, where the lyric “The stone that the builders refused will always be the head cornerstone” is adapted from The Book of Psalms, 118:22, as Macdonald can be seen playing it for the “white” Marley family, Bob Marley - Corner Stone - YouTube (2:25), who are themselves a bit flummoxed about the rising celebrity of a black cousin they never knew.  Dropping out of school to become a musician, spending all of his time in pursuit of that goal, Marley moved to the Trenchtown neighborhood of Kingston, where some of the introductory music he recorded in the early 60’s is simply not well known, including his first recorded song, released on the eve of independence, Bob Marley - Judge Not [1962] - YouTube (2:27) which made him realize going solo was much more difficult, instead forming a group with Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh called the Teenagers, which evolved into the Wailing Rudeboys, the Wailing Wailers and finally just the Wailers, a throwback to the doo-wop American groups, where the intricate harmony is sophisticated, emulating the sound of the Drifters, the Platters, the Impressionists, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, or Dion & the Belmonts singing NEW * A Teenager In Love - Dion & The Belmonts {Stereo} YouTube (2:39).  They were encouraged by Joe Higgs, a popular artist and influential figure in Jamaica for four decades who produced a countless amount of Jamaican artists over the years, a man who was instrumental in the foundation of modern Jamaican music, also known as the Father or Grandfather of reggae who encouraged young talent, working with Jimmy Cliff, acting as his bandleader, even writing songs for him, while also performing for the Wailers during their American tour when Bunny Wailer dropped out.  Island record producer Chris Blackwell wanted the Wailers to tour freak clubs in the United States for no money, only exposure, with Wailer leaving the band for spiritual reasons, claiming it was against his Rastafari principles.  It’s perhaps telling that Marley chose to follow the traditional music business pathways to fame and stardom, hard touring, selling his songs to other performers, letting the record company have their way even while his original Wailer cohorts, Peter Tosh (who seems to want nothing to do with this film, derogatorily describing Blackwell as Chris Whitewell) and Bunny Wailer, rejected this “sell-out” trajectory of exploitive commercialism, with Chris Blackwell acknowledging Marley’s early recordings were “pasteurized” for easier consumption.  Staying true to their roots, according to Higgs, it was out of the poverty and violence in Kingston’s shantytowns such as Trenchtown and Johnstown that reggae music was born.

Music is a matter of struggle.  It’s not good that it’s known you’re from Trenchtown.  Reggae is a confrontation of sound.  Reggae has to have that basic vibrant sound that is to be heard in the ghetto.  It’s like playing the drum and bass very loud.  Those are the basic sounds.  A classical reggae should be accepted in any part of the world.  Freedom, that’s what it's asking for, acceptance, that’s what it needs, and understanding, that’s what reggae’s saying.  You have a certain love come from hard struggle, long suffering.  Through pain you guard yourself with that hope of freedom, not to give up.   

Opening with ‘A Tuff Gong Production,’ the name of Marley’s record label, the film actually begins in Africa on Gorée Island off the coast of Senegal, the last moment on African soil during the Atlantic slave trade, passing through the “Door of No Return” where an estimated 10 to 20 million African slaves were shipped across the ocean on slave ships, the subject of Pierre-Yves Borgeaud’s Youssou N’Dour: Return to Gorée (Retour à Gorée) (2007) and this posted essay by Language Professor Dalla Malé Fofana, Senegal, the African Slave Trade, and the Door of No Return.  The slave trade in Jamaica was abolished in 1807 with the Slave Trade Act of 1807, but by then almost 2 million slaves were traded to Jamaica to run the sugar plantations, with tens of thousands dying on slave ships in the brutal middle passage between West Africa and the Caribbean.  After almost 250 years of rebellion and resistance, slavery itself was finally abolished in 1834 after the passage of The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.  This aspect of Jamaican history is interlinked with the history of reggae, where the roots of oppression are embedded in the music, with the director repeatedly referring to this “origin” of Bob Marley’s identity, as his biography cannot be separated from the colonial history of his homeland.  Marley is an artist aware of divine grace in his life, bringing a prophetic musical message of rebellion and redemption, who relentlessly synthesized the contradictions of perceived wisdom from his life experiences into potent lyrics that combine the utopian vision of Rastafari with recurrent themes of rejection and abandonment.  With songs like Bob Marley & The Wailers ‎- 400 Years - YouTube (2:33) and Concrete Jungle (Live at The Old Grey Whistle, 1973) - YouTube (4:11), little is left in doubt about the history that spawned such angry indignation in the provocative lyrics, Slave Driver (1973) - Bob Marley & The Wailers – YouTube (2:54).

Every time I hear the crack of
a whip
my blood runs cold
I remember on the slave ship
how they brutalize our very
souls
Today they say that we are free
only to be chained here
in poverty….

Macdonald, the Scottish-born director who is also the grandson of legendary Hungarian-British director Emeric Pressburger, tells the story of Marley’s life using different people he had met and worked with along the way, including interviews with Marley himself, much of it subtitled to help decipher the thick Jamaican patois, though the film never really captures the essence of his personality or his mischievous sense of humor, instead there’s a constant stream of music playing throughout, exposing the journey from his young life with his family, how his parents met, to his teenage origins in the music industry, his romance with Rita Marley, who described him as extremely shy, to his Rastafarian connections with spiritual advisor Mortimer Planno and the influence of Haile Salassie, who was mobbed by an adoring crowd on a 1966 visit to the island, much like Marley was after his death in 1981 when his body was returned to Jamaica.  No longer seeing himself as half-white and half-black, suffering the rejection of the people around him who viewed him as an outcast, he was simply embraced and accepted into the Rastafarian community, until he eventually became a major star, told with a sense of calm and restraint, where the man and his music are the message, with no political overkill.  But his progression included Jamaican hits like THE WAILERS - Bend Down Low [1966] - YouTube (2:32) which were extremely popular on the island, played constantly in dance halls, but never on radio stations that routinely rejected Rasta music.  The back story is told by his tour manager, Jamaican soccer legend Allan “Skill” Cole (both sharing a common love for football), where the group was forced to bring physically imposing gangsters with them carrying baseball bats into the radio studio, literally intimidating them to play his music, which initially led them to renowned record producer Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, with Bunny Wailer breaking out into song to describe the elation, Marley #1 Movie CLIP - Bob Marley (2012) HD - YouTube (2:28).  Eventually they found an innovative new producer in Lee “Scratch” Perry, something of an eccentric who used to work for Coxsone before starting up an independent business, but his energy and excitement in a music studio was infectious, eagerly dancing to what he heard, jumping on the tables, flailing his arms around in approval, where his early recordings of the Wailers had a profound influence on Marley’s career, as he was not afraid of experimentation, adding a spiritual element to his music, with the drum and the bass, viewed as the heartbeat and backbone, coming from two brothers, Carlton and Aston “Family Man” Barrett, providing the rhythmic foundation with a mix of funk, rhythm & blues, and soul, expressed in a jazzy way, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh & Bunny Wailer - Stir It Up (Live) 1973, YouTube (3:53).

One of the most profoundly affecting moments in the film comes from Constance Marley, a black half-sister accidentally discovered by Rita Marley, who also had a non-existent relationship with their same father, yet her reaction to hearing the same song played for the “white Marleys,” as she calls them, is much more impactful and emotional, completely identifying with how he must have felt being rejected by his father, placing a dramatic emphasis on how Bob Marley has finally assumed his rightful place in the family that excluded him, becoming the most significant Marley, replacing those others who have retreated into the background.  According to Judy Mowatt, she believes that rejection transformed him into the man he became, which is why he is so relatable and so easily identifiable to the rest of the world, as many people are rejected and hurting in similar ways, where his message of change and transformation is what defines his musical legacy.  With the camera gliding just above the Blue Mountains of eastern Jamaica, we hear the sounds of such an earthy and gospel-style rendition of perhaps his most famous ballad, a love-lullaby reminiscing about life in the “government yards” (housing projects) of Kingston, which just sends chills right through you to hear it, Bob Marley No Woman No Cry featuring Peter Tosh on piano (Marley Movie 2012) YouTube (1:44).   

No woman, no cry
No woman, no cry

‘Cause I remember when we used to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown
Observing the hypocrites
Mingle with the good people we meet
Good friends we have, oh, good friends we’ve lost
Along the way,
In this great future, you can’t forget your past
So dry your tears, I say

Everything’s gonna be alright
Everything’s gonna be alright…

Marley’s early success allowed him to buy his rehearsal studio and giant complex known as the Island House from Chris Blackwell, renamed the Tuff Gong Studios, current residence of The Bob Marley Museum | Tour Bob Marleys Life of Music in ..., and while Rastas weren’t allowed to move uptown in the prestigious wealthy district, there were no dreadlocks there up until then, as this is the same neighborhood as the governor and prime minister who lived just a few doors down, with Marley proclaiming “I bring the ghetto uptown,” Marley - 'Clip 4' - YouTube (1:56).  The film adequately covers the same deeply divided period plunging headfirst into civil war during the mid-70’s accentuated in Bob Marley: One Love (2024), including the assassination attempt, his exile in England, Marley Movie CLIP #2 (2012) Bob Marley Movie HD - YouTube (2:38), and the bookend peace concerts that attempted to heal the political divisions, though it adds the perspective of Diane Jobson, his female lawyer, who wryly comments, “What more do Jamaicans love than a man who’s just survived a gunfight?,” yet Marley’s dealings with Kingston gangs, Rastafarians, prime minister candidates, and African causes reveal a musician transcending the studio and stage, MARLEY Exclusive Clip - YouTube (2:18).  He was always perplexed that American blacks never fully embraced his music, as his concerts were mostly filled by white audiences, as that’s how he was marketed early on by Chris Blackwell (the cause of the breakup of the original Wailers), though by the end of his life his music gained an enduring power and global reach.  His death from cancer is given even greater scrutiny here, finding himself with few options, cutting his American tour short due to his failing health, yet somehow he was able to power through each concert, offering the full display of his showmanship despite flagging morale all around him.  Chemotherapy treatment caused him to lose his hair, but the cancer progressed throughout his body, given just weeks to live, so he stopped all medical treatment and instead sought holistic treatment from Dr. Josef Issels in the frigid wintry conditions of the snow-capped Bavarian forests of Rottach-Egern, Germany, where they even found Waltraud Ullrich, a nurse that treated him at the facility, who remembered his kindness and endless patience.   Perhaps the most haunting memory comes along a winding road as we hear his voice echoing through an empty forest covered in layers of snow, sounding like Bob Dylan accompanying himself on acoustic guitar in the 60’s, with Marley singing a song of freedom in his Redemption Song, Bob Marley - Redemption Song (Acoustic Version) YouTube (3:10), expressing the need for emancipation, yet it thoroughly embodies the spirit of the Rastas.

Old pirates, yes, they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
from the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
by the hand of the Almighty.                                                                                        We forward in this generation                                                                                     Triumphantly.

Won’t you help to sing                                                                                               These songs of freedom?                                                                                          ‘Cause all I ever have                                                                                               Redemption songs                                                                                           Redemption songs.

Bob Marley: One Love

 

Director Reinaldo Marcus Green

Bob Marley

The director with Kingsley Ben-Adir

Ziggy Marley with Kingsley Ben-Adir

Haile Selassie

Emperor Haile Selassie's crown

BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE           B                                                                                   USA  (104 mi)  2024 ‘Scope  d: Reinaldo Marcus Green

Exodus.  Movement of Jah people!
Exodus.  Movement of Jah people!

Open your eyes (And look within)
Are you satisfied? (With the life you’re livin’?)
We know where we’re goin’

We know where we’re from
We’re leavin’ Babylon
We’re goin' to our Fatherland

Bob Marley - Exodus (Live At The Rainbow 4th June 1977) YouTube (7:24)

While this is an authorized biography from the Bob Marley family and estate, co-produced by son Ziggy and Bob’s wife Rita Marley, also daughter Cedella, while another son Stephen is the music supervisor, but that by no means indicates it’s better, though it should be, as the filmmaker has access to extensive material no one else has, so it should be more accurate and more thoroughly comprehensive, delving into the music and hidden complexities of his life.  By contrast, Sofia Coppola’s recent film Priscilla (2023) couldn’t even play an Elvis song, as his estate wouldn’t allow it, but that’s a much better film, made by a director with a more elaborately constructed artistic vision.  This, on the other hand, feels more conventional, yet there was nothing conventional about reggae legend Bob Marley who took the world by storm, combining American doo-wop and rhythm-and-blues with an odd new rhythm accentuating the offbeat, whose Rastafarian message of peace, love, and unity was embraced by a public clamoring for more, where the main thing was always the message contained in his music about how we live life and how we treat others.  The Marley family imprint is all over this film, actually introduced in a brief clip by Ziggy Marley, where this is something of a valentine to his father, paying tribute to the loving relationship between Bob and Rita, as the film presents him as his adoring family sees him, and how they want the rest of the world to remember him, though they were no longer together by the end, having survived the extramarital affairs, confessing in her memoirs No Woman No Cry: My Life with Bob Marley, she became more “like his sister, his mother, and his guardian angel.”  Making no attempt to tell the story of his life, this encapsulates only a brief period in the mid 70’s, a time of turmoil in Jamaica, where rival political factions, the American backed Jamaica Labour Party of former Prime Minister Edward Seaga and the socialist People’s National Party of the sitting Prime Minister Michael Manley, ended up unleashing rampant gang violence that swept the island, creating panic and confusion, leading to a state of emergency, giving the military and the police extraordinary powers to quell the storm, where some thought it may have been a plot to rig the election.  During this period, just days before Marley planned to give a free Smile Jamaica Concert promoting peace organized by Manley in order to ease tensions, politically motivated gunmen attempted to assassinate Marley and his wife, shooting both, yet each survived, with rival factions believing the concert was an excuse to hold a rally in support of Manley.  While still performing, briefly, exposing his wounds, this incident traumatized Marley and his family, sending Rita and the children to the United States to live in safety, while spending two years afterwards in self-imposed exile with his band in London where most of this film takes place, much of it told through flashback visions and stream-of-conscious memories, creating an internalized picture of the personal anguish he was going through.

The film is an excuse to reimmerse yourself in the legendary music of Bob Marley, which is easily the best part of the picture, as he almost singlehandedly gave rise to reggae music as an art form, extending the reach worldwide, following up on Perry Henzell’s The Harder They Come (1972), where the superb musical soundtrack (The Harder They Come (Original Soundtrack Recording) ...), featuring some of Kingston’s best acts, introduced reggae and its culture to the world.  British actor Kingsley Ben-Adir, previously starring as Malcolm X in Regina King’s ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI (2020) and Barack Obama in the TV mini-series THE COMEY RULE (2020), gives a captivating performance as Marley, while British actress Lashana Lynch provides a standout performance as Rita, as she literally shines, bringing firmness and compassion to the role, where her colorful presence as a member of the I-Threes background singers becomes an integral part of Marley’s stage shows, while there are also interspersed flashback sequences of a young, teenaged Marley (Quan-Dajai Henriques) meeting his future wife, Rita Anderson (Nia Ashi), revealing she’s been by his side since childhood.  Flashbacks also reveal how his white father, a British colonial officer, abandoned him at an early age, leading to recurring visions of a child surrounded by fire, while his father on a horse rides off and leaves him there.  This same image reappears multiple times, as if imprinted into his brain, but by the end of the film the father on the horse has been replaced by Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, the revered father of the Rastafari movement where he is worshipped as God incarnate, viewing him as the living messiah that Jamaican Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey prophesized in the 1930’s would lead the African diaspora to freedom (“Look to Africa, when a black king shall be crowned for the day of deliverance is near!”).  These beliefs are at the heart of Marley’s music, running through the lyrics of his songs, perhaps best exemplified by Bob Marley - War (Official Music Video) - YouTube (3:55), which is based on Selassie’s iconic speech before the United Nations General Assembly on October 4, 1963 (Haile Selassie I's speech to the UN in 1963).    

Until the philosophy which hold one race
Superior and another inferior
is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned
Everywhere is war, me say war.

That until there are no longer first class
and second class citizens of any nation
Until the color of a man’s skin
is of no more significance than the color of his eyes
Me say war.

Fast forward to where we are today, as war rages unabated in both Ukraine and Gaza while the world looks on in horror and disbelief, yet also indifference, as not much has changed since Selassie made his remarks.  According to the Geneva Academy (Today's Armed Conflicts), an education institution in international humanitarian law, human rights, and transitional justice, there are currently more than 110 armed conflicts happening around the world at the moment, and most are due to ethnicity, color, or resources, just as they always have been, where in the infamous words of 19th century Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  Anyone who’s read The Iliad by Homer can attest to this, written 800 B.C.E. yet the wholesale killing continues.  Marley’s revolutionary musical vision, which he always viewed as a transcendent experience, was meant to put an end to the hatred that divides us, using music to spiritually unite the world with a brilliant synthesis of musical styles, employing the language of the King James Bible to sing of revolution, emancipation, and freedom. 

In London, Marley experiences discrimination at the hands of the police and a violent reaction from punk rockers, discovering racism and rebellion go hand in hand, while also encountering cold temperatures and disagreements within the band, but it’s also where his vision began to transform with the epic scope of his album Exodus, Bob Marley & The Wailers - Exodus (Full Album) - YouTube (37:24), using an electric guitar to develop a brand new reggae sound.  Seen with his band leisurely tinkering with a new song, each member gradually joins in as we hear a rough draft of what would eventually become the title song, Exodus - YouTube YouTube (7:41), making a Biblical reference to Moses leading the Israelites out of exile and into freedom, the group is seen practicing the song as it develops, a slowed down, collaborative effort that features a trance-like hypnotic rhythm, punctuated by its resounding chorus of “Exodus, Movement of Jah people!”  Marley even wanted a different album cover, choosing something more simplistic, but immediately recognizable, countering the position of the white people footing the bills, music publicist Howard Bloom (Michael Gandolfini) and Island Records producer Chris Blackwell (James Norton), as they thought it would never work, but this was the first Marley single played on black radio stations in America, expanding what was predominately a white collegiate audience, becoming his first international hit.  It remains perhaps his most transcendent song, where it would be impossible to associate it with anyone other than Bob Marley, whose Rasta identity runs through it like a pulsing heart.  There are flashbacks to his first studio recording as a teenager with the Wailing Wailers, where a gun-toting record producer ("Obituary: Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd") is ready to kick them out until he hears them directing a message to the rude boys on the streets in a new song, The Wailing Wailers - "Simmer Down" (Official Audio) - YouTube (2:50), urging them to stop the violence in the crime-ridden ghettos of Kingston, becoming a number one hit in Jamaica in 1964, signing Marley to his first record contract with Studio One, then the most important recording studio in Jamaica.  Isolated and alone in London, however, feeling the need for his wife’s presence, he sends for her, conjuring up memories of the past, recognizing her as his spiritually aligned soulmate, yet their European success has unintended consequences, with a gala of jet set cocktail festivities exposing a fractured relationship that bubbles up to the surface in a heated argument that comes out of nowhere (Marley had 11 children with 7 different women), where she reminds him, “You swim in pollution, you get polluted,” yet when she initially arrives he’s quietly heard strumming the lyric for a new song on an acoustic guitar, Bob Marley & The Wailers - Natural Mystic (Music Video) YouTube (3:21).

There’s a natural mystic
Blowing through the air
If you listen carefully now you will hear
This could be the first trumpet
Might as well be the last
Many more will have to suffer
Many more will have to die
Don’t ask me why

The release of this album coincided with a sold-out European tour that turned him onto a star, with Marley becoming a messianic figure with legions of followers, and a superstar in Jamaica, returning to the island as a triumphant hero, reconnecting with his children, where he was driven to perform yet another concert that would showcase rival political faction unity, One Love Peace Concert, where the leaders of the opposing parties joined hands, but they publicly continued to blame each other afterwards and the event did little to quell the political violence.  Leading up to that moment, however, Marley is visited by one of the men who shot him (an incident that never happened), remorsefully asking for forgiveness, where his calm response, as if possessed by a higher spirit, is an indication of what kind of man he is, as there’s no revenge or retribution in his heart, suggesting instead that the man needs to forgive himself in the eyes of the Creator.  The low point comes from the discovery he has a rare form of skin cancer on a toe that refuses to heal, injured during a pickup soccer game during the middle of his European tour, but he refused the recommended treatment, which was amputation of his toe to stop the cancer from spreading, as his Rastafarian religion considered it a sin to remove any part of the body.  While this is perfectly understandable, it also cost him his life.  This medical catastrophe sets a darker tone, postponing his planned American and African tours, finally making it to Zimbabwe in 1980 on the eve of their independence from British colonial rule, where crucial to his Rastafari worldview, which is embedded throughout his music, is a reverence for Africa as the source of black life.  He was specifically interested in resisting the racist, colonial systems that Rastafari teachings identify as a source of suffering among black people around the world.  While there is valid criticism that this film doesn’t tell the full story of his life, providing only brief excerpts, never attempting to unlock the key to his massive popularity, it was written by a coterie of writers that omits the darker edges, or even the fact that he wrote the Kaya album at the same time he was in London, yet it does equate with artists today taking a more active role in writing their own legacy and shaping their own image.  This is framed as a love story with a tragic ending, generating plenty of welled-up emotions from both the magnificence of the music and the power of the performances, creating more of a tribute to what Bob Marley stood for, where his message was never more needed than it is today, as there are alarming similarities to the divisiveness of Jamaica during the 70’s and the world of today.  Intolerance and hatred seem to define the new age, spreading like a virus, where the redemptive concepts Marley sang about seem to be forgotten, but this film is a pleasant reminder for a new generation.     

Bob Marley & The Wailers - Live at the Rainbow (Full Concert)  London, June 4, 1977, YouTube (1:23:12)