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Bob Marley: the regret that haunted hislifeDirector Kevin Macdonald explains how he pieced together his

new film about reggae legend Bob Marley, from troubled early

years in Jamaica to worldwide adulation - even after death

Tim Adams

The Observer, Sunday 8 April 2012

 Article history 

Bob Marley: 'always the outsider'. Photograph: Stills Press Agency /Rex Features

In 2005, the director Kevin Macdonald was working in Uganda on his film The Last 

 King of Scotland . In the slums of Kampala he was struck by a curious fact. There

seemed to be images of Bob Marley and "Get up, stand up" slogans and dreadlocks

 wherever he went.

Marley had been on Macdonald's mind anyway: he had been asked by Chris Blackwell,

founder of Island Records, if he would be interested in getting involved in a film project

about the Jamaican musician's enduring legacy.

The original plan had been to follow a group of rastafarians on their journey from

Kingston to their spiritual homeland of Ethiopia, to attend a celebration of the 60th

anniversary of Marley's birth. As it worked out, that film was never made, but, when the

opportunity arose for Macdonald to make a more ambitious documentary about Marley,

he jumped at the chance.

Crucially, the film had the blessing and support of the Marley family and key figures in

his musical evolution, including the long-estranged original Wailer, Neville "Bunny"

Livingstone. "It seemed very important to make this film now, while some of the people

 who had known Bob the best, in the early years in particular, were still around to tell the

tale," Macdonald says.

He set about collecting interviews and researching some of the more mysterious aspects

of a much mythologised life, that ended tragically prematurely in 1981, with Marley aged

only 36.

There were frustrations for Macdonald, not least the almost complete absence of footageor photography from the formative years of Bob Marley and the Wailers. But, with

persistence and the rich memories of the period from Livingstone, Marley's widow Rita

and others, he pieced the biopic together.

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 VoodooJunkie

8 April 2012 1:25AM

 A lot of folk like to slate Bob for his assimilation into the

commercial mainstream, then profess reggae is nothing other

than Toots & The Maytals, King Tubby, The Upsetters, Junior

Marvin, Max Romeo etc ... A point of view only held because

everyone owns a copy of the Legend album. Go beyond that

though to classics like 'Crazy Baldhead', 'My Cup', 'Small Axe',

and many more of his essentialy lo-fi material and what you get

is one of the most authentic, iconic and symbolic songwriters of 

our time. Enjoy the skunk up there Bob & mind to give St. Peter

some blow-backs.

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8 April 2012 1:29AM

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In his lifetime Bob Marley was a reluctant interviewee. "Having little formal education,"

Macdonald suggests, "he felt uncomfortable being asked questions by journalists."

 Anyway, there were aspects of his past on which he did not want to dwell, particularly 

his feelings about his white, absent father, Norval Marley, a man who claimed to have

 been a captain in the colonial Caribbean army, but wasn't.

In some ways, in the film, "Captain" Norval becomes the key to understanding Marley.

 As Macdonald says, "a lot of people assume Bob was black and are surprised to discover

he had a white father". The prejudice associated with that fact in Marley's remote home

 village of Nine Miles high up in the Jamaican hills helped to form the powerful quest for

identity that he discovered in rastafarianism.

The contradictions of his biography were translated into a hugely seductive global

metaphor for struggle and unity: "Let's get together and feel all right."

"I was doing some press with Ziggy Marley the other day," Macdonald says, "and he said

of his father, 'I think Bob always regretted that he wasn't black.'

"I wouldn't put it in those bald terms, but I think that was a key to his psychology and to

the music. He was always the outsider, and he found a way in his life and music to

redeem that fact."

That redemption also provided Macdonald part of the answer to why Marley had hugesignificance not only in the Ugandan slums but among the dispossessed the world over.

His film ends with a sequence of contemporary references to the singer among popular

political movements. "In Tunisia at the start of the Arab spring, people are singing Get 

Up, Stand Up," Macdonald says. "Immediately after the fruit seller set fire to himself to

start the revolution, that was the slogan written on the wall near where he died."

That influence can be measured in many ways: three decades after his death, Marley has

30 million Facebook followers.

 Marley is out in cinemas from 20 April 

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 A real Rastafarian is not an adherent of Facebook. I am happy to

 be one! Clip| Link 

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Bassline

8 April 2012 1:56AM

Hardly a penetrating insight into Bob Marley's world view and

certainly not an original one. I sometimes marvel at the

remoteness of the mainstream creative class from the mundane

and incidental common currency of black life. It's an odd thing to

 be reminded of that distance yet again.

I don't have a problem with a white film-maker tackling the

subject matter but it's hard to believe that MacDonald was the

right choice. Marley gave a voice to an African and Caribbean

take on world history and politics that wasn't widely appreciated.

Being partly white, would he have encountered resentment from

some for his father's social privileges? Of course. But it was not

remarkable that he saw the bigger injustice because, crucially, in

the Caribbean Bob's mixed heritage is simply not that rare.

 Yeah, I'll see the film for the archive material but it's a bit of a

shame that I'm going to have to suffer the spectacle of white boys

challenging their own assumptions while I do it. Again.

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distortedsystem

8 April 2012 3:05AM

Releasing it on for 4-20 is hilariously brilliant. Not only will

many stoners go to watch it (I ended up going to the cinema

stoned with some random people after the hyde park smoke up

last year) but the money cinemas will make on food will be alot. I

also like the fact that the distribution company have

acknowledged 4-20, I once spent my april in America and there

 was a big build up.

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Dedevelopment

8 April 2012 3:42AM

Guardian, your picture number 4 of 6 captions Claudius Massop

as a leader of a PNP Gang. That's not correct.

I look forward to the documentary. Sadly Jamaica's history isspun by politics. Everything. Every interview. Politics of one sort

or another. Black and white, PNP and JLP, uptown and

downtown. Anything of a political nature.

No matter how critical one might be of Marley and jealous of his

enduring fame, I suggest that whoever wrote the lyrics for many 

of his songs belongs in the realm of the greatest lyric writers of 

all time. That's my opinion. If anyone disagrees I have no

problem with that. However the nuances of the creole language

of Jamaica (sometimes referred to as Patois) is crucial in

understanding how the lyrics become so riveting. A plain Patoisto English translation can not do the lyrics true justice. Besides

translation of dialect is subjective and changes depending on the

translator. Many Jamaican's (and others) speak a very limited

amount of Patois. But it is a deep dialect. Deeper than just the

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few more well known phrases. Songs like "Chee likkle birds" and

"One love" are most known internationally but Bob's originals

like "I shot the Sheriff" and "Crazy Baldheads" are just a few of 

his gems that truly sets him apart from the pack. Time Song of 

the century, TIME album of the century. Thanks Bob. There will

always be haters but thanks Bob,

Love

Dedevelopment

derekmull

8 April 2012 6:26AM

'Crazy Baldhead,' 'Small Axe' - type 'Hypocrites Bob Marley' in

 YouTube for an example of another uncommercial classic. Clip| Link 

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Holti

8 April 2012 7:00AM

 Whilst working in East Africa as a volunteer for VSO, I had

occasion to visit the Hollywood club one Sunday night. At that

time, 25 years ago, you didn't see many dreadlocks on the streets

as there were stigmas associated with the Mao Mao. Rastas were

stereotyped as "Banghi Smoking Wahuni" throughout East

 Africa (Hooligans who smoked weed). But every Sunday night

the Hollywood was brimming with Rastafarians. Having been

invited there to share some dancehall music which I had brought

from back home in Moss SIde, I was struck by the absolute

reverence which was displayed whenever a Bob Marley track was

played, its not like the people were dancing - the impact was

mesmeric people simply holding their hands aloft with heads upto the sky, singing ever word. I had a similar experiences in

Tanzania, South Africa, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and

ust about everywhere that I have been I've been struck by the

connection that ordinary people feel for Bob Marley and the

 Wailers above all others.

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RichBiggles

8 April 2012 7:57AM

Interesting facts about Norval Marley, He was also a mixed race

Jamaican, He was 60 when he decided to initiate sexual relations

 with his landlords 17 year old daughter.

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Mark777

8 April 2012 8:09AM

They're selling Bob Marley 'Mellow Mood' (it's a soft drink) in

Tesco's. Ah, culture. Clip| Link 

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Gingecat

8 April 2012 9:00AM

Peter Tosh was better.

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reemgear

8 April 2012 9:00AM

The 'wasn't black' thing sort of surprises me.

If a bunch of racist thugs ran into him I'm pretty sure they'd err

on the side of caution, if you know what I mean?

Just how black do you have to be to be black?

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ElmerPhudd

8 April 2012 9:10AM

Response to slyfas, 8 April 2012 1:29AM

 A real Rastafarian is not an adherent of Facebook. I am

happy to be one!

 Which one?

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ElmerPhudd

8 April 2012 9:14AM

Response to derekmull, 8 April 2012 6:26AM

'Crazy Baldhead,' 'Small Axe' - type 'Hypocrites Bob

Marley' in YouTube for an example of another

uncommercial classic.

'Rat Race' , 'Concrete Jungle' . . . .

Babylon By Bus - it's stuffed with early songs.

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Marcuskirwin

8 April 2012 9:26AM

Bob Marley = Massively Overrated , lyrics that sounded like

nursery rhymes , worse than Noel Gallagher and thats bad. Clip| Link 

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pushinforty 

8 April 2012 9:38AM

Response to VoodooJunkie, 8 April 2012 1:25AM

"A lot of folk like to slate Bob for his assimilation into the

commercial mainstream"

 Yes, they're called "trustafarians", and they're so "authentic".

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nottydave

8 April 2012 9:51AM

Most people think,

Great god will come from the skies,

Take away everything

 And make everybody feel high.

But if you know what life is worth, You will look for yours on earth:

 And now you see the light,

To stand up for your right!

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soisthesun

8 April 2012 9:56AM

There's just too much I like in reggae music to be able to write it

down here. I got into it through 2-tone in the early 1980s.

Reggae is music for the oppressed, it is music to dance to, it is

lovers rock, it is revolution rock, it unites. I can never decide who

is better: Bob Marley or Jimmy Cliff. Either way, if I had to listen

to one last song, it could well be 'Three Little Birds' or 'I Can See

Clearly Now'

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Gingecat

8 April 2012 10:08AM

Max Romeo's "War Inna Babylon" is better then anything Marley 

ever did. Clip| Link 

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NubiBlue

8 April 2012 10:25AM

 Why am I not surprised that a white film maker should suggest

some overwhelming and driving white force behind the success

of Bob Marley. Why not the realisation of the grinding poverty of 

Jamaica? Why not being a great songwriter who articulated the

thoughts of a generation of African Disaporan people whose

message reached beyond its original audience and became

international?

 Whether endorsed by the Marley family or not, the fact that he is

a replacement producer on an original project started by Martin

Scorsese is a worry on its own. But why is it so hard for whitepeople to give Black people their due credit without the need to

cite the centrality of white influence?

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gurupitka

8 April 2012 10:46AM

Response to NubiBlue, 8 April 2012 10:25AM

Because the white man's god is white.

That's why bredren

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 busysquits

8 April 2012 10:49AM

Lets get together and feel alright

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Ray45

8 April 2012 10:55AM

heard him first when i was about 15 such a beautiful thing he was

and his music has been with me all my life, I loved him so don'tknow about white or black or was he commercial or not i thank 

him for his great great times and music xx

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Sofalofa

8 April 2012 11:23AM

Kaya was the first Marley and reggae album I listened to (circa

1980) which made me stop listening to all that heavy metal shit I

 was into then and embark on a wonderful journey of self 

discovery. Whatever may be said about him - he had soul and

spoke for a generation, black or white.

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Payuppal

8 April 2012 11:43AM

Response to NubiBlue, 8 April 2012 10:25AM

Complete misunderstanding of the film.

Bob was half white in a black village, felt like an outsider and

found a home as a Rasta.

His achievement was that of a mixed race human, not a black or

a white. Which is probably why it has become so universally 

accepted.

Here in Thailand, for example, there is a long flourishing Thai

reggae scene that recognises a huge debt to Bob.

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CaptStraptin

8 April 2012 11:53AM

Response to Marcuskirwin, 8 April 2012 9:26AM

@Marcuskirwin

 Bob Marley = Massively Overrated , lyrics that sounded likenursery rhymes , worse than Noel Gallagher and thats bad.

 You really are a joker m8, you actually managed to make me

laugh, no mean feat I can tell you...

Bob Marley massively overrated...HAH!

 What like LOVE is massively overrated...

 What like TRUTH is massively overrated...

 What like POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS is massively 

overrated...

 What like AMAZING MUSIC is massively overrated...believe me

I could go on...

IF ONLY KIDS WERE SINGING 'GET UP, STAND UP, STAND

UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS....' IN THE PLAYGROUND...why it

might even change the world...

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DoubleGlazing

8 April 2012 11:55AM

James Blunt for black people.

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hellsteeth

8 April 2012 11:58AM

Response to Bassline, 8 April 2012 1:56AM

If 'white boys' offend your racist sensibilities that much, you

don't have to watch the film.

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chromatics

8 April 2012 12:06PM

Rastafari Live

One Love

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irussell

8 April 2012 12:12PM

 You could see the whiteness most when he tried to dance.

Though got to admire the songs, some of them, and he was a

good door into reggae proper.

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11gabriel

8 April 2012 12:37PM

If Bob Marley read these comments I am sure he would say, most

are missing the piont.

Love is the only answer.

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atrack 

8 April 2012 12:56PM

Bob Marley's racial background is irrelevant. The man stood for

peace and love and that's what we should remember.

One Love!

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3090

8 April 2012 1:00PM

Response to RichBiggles, 8 April 2012 7:57AM

Maybe Bobs unease with his heritage had more to do with the

circumstances of his conception and birth?

 A 60 year old man and a seventeen year old girl, sounds a bit

suspicious. Why would a young girl want to be sexually intimate

 with a man three times her age? Thinking back to when I was

seventeen I never found men older than my dad remotely 

actractive. Any how Bob Marley is a legend and always will be

and rightly so. Looking forward to the film.

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3090

8 April 2012 1:17PM

Response to atrack, 8 April 2012 12:56PM

 Yes but the article said that Bob had issues with his white Clip| Link 

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heritage and so it is not irrelevant. To say that is not respecting

his feelings. Roll on the day when racial background "has no

more significance than the colour of the eyes"

 War/ No More Trouble. Bob Marley/

panpipes

8 April 2012 1:26PM

 When I was in Brazil in the mid-90s it seemed like every young

 black man I ran into was singing Buffalo Soldier. One of the best

concerts I ever went to (a four-way tie with Sun Ra, Koko Taylor

and the Talking Heads) was Marley in Minneapolis on his last

tour. Exiting the stairs, the crowd spontaneously started singing

his songs in call and response form.

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Nussbaum

8 April 2012 2:04PM

Jeremy Marre's Rebel Music: The Bob Marley Story (2000) will

 be hard to beat. It firmly places Marley in his cultural and

historical context: post-Independence Jamaica, including the

turbulent years of the 1970s. And as for other filmmakers who

 would have been up to this task, Isaac Julien seems an obvious

choice.

I will see this film, but already, any snippets of interviews with

Macdonald UNDERWHELM me, if only because he portentously 

sounds like a researcher. One gets the impression that no one

had been there before him. Anyone familiar with Caribbean

society will not be surprised by the racial perspective.

Important question that this reviewer has left unanswered: Has

the film been depoliticised?

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 jahlew 

8 April 2012 2:11PM

 As a massive Bob Marley fan, reading this article as put me off 

going to watch the film, if this is going to be the story behind his

motivation and the regret that haunted his life!! Please... . I'd like

to hope that his biggest regret in death was not getting treatment

for his cancerous toe, so he would be alive now to tell his story from his point of view, not his children's or ex wives etc or a man

 who never ever met him or has even lived in Jamaica. Bob's

father was a white Jamaican of mixed heritage, his own mother

(Bob's paternal Grandmother) was of the same complexion as

Bob. To truly understand what colour prejudice is, and that is

 what it is, not racism, you need to have lived in the Caribbean.

Even today, sadly it still goes on, the texture of hair is compared,

the lightness or darkness of skin etc, but this is by an ignorant

few.Most of Bob's children have a big American influence, the

race relations there are different to that in England and that in

the Caribbean. Music, poverty, injustice, equal rights, peace andlove is what motivated Bob,

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Liathach

8 April 2012 2:32PM

Those complaining that the director is not of the same racial

 background as his subject should remember that Bob Marley's

family were obviously happy for Kevin MacDonald to make the

film, since they gave approval to him, and not the countless other

directors who must have approached them in the last 30 years.

I was at the Lyceum for the gig that was recorded for the Live

album. I was at the back, dancing, and it was so packed that the

only bit of him I saw was his dreadlocks when he tossed them in

the air. It was brilliant, of course.

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Drust

8 April 2012 2:36PM

 As long as it promotes the great talent that was Bob Marley, I

don't mind.

Groove to Mr Brown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?

 v=525TscClHwo

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Butchknowsbest

8 April 2012 2:38PM

His mixed-race parentage growing up in 1940s Jamaica must

have had a personal impact on him, and it could have alienated

him, especially as his Father wasn't around for him.

But when the authorities and the police were harassing him as a

teenager from the late 1950s on, how do you think they 

categorized him? As white or black? Those experiences were

 what shaped his adult outlook. Isn't that the same experience as

every other oppressed young man?

 And The Guardian seems to have forgotten that Get Up Stand 

UP  was written by Bob Marley and Peter Tosh.

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Butchknowsbest

8 April 2012 2:39PM

Could The Guardian ask Chris Blackwell what percentage he gets

from the royalties of the new Bob Marley film he commissioned? Clip| Link 

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JHCinDub

8 April 2012 2:46PM

The Wailers split because they didn't want to tour and Bob went

ahead and kept the name. So it's two different bands pre and

post split. The strength of the songwriting remained though

 which is clearly something which the people who have appeared

on here to make negative comments would never understand in a

million years

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JHCinDub

8 April 2012 2:49PM

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Response to Liathach, 8 April 2012 2:32PM

I'd say one of the best live albums ever but since I haven't heard

every live album in existance I'll say one of the best live albums

I've ever heard/own. Was listening to it again a few weeks ago

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SushiLesson

8 April 2012 2:57PM

 When I listen to his songs, I feel like I could live my life with

peace

 And I can be myself and love myself and others and the world I

live in.

His music is beautiful, and it goes beyond the colour of my skin,

It goes to direct to my heart.

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glasseyes

8 April 2012 3:11PM

 You know that's really rather crass, the inference that not

knowing his father, and by implication WHITENESS, was alasting cause of regret for Bob Marley. Agree with Jahlew that

even if unintentional, inferring such a thing betrays deep

ignorance of the complexity of racial politics in the Caribbean.

Not everything is about you, white people. Sheesh!

Having said that, and talking about oppression etc, I did some

 work once with Irish Traveler girls and Bob Marley was very 

popular with them.

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Payuppal

8 April 2012 3:12PM

Response to Nussbaum, 8 April 2012 2:04PM

 All a bit problematic.

On the one hand, it's easy to understand why there is sensitivity 

about a white expropriation of 'black' culture.

On the other, the idea that only people who have lived in the

milieu are allowed to comment on it is rather restricting, don't

 you think?

That white actor Shakespeare was way out of order in writing

about Othello.

That male Russian aristocrat Tolstoy could never understand a

 woman like Anna Karenina.

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glasseyes

8 April 2012 3:23PM

Response to Payuppal, 8 April 2012 3:12PM

On the other, the idea that only people who have lived

in the milieu are allowed to comment on it is ratherrestricting, don't you think?

Not at all, it depends on whether they're getting it right.

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 Anglida

8 April 2012 3:43PM

Kevin Macdonald's comments will have been edited, folks!! Am

sure he has more to say on Bob than there was room for here.

He's a great film maker and I'm really looking forward to this

one-I love Bob Marley.

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Payuppal

8 April 2012 3:44PM

Response to glasseyes, 8 April 2012 3:23PM

There are great works of art throughout history that are written

about characters from entirely different backgrounds than the

author.

So I think it's rather presumptuous to assume that only someone

 who has grown up in the Caribbean can understand it, don't you?

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OkuriOhkami8 April 2012 3:53PM

I woud have thought the regret that haunted Bob Marley was

playing football with Danny Baker. Clip| Link 

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 bigorson

8 April 2012 4:09PM

Bob was an original & I respect the fact that he is revered by 

many. I was never a reggae fan and in the one interview I read

 with him he sounded like a complete moron who did not haveone intelligent thing to say. His inane prattling about Haille

Selassie being a figure akin to Christ, and his complete devotion

to the religion founded on this ridiculous assumption is a good

study on the stupidity of religious belief and the credulousness

and willing ignorance of believers of all stripes who elevate such

men to the level of godhood out of their own personal need for

redemption. Despite this typically irrational religious belief, his

songs of freedom and the unity of mankind are stirring anthems

that have the power to move us to a sense of unity among all

people, and for that I appreciate his human spirit.

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