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Pictured above: Bob Marley

Published: 26 April, 2012
by DAN CARRIER

THE work of Bob Marley has made him a mythical figure, a Reggae legend whose influence transcends music.

But how much do we really know about the man who, since his death 31 years ago, has become an icon of the 20th century?

The answer can be found in a new documentary, Marley, by Kentish Town-based film-maker Kevin Macdonald.

Oscar-winning Macdonald has an eye for a story. He has a documentary background – his back catalogue includes One Day In September about the 1972 Munich Olympic attack; the mountain-climbing drama Touching The Void; and A Life In A Day, the worldwide film-yourself project. But he also takes stories from the past and fictionalises them, such as his look at the murderous regime of Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland.

Now he has turned  his lens on the life of Marley, and it is a timely move. Marley’s contempor­aries are now the elder statesmen of Reggae, and his legacy is being revisited. A recent book by Colin Grant, for example, called I and I: The Natural Mystics (Jonathan Cape) considers the lives of Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingstone.

Macdonald’s film fol­lows a similar pattern, drawing on the memories of Marley’s closest friends – those who knew him from the start, as well as people who had vital roles in his rise to global stardom.

Marley died in May 1981, aged 36, yet his popu­larity has only grown: the album Legend has sold more
than 17 million copies and continues to be bought at the rate of 250,000 a year. His songs have entered the common lexicon not just of a nation but of the entire world.

Macdonald first con­sidered a Marley biopic when he was approached by Island Records founder Chris Blackwell nearly a decade ago. Blackwell wanted Macdonald to film a 60th birthday “concert for Bob” in Ethiopia. He liked the concept, but shooting The Last King of Scotland got in the way.

However, filming in Uganda did not mean Marley was out of sight, out of mind. “As I wandered around, particularly in the poorer areas, I saw all these Marley images everywhere,” he recalls. “It was on flags, graffiti, all over the place.”

The experience underlined that Marley had a global reach – and prompted Macdonald to wonder why.

“Everyone feels like they know Bob Marley,” he says. “But they know the mythologised version; the version seen on T-shirts in Camden Town.  We all know the music. But we do not know the man. A prob­lem with a lot of big stars – in particular with Bob, because he’s almost got this image of a prophet – is that people forget to ask the personal questions.  What was his family like?  His father?  Why was he so driven?”

Marley earned his success.

While it wasn’t until the 1970s that his work broke out of Jamaica, his music had been played in the yards of Trench Town since he was a teenager.

His first single was released in 1962, 10 years prior to the Island Records period.

And it was also down to sheer hard work.

“He wanted it. He was dedicated and ambitious,” says Macdonald. “He worked his band into the ground. They wouldn’t go to hotel rooms and hang out with groupies after gigs – he got them together and went through the set, consid­ered what went wrong and what went right. It was the way he was.”

The influence of Blackwell can’t be underestimated – to a certain degree he played the role of Brian Epstein.

“Blackwell understood Jamaica and Reggae,” says Macdonald. “He thought he could at first market Bob as a black rock act. The purists thought this was compromising, but that is how he reached such a large audience.
“For Bob, it was like: If you hear this version of my song you may like my other ones.”

They did – and as his film illustrates, the legacy of Bob Marley is as strong as ever.

• Kevin Macdonald’s film, Marley, is currently on general release, Certificate 15