Title: Ziggy pleased with Marley accolades

source:jamaica observer

Excerpt: The film by Scottish director Kevin MacDonald is vying for a number of awards. It is nominated for a BAFTA (the British Academy Awards) in the category Best Documentary. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has Marley as a nominee for its Image Award in the category Best Documentary (theatrical or television); while the soundtrack has also copped a Grammy nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media.

Excerpt: "It was difficult to make this documentary considering that my father is no longer here and we did not have a lot of footage. I must credit the creative team for being able to pull this off and create such a memorable documentary. I am really proud and happy," he noted.

Excerpt: "We the family have been able to keep his spirit alive and therefore people still feel connected. And there is also Bob's personality which people hold on to as they see him as a brethren, family and friend. Plus his music is still effective and so people can pass it on to future generations."

Title: MARLEY movie ranked #4

source:paste

Excerpt: It’s not entirely clear why director Kevin Macdonald decided to make a documentary about the musician Bob Marley, a cultural icon whose life has been recounted countless times through a variety of mediums. Macdonald claims it’s because he wants to understand why Marley continues to speak to legions of fans around the world. Whatever his reasons, he’s clearly up to the task. Marley offers an expansive and at times fascinating perspective on the man through interviews with his fellow former Wailers, family, and childhood friends. The film is fairly detailed concerning Marley’s songwriting and musicianship from his early ska days up through the release of Catch a Fire. After this, however, it skips through his catalogue, choosing to focus more on his personal life, conversion to Rastafarianism, the tumultuous state of Jamaican politics, and his prolific womanizing—all of which are important elements of the artist’s character.—Jonah Flicker

Title: Scottish filmmaker talks about Marley

source:the guardian

Excerpt: “Marley resonated with me because in my travels around the world I had seen his impact. Always, everywhere you go around the globe, from Tibet to Japan, you find Bob Marley fans. And I just wondered why? What is it about him that is so much more resonant than any other popular musician throughout history?”

Excerpt: When asked whether he sees any shortcomings in the film that he now wishes he could change, Macdonald stated that this is usually the case in any creative piece of work that a director takes on. He admitted, “I find it unbearable to sit and watch all the mistakes in one of my films in front of an audience.”

Excerpt: “I wish I could put back in all the things I took out and maybe show it in two parts.” Contrastingly, Macdonald stated that he was pleased with what he described as the “classical, simple style” of the film. He asserted that he refrained from imposing too much of himself into the film and that most of his impositions were strictly editorial ones. He went on to explain, “I saw the film very much as an oral history of Bob Marley.” The film, as he described it, is more like a literary artifact than a film artifact in that it is consists of numerous verbal accounts by those who knew Bob Marley best.

Title: Bob Marley Day in Los Angeles

source:associated press

Excerpt: It’s Bob Marley Day in Los Angeles.

The City Council proclaimed the day Tuesday in honor of the Jamaican reggae legend whose string of hits include “I Shot the Sheriff” and “No Woman, No Cry.”

Excerpt: The proclamation coincides with the DVD release of the documentary “Marley.”

Excerpt: Buscaino says Marley’s music “brought people together in times of trouble.”

Title: MARLEY in top 25

source:paste magazine

Excerpt: 9. Marley
It’s not entirely clear why director Kevin Macdonald decided to make a documentary about the musician Bob Marley, a cultural icon whose life has been recounted countless times through a variety of mediums. Whatever his reasons, he’s clearly up to the task. Marley offers an expansive and at times fascinating perspective on the man through interviews with his fellow former Wailers, family, and childhood friends. The film is fairly detailed concerning Marley’s songwriting and musicianship from his early ska days up through the release of Catch a Fire. After this, however, it skips through his catalogue, choosing to focus more on his personal life, conversion to Rastafarianism, the tumultuous state of Jamaican politics, and his prolific womanizing—all of which are important elements of the artist’s character. This makes for an interesting journey, although music geeks will surely miss the behind-the-scenes insight about classic albums and songs that might have appeared. Marley, which is beautifully shot for a documentary (the Jamaican locations help immensely), begins not in the Caribbean, but in West Africa. This fades into live footage from the 1970s of Marley performing the song “Exodus.” Vintage concert performances are peppered liberally throughout the film, showcasing Marley as a whirling dervish of spinning, sweaty dreadlocks, possessed of an energy that feels boundless. Marley’s personal life was tumultuous, to say the least, and the film’s interviewees are happy to talk about it. Just when it seemed that he was poised to crack the elusive black American audience he so desired, he was stricken with cancer. When its a story of someone as profoundly interesting and influential as Bob Marley, there’s just so much things to say.

Title: MARLEY is magical

source:amsterdamnews

Excerpt: In “Marley,” a documentary with an abundance of picturesque scenes and marvelous cinematography, there is one segment in which the camera meanders down a lush country road, with Bob Marley on the soundtrack singing one of his signature tunes, “Redemption Song.” The wish to have this moment linger a little bit longer until the song is finished is not to be, and this isn’t the only time viewers are left wanting for more of Marley’s unforgettable music.

Excerpt: Marley the composer is evident throughout the film, which often gives way to Marley the athlete and the peacemaker, especially during the political turbulence and violence of Jamaica in the late ’70s, when he arranges a meeting between presidential rivals Edward Seaga and Michael Manley. Even during this momentary truce, Marley is mindful of the music, admonishing his lead guitarist for playing a wrong note.

Title: MARLEY tops Billboard's Reggae chart

source:jamaica observer

Excerpt: MARLEY, the original soundtrack for the recently released Bob Marley documentary, debuted at the top of Billboard magazine's Reggae album chart last week.

Excerpt: This is the 13th time that a Marley-theme album or compilation has topped the Billboard Reggae album chart.
The soundtrack is on three other Billboard charts. It debuted at number 122 on the Billboard 200 album chart; number 20 on the R&B Hip Hop album chart; and number eight on the Soundtrack albums chart.

Title: Ziggy and Robbie on MARLEY

source:collider.com

Excerpt: Beyond the joyous and upbeat quality of many of the film’s sequences, Marley delivers a depth of information and insights that would have been impossible without the kind of cooperation the Marley family offered by opening up their hearts, minds and memories to Academy Award-winning director Kevin Macdonald. Their expansive interviews and the unparalleled and unrestricted access to a trove of archival imagery mean that this compelling documentary will stand as the one definitive record of the Bob Marley legacy.

Excerpt: In what ways has your father influenced you as an artist?

ZM: As an artist, I feel that his biggest influence is me realizing that music has a purpose and it’s not just for business and that music is spiritual. I get that from him that music is a spiritual thing. We believe in the almighty and we believe in God and that music is from God and we’re inspired by God to give messages and ideas to people. I think that is it. Yeah. I learned that from him, that music is from God and the message is from God.

Title: The Family learned from MARLEY

source:usa today

Excerpt: "I thought I knew him, but now I really know him and I love him more. And I love his music more now that I know him more," says son Ziggy Marley, an executive producer on the film. "That is what I want, people to know him more and feel for him as a person, what he has been through."

Excerpt: Those who only know the visage of Bob Marley on T-shirts and posters and "just think of Bob as the ganja-smoking guy," says Ziggy, "can be more in-depth by watching this film. This is something very important for my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren and every generation after this. This is the definitive thing that I want my kids to know about (their) grandfather."

Title: NPR review of MARLEY

source:npr

Excerpt: Given that the access granted here is a rare exception, this film is likely to remain a singular and definitive document of Marley's life, and that's reflected in Macdonald's approach, which is rigorously straightforward and traditional. This is largely a chronological birth-to-death journey, filled with the requisite interviews with friends and family, archival concert footage, the Ken Burns-ing of still photographs from throughout Marley's life, and the constant beat of his music keeping time in the background.

Excerpt: But Marley was an extremely political figure, both globally in his support of the Pan-African Movement, and locally in Jamaica. His prominence in Jamaican politics is completely foreign to U.S. notions of an artist's place in the political sphere; Marley was perceived to wield real power as easily as he did a guitar. At the height of his popularity, his support for a candidate was seen as a near guarantee of victory, a fact that is thought to have resulted in a narrowly survived assassination attempt.

Title: Kevin MacDonald on Bob

source:the telegraph

Excerpt: Kevin MacDonald, the director of new Bob Marley biopic tells The Telegraph about the making of his new documentary which looks at the "real man behind the icon of rebelliousness".

Excerpt: Kevin McDonald: I wanted to make a film about the man. No man, no woman is without their flaws. Once I had learned about him, about his flaws, I liked him more for it. You can relate to someone with a flaw.

Title: Reasoning With Ziggy Marley

source:boomshots

Excerpt: Just hours before the premiere Boomshots caught up with the co-executive producer of the film, to reason about the challenge of choosing the right director and to share his own personal hopes for the film. Ziggy even revealed what he considers the movie’s biggest surprise.

Excerpt: As the executive producer, you’ve been through 2 different directors before you settled on Kevin MacDonald. How did you know he was the right man for the job?

Well I mean you never know until you see the fruits. You know what i’m saying? You never know until the tree bear the fruits if the tree is good. So once we saw the first cut… I mean, in theory when I met Kevin, he was the right guy. I met him, he was cool and everything was alright. That is one aspect of it. The next aspect is the actual product, the work that you see. So when I saw the first cut, after talking with Kevin along the way for the process, I knew he was right—the right man for the job.

Title: Bob Marley Documentary

source:seattle times

Excerpt: Even those who know reggae star Bob Marley inside and out might be amazed by the scope, detail and beauty of "Marley," a documentary directed by Kevin Macdonald

Excerpt: The experience helped shape Marley's view of humanity, as expressed in such songs as "One Love" and "Cornerstone," along with his conversion to Rastafarianism at a young age. Indeed, Marley was as much a spiritual leader for fellow Jamaicans as he was an innovative musician who elevated reggae to the world stage. Nothing better illustrates his desire to unify fellow Jamaicans than his insistence on performing a hometown concert after he was nearly assassinated by a gunman from one of two rival gangs.

Title: A Documentary on Bob Marley

source:new york times

Excerpt: Though made with the cooperation of the Marley family, the film is far from a hagiography; and while stocked with musical sequences, it is not a concert film. Few if any of his songs are heard all the way through. “Marley” is a detailed, finely edited character study whose theme — Marley’s bid to reconcile his divided racial legacy — defined his music and his life.

Excerpt: His music has only grown in importance since his death. Bob Marley and the Wailers’ 1984 anthology, “Legend,” has sold 25 million copies worldwide, and his music and image proliferated at Arab Spring demonstrations. You have only to listen to him or see a filmed performance to understand the potency of a voice synonymous with fervent hope.

Title: Inside the world of reggae legend

source:euronews

Excerpt: One of his sons, Ziggy Marley, said: “The man is the man but the message is the most important part of it. I’ve been to Africa, I’ve been to many places where Bob was around. He wasn’t there physically, but his music was there, supporting the movements of freedom in these countries. So it’s not much about the man when it comes to, you know, the things he would stand for, it’s about what his message was. And that is still here.”

Excerpt: And another son Rohan Marley explained: “To find the right person to do it right, and to be able to believe, in the family, that it has to be our way, you know? And Kevin MacDonald worked really worked side by side with Ziggy to make sure that came across — family approval, you know what I mean.”

Title: Cedella Talks About MARLEY

source:indiewire

Excerpt: "He was a human being; he was a man; his life was an open book; there were no secrets; I think that’s what made him a great man; We tend to try to live up to certain public expectations of us; but what we see here is real life."

Excerpt: On what she'd like the audience to take away from watching the film:

They have to walk away just feeling something; I don’t think you can walk away without feeling joy, sorrow, or maybe you understand something a bit more, or you find something that you're able to relate to, and hopefully grow from it.

Title: Marley

source:good times

Excerpt: That certainly was one of Marley’s grandest of missions—his spirituality, so deeply rooted in Rastafarian beliefs and the “repatriation to Africa for Africans,” eventually became one of the most significant creative grooves of his life. Musically, he was a revolutionary and spoke up about racism and colonialism and, as he crooned in “One Drop,” "fighting against ism and scism.”

Excerpt: After doing some initial research on Marley, of whom, Macdonald noted, he really only had an “interested layman’s knowledge,” nothing came of that initial project with Blackwell. Then Macdonald went off to film The Last King of Scotland in Uganda. Even there, Marley’s mystique seemed to follow him, partly, perhaps, because he may have had Marley on his mind—in interviews, Macdonald reportedly noticed images of the reggae titan everywhere—on flags, T-shirts, graffiti. He said he asked himself what it was about Marley that managed to “travel the world?”

Excerpt: As Macdonald’s documentary so vividly showcases, Marley ran “the race.” Few would disagree that he ran it so well, it made him something more than just a modern-day icon. Role model, sure. Master of the music … of being a man … a (hu)man—of course. And the most striking note perhaps in all this, is that Macdonald et al reveal just how conscious Marley became of his mission in life.

Title: Movie Review: MARLEY

source:nydailynews.com

Excerpt: A seemingly small moment in the new Bob Marley documentary reveals something crucial.

The film’s director asks one of the icon’s regular lovers to explain why so many women found him so transfixing, despite his tendency towards disloyalty, self-absorption and male chauvinism.

“Oh,” says the woman with a smile. “You don’t know Bob.”

Excerpt: Though the course of the movie, viewers learns a lot about the star’s generosity, sense of justice and power in Jamaica, but also about his naivete. He was so anxious to be accepted by black listeners, he agrees to play in Ghana without knowing that he’s doing so at the request of a brutal, fascist regime. There’s also much revealed about his unusual treatment for the cancer that took his life, at age 36, back in 1981.

Title: Bob Marley, the Prince of Wails

source:sun sentinel

Excerpt: Beginning with the singer's birth inside a tin-hut village with zero electricity in 1945 to an 18-year-old mother and white absentee father, "Marley" piles on the revelations, training its lens on grainy concert footage and the people who knew him best, including Bunny Wailer, the Wailers' artistic director Neville Garrick, and his wife, Rita.

Excerpt: To Cedella, her father was an unforgiving perfectionist during her childhood, which she spent within five miles of Bob Marley's recording studio at 56 Hope Road. "Like my brother Ziggy said in the film, he wasn't a lovey-dovey daddy," she says. "He told us nothing comes easy. But being the children of a Rastafari, smoking a lot of herb, not every parent wanted their children to hang out with us. He said, "Your only friends are your brothers and sisters.' I was OK with it. He was the greatest artist in the world, who always gave us kids the silent treatment."

Title: Marley – One Love, One Film

source:buzzfocus.com

Excerpt: It is the most comprehensive tell-all about the shy singer-songwriter and musician– a celebration of a man who became a myth. The massive collection of photos, audio recordings and rare video footage will thrill any music enthusiast but more importantly expands the meaning of the music. From the visits to the village of Nine Mile and Trench Town to the first generation of The Wailers that included Peter Tosh and Neville “Bunny” Livingston, Marley not only puts a story behind the music, you get a taste of what it was like to be around Marley and his scene. At one point, you will feel as if you were on tour with them.

Excerpt: There’s an enlightening experience watching the film. I came in wanting to know more about the man behind the music I enjoyed and got that, plus a deeper comprehension of the Rastafari religious movement and Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selasse I, the evolution of ska and reggae as far as what Bob Marley and The Wailers’ contribution, and the power of what he and his music did for Jamaicans and eventually Africans.

Excerpt: To have a real foundation, a true grasp about all of what Marley brought to each song and the brief, but also the full life he lived, is to begin understanding Marley himself. That’s all one could ask in a documentary about Marley’s life, and fortunately you get all of that and so much more. Jah.

Title: Marley: Roots of the Legend

source:magnifier

Excerpt: Marley has the distinction of being the only official Marley family-sanctioned documentary, and was executive produced by Bob's children and wife Rita. The film examines Bob's personal background and music while charting his legacy through extensive interviews with subjects including colleague Bunny Wailer, Island Records founder Chris Blackwell and children Cedella, Ziggy and Stephen.

Excerpt: Yet, despite all the accolades, the reticent singer was a mystery to many. In a statement, director Macdornald says, "[I was] just trying to be a detective and uncover the truth about his life and the truth about his character." The film does this masterfully, unraveling Marley's complexities and contradictions, while beautifully putting Bob the Legend in context. Watch it now, and check out the chock-full-of-exclusives soundtrack on Google Play.

Title: MARLEY documentary stirs it up

source:the modesto bee

Excerpt: Bob Marley packed a lot of living into his 36 years. Hit records, international concert success, 11 kids by seven different women, a face stenciled on more T-shirts than Che Guevara - it was as if he knew he didn't have much time so he got an early start and lived at a sprint, despite the laid-back image his music and lifestyle portrayed.
He's been dead for three decades, but one of the founding fathers of reggae music remains an icon whose fame transcended music just as Marley transcended the odd confluence of geography, religion, patois and poverty that created him.

Excerpt: One big omission in this 2:24-hour musical biography is Marley explaining his own creative process. There are many interviews, but reporters of the day were caught up in his hair, his history, his religion and his marijuana use and never nailed down much about where the poetry came from. We hear how he worked out melodies, how he incorporated topicality into his lyrics, but not how he wrote the anthemic "One Love," how he thought of "Stir It Up" or "I Shot the Sheriff."

Excerpt: Still, "Marley" manages to be something close to a definitive history lesson about a man whose music has endured even as the genre has evolved in the decades after his death. And every now and then, the movie comes close to placing us where the music often did - in the realm of the mystical, with a beat everybody could dance to.

Title: A Revealing Look at MARLEY

source:pbs newshour

Excerpt: The documentary, which is the first to receive full cooperation from Marley's family, includes family photos, interviews from his wife, children, siblings and other relatives. Their perspectives offer a window into Marley's personal life and reveal some of the early struggles he faced in life. Ziggy Marley, his eldest son, was an executive producer for the film.

"For me, there were so many things done on Bob," Ziggy Marley said in a recent phone interview, "I felt like where I was in my life at this time...I wanted to do something about him that came from our side. It came from our family prerogative. It is coming from us. We are initiating this, and I felt it was time."

Excerpt: "What was hard for us to grasp now was that he saw himself as being on a spiritual journey and the music was a form of preaching. He was driven not by the usual things people are driven by -- fame and money -- but he was driven by the desire to get a message across," MacDonald said. "At the beginning I was more skeptical about him because he's been so commodified, with his image on t-shirts and posters. But the more I looked into it, the more fascinating and heroic he became. Part of that is realizing he's not a hypocrite. Normally, the more you look into celebrities' lives, the less you admire them. The more I went on with this, the more I admired him."

Excerpt: "He was sort of a missionary prophet," Ziggy Marley said. "The last thing my father told me was: 'On your way up, take me up. On your way down, don't let me down.' A father telling his son that puts some responsibility on my shoulders. He told me that, and I take it very seriously."

Title: Bob Marley: So much things to say...

source:the independent

Excerpt: "The way to understand Bob is as the first Third World superstar," the director says. "He is the only giant, not just of music but of the arts in general, who is recognised around the world, but who comes from the Third World. The fact that he grew up in a one-room hut and slept on a dirt floor is key to who he is and what his appeal is."

Excerpt: Speaking to Macdonald, it becomes apparent that he has a fervent admiration for Marley. His film underlines Marley's relentless work ethic and his determination to become an internationally successful recording star. He didn't hide his ambition to reach the broadest audience possible. He was neither doting father nor faithful husband. However, Macdonald insists that Marley retained his idealism. He gave away much of his fortune and kept his ties with his old friends in Trenchtown. The ganja smoking was more to do with religious beliefs than with hedonistic self-gratification.

Title: MARLEY Review: Stir It Up

source:on the box

Excerpt: Kevin Macdonald’s documentary shines a light on one of music’s greatest icons but thankfully stops short of deification. Marley’s musical genius and philanthropy is certainly acknowledged but so is his serial adultery (which led to him fathering 11 children by seven different women) and his depressingly antiquated attitude towards women – far less progressive than his liberal political stance might imply.

Excerpt: However, despite clocking in at over two hours, Marley is always entertaining and there’s a great deal to enjoy from rare archive footage, disarmingly frank and personal interviews, and whole layers of information that most casual fans of his music wouldn’t even have dreamed were there. Highly recommended.

Title: Kevin Macdonald on the elusive legend of MARLEY

source:stltoday.com

Excerpt: Why has it taken so long for this film to get made? I call it a poisoned chalice. People have been trying to make movies about Bob Marley for years, both fictions films and documentaries. At least a dozen fiction films have come and gone, and some of them are still trying to get made. It's a very complex, litigious world, the world of Marley. A lot of different people own various rights, and you need to get everybody on your side. But in the end I was able to use the footage and songs I wanted on a reasonable budget.

Excerpt: Did any of those people try to shape the movie in an unrealistically favorable way? Everyone involved was mature enough to know that complexity and reality are more interesting than a one-sided airbrushed version of a celebrity's life. We wanted to go behind the legend and find the flesh-and-blood man. That's how I pitched the idea to Bob's family.

Excerpt: With “Marley,” I wanted to make it in the simplest possible way and make myself invisible. I think it's the most classical film I've ever made. The pleasure was being a detective and discovering this character through the thickets of obfuscation and legality.

Title: No Artist Can Compare to My Father

source:bet

Excerpt: Marley is an excellent documentary but it's also extremely emotional, especially towards the end. As his daughter, was it hard to relive those moments of your father's life?
It’s hard to have been there, it’s hard to watch. I must say, Kevin McDonald really did a good job of getting that out of me. I really didn’t want to go there on an emotional level. To be honest, I haven’t watch that one clip where we talk about the hospital visit. My brothers have told me, “Don’t watch it,” so I haven’t watched it. But it’s hard to see people coming out of it and looking at you saying, “You made me cry!” That was the first time in many years I talked about that.

Excerpt: There is all this talk of a Bob Marley biopic. Is there anyone you could see playing your father?
No. [Laughs] I don’t want to see anybody do that. As a matter of fact, that story is still manifesting itself. His spiritual presence is so strong that sometimes when we see things happen in our lives we say, “That must’ve been daddy doing that.” None of my brothers are really good actors, except for Ky-Mani, he is a good actor. But, no…

Title: Cedella Marley: On MARLEY

source:kdhx blog

Excerpt: Cedella Marley: It takes you on a journey. You start off laughing, and you enjoy the cast of characters [Cedella chuckles] as they appear. For me personally, I came away with a better understanding of the last couple of months of Dad’s journey. I think with Kevin what was great is that he found people that we’ve never heard from.

Excerpt: One of the points that we bring out in the documentary – and I’m not gonna say too much because you haven’t seen it – is when we’re having a race with Daddy, Daddy is not just gonna mek us win because we’re his children. He’s gonna want us to run as fast as we can to catch him. He’s not gonna slow down just to mek us win because we’re his children. He’s gonna want us to try to beat him, you know?

Title: A Q&A with Kevin Macdonald

source:grantland

Excerpt: I was sucked in by the melodies, but there was also this dangerous, radical, edgy feel to the music. When you're a teenager, this is what pulls you in. You're thinking, Wow. This is rebel music. This is dangerous. And then it has this mystical side to it as well — all this stuff about "Jah" and "Rastafari." You start asking yourself, What the hell is all this stuff? The music has this mystique about it because you don't fully understand it. You sense what it's about but you don't really know.

Excerpt: I heard this funny story about his relationship with weed that didn't make it into the film. His doctor told me that late in Bob's life, when he was being operated on, they gave him the anesthetic and Bob didn't go to sleep. The doctor realized that since Bob had smoked so much ganja, he'd built up a resistance to the effects of certain drugs. The anesthetic did nothing. They had to give him 10 times the usual dose to knock him out.

Title: Bob Marley and his Legend

source:the republic

Excerpt: “I wanted to rescue Bob from that fate. If you become ubiquitous, you become invisible all over again, like at the beginning of your career. I wanted to understand Bob, understand his music, hear his music afresh.”

Excerpt: “Bob really is the only Third World superstar,” Macdonald says. “Elvis grew up in poverty, but he grew up in the richest country in the world, at its richest time. The Beatles grew up working-class poor, but they had working TV sets in their homes. Bob Marley slept on a dirt floor, quit school at 12 and lived in REAL poverty — rural Jamaica.”

Excerpt: “I didn’t want to talk to talk to the people you expect to see in a Bob Marley documentary — Bono, (Eric) Clapton, Mick Jagger, all those people who might go ‘Oh, he was so wonderful.’”

The filmmaker was going for something “more rounded,” filling his film with blunt assessments of Marley’s personal shortcomings and uncomfortable chats with a record company exec who signed him at a bargain-basement price, causing Peter Tosh and Bunny to bail out of The Wailers.

Title: Kevin Macdonald Discusses MARLEY

source:wal street journal

Excerpt: I think the key for me to understanding him is that he’s really the only third-world superstar. Nobody from the developing world has ever gone on to have that level of fame and international success. The whole reason why dreadlocks are in fashion, that’s because of Bob. No country is as associated with a single individual as Jamaica is with Bob. Go anywhere around the world, especially in the developing world, and you find people who worship him. His mural is all over the place. Even in the Arab Spring, in the closing credits [of “Marley”] we have a clip of people singing “Get Up, Stand Up.” Then you have the whole musical thing—there’s nobody who doesn’t like Bob Marley’s music.

Excerpt: The first photograph of him was when he was 16. That’s what was so amazing, he comes out of a world where there’s no record kept. Even when he was successful in Jamaica, he wasn’t making enough money to survive. That’s why he went off to Delaware and worked in a car factory and thought about quitting music.

Excerpt: I don’t think he was such a great talker. His friends all say he was interesting to talk to, but it had to be one-on-one, late at night after they smoked pot. Otherwise, he was a man of few words.

Title: Moved by a Screening of Marley

source:vice

Excerpt: After the credits ended and light filled the theater (stay for the credits, it's a touching montage of people around the world enjoying Marley's music) I felt a glowing calm, as if I had just meditated. As I walked to the subway I realized I was experiencing an element of Marley that the film shed light on, Marley's role as a spiritual leader, his message preserved through his music.

Excerpt: One of the best moments in the film is when the filmmakers play "Corner Stone" for Bob’s close white cousin Peter, and Bob’s white half sister Constance. The story goes Bob wrote “Corner Stone” after a disappointing attempt to approach his white kin, who owned a building company in Jamaica. "The stone that the builder refuse will always be the head cornerstone." As Constance points out with great insight, Bob couldn't have predicted it better. Through his music (not to mention his many offspring) Bob is now, and likely always will be, the most important Marley in the world.

Excerpt: Anyone who has been touched by a Bob Marley song (which is everyone, admit it, you dark angsty hipsters) should go see this film.

Title: Piecing together the film MARLEY

source:the guardian

Excerpt: Director 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

Excerpt: There were frustrations for Macdonald, not least the almost complete absence of footage or 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.

Excerpt: "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."

Title: MARLEY: Definite collection of Bob Marley's Life

source:sound color vibration

Excerpt: The goal of this documentary was to find out as the director put it: “Why does he still speak to people around the world (because he clearly does) and why does he speak to people so much more profoundly than any other rock artist or popular music artist?”

Excerpt: Vivid imagery, footage never seen before, audio that has been cleaned up and given new life; all elements of Marley are on full display and left me without a single complaint the two plus hours the movie lasts. Songs that have been heard countless numbers of times sound sonically enhanced; something that pushed the music to a new level and gave Bob’s music an even new light.

Title: Getting to know Bob Marley

source:vancouver observer

Excerpt: Z: We started talking about doing a definitive film on Bob 6 years ago. We had spoken to a few directors and then Kevin (MacDonald) came up after that. I met with Kevin and we talked about what the film could be, something that covers Bob’s life, exposing the truth. The good stuff, the bad stuff, the happy stuff, the sad stuff—hoping we can have audiences feel a stronger connection to him. Like a person you actually knew, instead of just this iconic figure that smokes weed and plays reggae music. So this was the idea of the film, and I think it achieves that because of the content and the emotional responses I’ve had from it, the family has had from it, and people have had from it. It’s been good working on the film. It taught us a lot, and I think people dig it, you know?

Excerpt: K: I feel like I gotta a little bit more educated about him, his process, his life. Like the story about Zimbabwe and the tear gas, and how he was the only man on stage and everybody left. I didn’t know all that stuff. I definitely feel like I got to know him a little bit more.

Title: Interview: Kevin Macdonald

source:hitfix.com

Excerpt: His latest film is “Marley,” an epic biography of the life of iconic reggae singer Bob Marley. In Contention sat down with Macdonald at the South by Southwest film festival, where he discussed the challenges of examining such a ubiquitous figure honestly, reflected on the different directions his filmography has taken in recent years and offered a few thoughts about how he filters failure and success in an industry that looks at him as incisively as he does his subjects.

Excerpt: I think he really lived the life that he preached and was truly driven to communicate his message to as many people as possible. That was the thing. That was why he was so ambitious and why he wanted his music to be heard. He felt he had this message that he wanted to get across, whether you believe in the message or not. That’s kind of an interesting motivation because it’s not the motivation of most certainly today or any time of most musicians, most rock stars or whatever.

Excerpt: The first interviews I did on this were with Ziggy and Rita and Cedella, and I was amazed by how frank and open they all were, and that sort of set the tone for the whole thing. They were, I think, relatively brave in doing that, and Cedella in particular, you feel this rawness of emotion that she still had, this resentment towards her father in a way, a sort of unhappiness, and she wasn’t sort of covering that up.

Title: Ziggy and Karen Marley on MARLEY

source:ifc.com

Excerpt: It’s been more than 30 years since beloved reggae musician Bob Marley passed away, but he still remains as relevant culturally as ever. At least, that’s the angle that documentarian Kevin Macdonald took when he made his film “Marley.”

Excerpt: “I wanted to tell his story because it’s such an amazing, amazing life story, simply, but also because I don’t think people have really taken on board how Marley is such a unique figure in the cultural history of the 20th century,” Macdonald explained. “If you go anywhere in the world, you’ll find people with Bob Marley t-shirts, singing his songs, playing his music. That cultural significance is extraordinary, so I thought, ‘Why is that?’”

Excerpt: Ziggy elaborated, “This is not the icon Bob, this is my brother Bob, my friend Bob. I know who he is now. This is a guy that I knew, you know what I’m saying, instead of a guy that I idolize. This is somebody who did good things but still was one of my close buddies, so that’s what the film does. And I hope people take that away, that feeling closer to Bob.”

Title: Ziggy Talks About MARLEY

source:starpulse

Excerpt: “We have to protect and take care of his legacy,” Ziggy Marley said. “That’s why we do this film because that’s the role we played. Here this is our father and here is how we want you to see him, his life and feel him. We’re more like caretakers.”

Excerpt: “It was interesting being around the studio, being around when he first started building the studio, going to his live concerts, dancing with him on the stage. His music was revolutionary music really. His message brought in a lot of elements within the Jamaican society that were involved in political change in Jamaica. So it was exciting because of his music, what that brought around us as children. It was very exciting for me and I learned a lot from it.”

Title: IFC Interview with Ziggy

source:ifc

Excerpt: IFC caught up with Marley at SXSW where he was promoting the film “Marley” with director Kevin Macdonald. Marley explained that he knew from the moment he met Macdonald that he was the right man to helm a documentary about his famous musician father.

Excerpt: “I remember I said to Ziggy the first time he talked about it, he said, ‘How are you going to tell the story?’ and I said, ‘Well, I don’t know. We should go out and talk to everybody who’s willing to talk to us who was intimate with Bob and will tell us something’ and then figure out from what they said what the story should be,” Macdonald explained. “And that way, I guess, we discovered all sorts of new things.”

Title: Bob Marley Documentary Gets an April Release

source:billboard

Excerpt: Magnolia Pictures has set the not-so-surprising release date of April 20 for the documentary

Excerpt: The two hour, 24-minute film will be accompanied with a disc that contains concert footage of four songs previously unseen, a 20-minute interview with Bunny Wailer, an interview with Stephen Marley that did not make it into the film and 20 minutes of people all around the world speaking about Marley and his music.

Excerpt: Macdonald set out to make a film that would inform the Marley children and grandchildren about Bob's life, which led to Billboard posing the question to Ziggy Marley about which stories he had never heard. One concerned his father's concern about his fair skin, the other about the song "Small Axe," which has long been seen as a song about taking down corrupt governments. In reality, it was about specific people in the Jamaican music industry.

"This film is not hearsay," Ziggy notes. "This is the real stuff here."

Title: MARLEY Paints Emotional Portrait of Reggae Legend

source:wired

Excerpt: The documentary, simply titled Marley, premiered here this week at the South by Southwest Film Festival. Even with all the material that’s come before, Marley offers a fresh look at the musician’s life, his music, his triumphs and his failings. The film packs enough new revelations to satisfy the most die-hard Marley know-it-alls, and those new to his story will be riveted throughout the two-hour-plus running time.

Excerpt: But the wealth of new material is wonderful. There are dozens of never-before-seen and rarely seen photos in the film, especially shots of Bob in his youth and in his final days, when he retired to Germany for last-ditch cancer treatments. There are a few snatches of newly unearthed performance footage, and some great home movies. There’s also some unreleased Wailers music in the film, like a fast gospel rendition of “No Woman, No Cry,” with Tosh on piano.

Excerpt: Best of all is the music. It positively bristles with life on the big screen. See it in a theater, and sit on the aisle so you have plenty of room to dance.

Title: MARLEY review

source:digital spy

Excerpt: A mix of talking heads, archive footage and the odd bit of landscape with audio voiceover, Kevin Macdonald doesn't reinvent the wheel with his latest doc, but he does the straightforward so very well that he doesn't need to.

Excerpt: Rather than pick one phase of Bob's life, Marley tries to do it all. From his birth to white father 'Captain' Norval and black mother Cedella Booker, to his early days as a put-upon mixed-race farmboy, his time on the streets in Kingston's Trenchtown, the early days of the Wailers, worldwide success, 1978's politically-charged One Love concert, Bob's cancer diagnosis and drawn-out demise in snowy Germany of all places.

Excerpt: Bob Marley's tragic death made him an icon, before the passing of time left his cultural legacy as little more than stoner wallpaper. Marley not only reclaims Bob as the musical and social hero that he was, but paints a real picture of the man behind the dreads - brilliant and brave, but also complicated and essentially conflicted. Up there with No Direction Home and The Filth and the Fury, Marley is one of the greatest ever historical music documentaries.

Title: Ziggy Marley discusses MARLEY

source:austin 360

Excerpt: “There have been a lot of things already made about him, but we wanted this to be definitive,” Ziggy Marley said Monday. “And one way of doing that was by actually having the family involved and having people who knew Bob personally - the closest people to Bob - being in the film and trying to show Bob beyond the legend of what he is and have some sort of emotional value to the film. We wanted it to be something people could feel.”

Title: Kevin Macdonald Talks MARLEY, Music and Marijuana

source:the hollywood reporter

Excerpt: An Oscar winner for One Day in September, Macdonald had first tried to make a film about Marley seven years ago, around the time of what would have been the icon’s 60th birthday, but it never happened. He says he spent enough time in Jamaica working on it, however, to be on the radar of Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, who brought him in years later to meet with the Marley family on making an officially sanctioned documentary.

Excerpt: “They really wanted to make a film,” says Macdonald, the last in a line of high-profile directors, such as Martin Scorsese and Jonathan Demme, to discuss a film with Marley's many children. “They had felt like, before everyone dies who knew their dad and before that whole part of history disappears, we want to get it on film. The family learned a lot of stuff from watching the film that they didn’t know.”

Excerpt: Still, Macdonald feels that another result of his movie reaching a wide audience will be to dispel the notion that Marley’s marijuana use spoke to a certain slow-paced or lazy lifestyle. “He’s a guy who was driven, ambitious, hard-working — he drove his band to practice for 18 hours a day, he would do anything to get his music heard,” Macdonald says. “He really thought he was spreading a message.”

Title: SXSW 2012: 'Marley' documentary

source:usa today

Excerpt: Even Marley's children discovered new aspects of their father's life in the poignant film, directed by Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland). "Especially the last half (of his life), when he was taken ill and not around us," said son Ziggy Marley at a red carpet event for the film's U.S. premiere.

"We learned a lot about that and some of the earlier stuff when he was coming up through Trenchtown and the Wailers," he said. "There was a lot of stuff we didn't know about that we know now."

Excerpt: The film, which comes to theaters and on demand/digital outlets April 20, takes viewers to Marley's Jamaican birthplace and resting place. He passed away May 11, 1981 at the age of 36. "He was a young man," said Ziggy Marley. "A lot of people know about the singing star and the legend. This is all of Bob not just a part of him. They are going to feel an emotional connection to Bob that has never been documented before."

Title: MARLEY is iron like a lion in Zion

source:london film fanatiq

Excerpt: While there have been no shortages on Bob Marley documentaries, it’s only now, with the arrival of Academy Award winning film-maker Kevin Macdonald’s Marley, that the whole, true story of the reggae legend can finally be told, over 30 years after his untimely death. Yes, Marley is touted as the definite Bob Marley doc, but be assured, this is not hyperbole. Marley is comprehensive and leaves no stone unturned as it explores the life of this internationally iconic superstar.

Excerpt: Running just shy of two and a half hours, Marley is a meaty chronicle of the Jamaican’s life. However, not a minute here is wasted. The story of a man whose music has spanned the globe for decades and remains just as inspirational today as it was 35 years ago is entirely deserving of full and extended attention.

Excerpt: With Macdonald’s Marley, the world has finally been provided with a film that completely illustrates the legacy of this larger-than-life figure and deserves a place alongside the work of the man himself. 10/10

Title: MARLEY reviewed

source:culthub

Excerpt: Kevin Macdonald's biopic is a must see for fans and educational for those who aren't old enough to remember his career. The singer's life has been widely reported and scrutinised but this documentary meets the people that influenced him as a person and his music.

Excerpt: The documentary is also a musical journey, explaining the development of reggae and the sub-culture is created and the elements that make a track reggae in the first place. The lyrics in the songs add to the tale and are explained, analysed, played back to relatives to garner their reaction of their new found fresh perspective.

Excerpt: Oscar winning director Kevin Macdonald manages to put Bob's family and friends at ease coaxing out eccentric personalities and charming witty tales while fully capturing all the quirkiness of them as individuals and their surroundings. He even tracks down Bob's first music teacher who remembers the first song she taught him. The testimony follows the reggae artist through marriage, affairs, children (eleven known descendants from seven different women), politics, exile and finally cancer. Macdonald uses a wide variety of archive imagery and footage of Marley's life and filmed as far afield as Ghana, Japan, the UK as well as the US and Marley's home in Jamaica.

Title: Marley flick for 'Park' premiere

source:jamaica observer

Excerpt: MARLEY, a documentary on the life of reggae superstar Bob Marley, will premiere at Emancipation Park, Kingston, on Thursday, April 19 and is free to the public.

Excerpt: The 2 1/2-hour film, part of the Marley family's contribution to Jamaica's 50 anniversary of Independence celebration, will be shown a day before its international release, giving Jamaicans the opportunity to see one of the most definitive authorised film on his life, legacy and global impact.

Excerpt: The Marleys and co-executive producer, Chris Blackwell, are expecting a record turnout for the event, as Marley marks the first time the family has authorised the use of images and film footage from their personal archives. It will be released in the United States by Magnolia Pictures and will also be available on Video OnDemand.

Title: Marley premiere at SXSW

source:vh1

Excerpt: VH1's Emmy award-winning “Rock Docs” franchise will premiere two new documentaries during the SXSW Film Festival. Magnolia Pictures’ “Marley,” the first film to tell the definitive life story of revolutionary music icon Bob Marley, will be making its North American premiere at SXSW on March 11th at 5:30PM CT.

Excerpt: “Marley,” a documentary about legendary musician Bob Marley will premiere on March 11th at 5:30PM CT at SXSW. Made with the unprecedented support of the Marley family, “Marley” is the first film to tell the definitive life story of the musician, revolutionary, and legend, from his earliest days to his rise to international super-stardom. Along with an incredible soundtrack, the film features rare footage, archival photos, and incredible performances and interviews with his family, friends, and band mates – the people that knew him best. “Marley” is directed by Academy Award-winner Kevin Macdonald and produced by Steve Bing and Charles Steel, and executive produced by Bob’s son Ziggy Marley and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell. “Marley” will be opening in select theaters and can be found on VOD (video on demand) on April 20th.

Title: Review of Marley by Soul Culture

source:soul culture

Excerpt: 144 minutes long, Marley investigates many elements of Bob’s life that have never been documented without dwelling on the more publicised areas of his life – be it his use of marijuana or various relationships with women outside of his marriage.

Excerpt: With iconic sound bites from Bob, use of archive photos and footage that takes us from his start to end, the film pays strong attention to detail. Working closely with Bob’s family and friends on this picture makes Marley an authentic and honest look back into a historic time in music and culture.

Title: Discussions on Marley movie

source:flicks and bits

Excerpt: Directed by Kevin MacDonald (The Last King of Scotland, State of Play), ‘Marley’ is a documentary on the life, music, and legacy of the legendary singer, visionary, champion of freedom, songwriter and musician, Bob Marley. It is the first feature backed by the Marley family as well as the legend’s long-time music label head Chris Blackwell, providing us with the most insightful look at his life yet as it follows “the musician, revolutionary and legend from his earliest days to his rise to international superstardom” using rare footage, archival photos, live performances and interviews with his family, friends and bandmates. ‘Marley’ is set for release April 20th.

Excerpt: Rohan Marley: Yeah. We didn’t grow up thinking about money, we grew up thinking about how we can help each other, how we can help people that are less fortunate. So with the work that we do today, we continue to do what we saw with our eyes what our father did. We know that our father was a man of giving conscience. A caring man that on every Friday at Hope Road, people would come for help, whether they wanted to send their children to school, whether someone needs clothing, food. It’s a bridge, we see it as a way to help our brother man, help people, my father said, “If you’re up, look down, and help your brother man,” you know?

Excerpt: There’s so many documentaries that feature interviews with people that didn’t really actually spend time with the person it’s focusing on. In ‘Marley’ it’s a lot more intimate?

Kevin Macdonald: Yeah. I wanted the film to be as intimate as possible because when I’ve seen other things that have been made or written about Bob Marley, it does feel like there’s so much just talking about him as an icon, the legend he was….but then not much about the human being. I’m the kind of director or person who’s interested in, “Why was somebody like that? What made them like that?” And obviously, with genius’, sometimes you can’t understand, you can’t understand completely where this brilliance, this musical brilliance, this philosophical brilliance came from.

Title: Marley film comes to festival with buzz

source:austin 360

Excerpt: That honor likely goes to Kevin Macdonald's "Marley," the first film ever authorized by late reggae legend Bob Marley's family. The movie made its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February and will make its North American premiere in Austin. With interviews from family, friends and musicians, along with concert footage and rare recordings, the film from "The Last King of Scotland" director sheds light on the myth and the man who died of cancer at the age of 36.

Title: Magnolia Releases First U.S. Trailer for 'Marley' Doc

source:hollywood reporter

Excerpt: Magnolia released the official U.S. trailer Friday for Marley, director Kevin Macdonald’s documentary about the iconic reggae artist. Bob Marley fans will be jammin’ as they get a first real look at the film’s in-depth portrait of the musician, told through the words of the people who knew him best.

Excerpt: Marley premiered earlier in the week at the Berlin Film Festival, where it drew strong praise from critics for its straightforward portrait of the artist’s life. Magnolia picked up the rights to the film just a day after Marley’s birthday, February 6, and plans to release the film on April 20, 2012, commemorating the appropriately semi-related date associated with smoking marijuana.

Title: Marley reviewed on Paste

source:paste magazine

Excerpt: Marley offers an expansive and at times fascinating perspective on the man through interviews with his fellow former Wailers, family, and childhood friends. The film is fairly detailed concerning Marley’s songwriting and musicianship from his early ska days up through the release of Catch a Fire.

Excerpt: Macdonald’s documentary offers some intriguing insights into Marley’s life through the variety of interviews he includes.

Excerpt: Island Records head Chris Blackwell, an important player in Marley’s career and success, refers to him as a “black rock act.” And the Wailers used to practice at the local cemetery in order to conquer their stage fright by singing for the “duppies,” or evil spirits. It’s details like this that make another exploration of a well-documented life worth the effort, especially when that life belongs to someone as profoundly interesting and influential as Bob Marley.

Title: Marley film has Berlin critics crowing

source:reuters

Excerpt: Oscar-winning documentary maker Kevin Macdonald has made what critics are calling the definitive biography of reggae legend Bob Marley, aided by the singer's family and record label who have given the project their blessing.

Excerpt: "I just felt like there weren't any good films about him and a lot of misinformation," Macdonald told Reuters this week.
"I wanted to make a very simple film. It's the most conventional film I think I ever made, very straight forward, just trying to be a detective and uncover the truth about his life and the truth about his character."

Title: Marley review from the Guardian

source:the guardian

Excerpt: What results is an immensely detailed overview of Marley's life and times, from the hillside Jamaican shack where he grew up to the snowy Bavarian clinic where he spent his last weeks in a fruitless attempt to cure the cancer that killed him in 1981, aged 36. Arguably the first third is the most revelatory, with photographs of a heartbreakingly young and clean-cut Marley hacking his way through the Jamaican charts with the first, ska-influenced, incarnation of the Wailers: hits like Simmer Down and their warbling version of Teenager in Love, put them on the map in the mid-60s.

Excerpt: Macdonald, however, is clearly concerned to offer more than a straight music biog; he grapples at length with Marley's philosophical and religious convictions, as well as his precarious place above the fray of Jamaica's post-colonial political antagonism.

Excerpt: At well over two hours, Macdonald's film packs a lot in; Marley's wife, girlfriends, several of his children, art director, manager and sidemen – all get a showing. But then Marley was a larger-than-life figure, bestriding his era like some denim-clad colossus; he's worth the extra time investment.

Title: The man behind the legend

source:canada.com

Excerpt: BERLIN - He was a musician, a spiritual leader, a ladies' man, a smoker of heroic amounts of ganja, a political force and a religious icon. And, 31 years after his death, Bob Marley is still a chart-topper: His Legends album sells 250,000 copies a year, even now.

Excerpt: ``Everywhere in the world people look at Bob as some kind of leader, philosopher, prophet, someone who speaks to their lives and in whom they find wisdom,'' says Scottish filmmaker Kevin Macdonald. ``It's fascinating: Why is that? Nobody else has had that effect in music.''

Excerpt: ``I went into the Kampala slums with some of my actors, and people had Bob Marley pictures, graffiti, pictures,'' Macdonald said. ``Twenty-five years after he died, he still had a huge impact. There's no other musician I can think of who has that position in culture, so long after he's dead, and so far away, in a poor part of a central African city.''

Title: Bob Marley documentary unveiled

source:la times

Excerpt: A long-awaited Bob Marley documentary premiered Sunday at Berlin’s International Film Festival, and -- people get ready -- will open in U.S. theaters April 20 after playing the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, in March.

Excerpt: Macdonald told journalists at the Berlinale he had just 13 months to work on the bio-doc, which spans 2½ hours, packing in numerous interviews with mostly admiring family members, friends, lovers and musicians, historical concert footage, rare recordings, and 50 of Bob Marley’s songs, and 10 from other artists).

Excerpt: Marley saw his music and public self as an extension of his Rastafarian beliefs and rarely shunned a chance to perform, sometimes for free, and even spending $90,000 to fly his band to Zimbabwe for a concert to mark the country’s independence. He was claimed by both sides of the warring political gangs in Jamaica, though he professed no allegiance, and played a birthday show for Gabon’s dictator president. He was competitive in all parts of his life, driving his children and his band to achieve his level of perfection.

Title: Bob Marley - the Cornerstone in Kevin Macdonald's Documentary

source:huffington post

Excerpt: As seen at the world premeiere of Marley at the Berlin Film Festival last night, Bob Marley has found a champion in the innovative filmmaker Macdonald - who says that he hopes he has made the "definitive documentary" - to chart his extraordinary and thrilling life.

Excerpt: One of the challenges in making a documentary of Bob Marley's life is finding reliable witnesses. Indeed, Jamaica is a country where it is famously said: "there are no facts, only versions". And Macdonald's film occasionally struggles to free itself from being held hostage to some dubious "versions".

Excerpt: After the agony of the false starts, and the trials and tribulations of the earlier directors on this project, Kevin Macdonald provides us with the ecstasy of Marley. Through the extraordinary music, the colour, story-telling and imagery you will emerge from the cinema transformed.

Title: Bob Marley documentary electrifies Berlin

source:afp

Excerpt: BERLIN — A hotly awaited documentary on Bob Marley has premiered to cheers at the Berlin film festival, tracking his journey from bullied biracial Jamaican boy to reggae superstar.
"Marley" by Oscar-winning Scottish film-maker Kevin Macdonald is a two-and-half-hour-long tribute to a child of the Kingston ghettos who made reggae a global phenomenon by the sheer force of his talent and charisma.

Excerpt: "For me, Bob is really one of the greatest cultural figures of 20th century. I don't think anyone in popular music has had the same lasting impact that he has," Macdonald, 44, told reporters after a rapturously received screening.
"Anywhere you go in the world, you find his image, his music, his wisdom -- literally anywhere you go. So it's nice to be a small part of that and hopefully to bring to people around the world a sense of who this man was as a human being, not just as the legend, not just as the great icon."

Excerpt: The film also traces the impact of Jamaica's rampant political violence, in which Marley was once shot during a live performance, the singer's Rastafarian beliefs and attachment to Africa -- he sang at Robert Mugabe's inauguration in Zimbabwe in 1980 -- and his attempts to battle cancer before his death at 36.
A rousing sequence runs during the final credits in which fans across Asia, Africa, America and Europe keep the Marley legend alive, singing along to his songs.

Title: Marley: Berlin Film Review

source:hollywood reporter

Excerpt: Stirring up an exhaustive portrait of the legend behind the music, Kevin Macdonald’s Marley is sure to become the definitive documentary on the much beloved king of reggae. Filled with thrilling concert footage and scores of in-depth interviews with the singer-songwriter’s friends, family and fellow Wailers, this all-encompassing, rather classically assembled biography forges a moving depiction of an artist who left the scene way too prematurely.

Excerpt: Though there are too many such details to recall here, perhaps most intriguing is the prejudice Marley suffered as a child from a mixed racial background, with an elderly white father he never really knew (and who himself sired several children with various women). The unifying message of songs like “One Love” seem at least partially motivated by the hatred he experienced early on, as does his conversion to Rastafarianism at a young age.

Excerpt: But eventually it leads toward a lengthy and stirring finale showcasing some of the artist’s greatest live performances, the last ones given when he was terminally ill. Most notable are two late concerts in Kingston, the first for which he was shot at in a botched assassination attempt (“as professional as Jamaicans get,” cracks one band member) by one of the country’s rival political parties/street gangs. The fact that Marley persisted in appearing on stage reveals to what extent he was invested in unifying his violent homeland, and the closing credits reveal how his message continues to resonate in the present day.

Title: Bob Marley’s Passions Extended Beyond Ganja, Women, Soccer

source:bloomberg

Excerpt: There is some sadness in her eyes that suggests suppressed pain, softened by the years. Rita is among those interviewed for “Marley,” a thoughtful portrait of the reggae king directed by Kevin Macdonald and premiering at the Berlin Film Festival.

Excerpt: Talking about Marley without using the word “Legend” is hard. The album of that name has sold more than 10 million copies and continues to sell 250,000 a year. Marley died in 1981, when he was 36 years old, of cancer -- long before the advent of the Internet, yet he has more than 33 million followers on Facebook and Twitter.

Excerpt: This film brings the man behind the legend a few steps closer, into sharper focus. As well as Rita, interview partners include Bob’s mother; two of his 11 or 12 children; the one surviving original Wailer; a former Miss World who was one of the lovers; and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell.

Excerpt: “Marley” aims to be the definitive, official film on the subject and, as such, is conventional in its approach. It doesn’t give critics a voice, and in some places, seems to aim to stoke the legend rather than take us behind it. Yet the conversations with family and close friends yield nuggets that offer a more complete, intimate picture of a driven man.
The last part of the film takes us to the snowbound German holistic clinic where Marley spent his last months in 1981. A melanoma that he thought had been removed from his toe had metastasized and taken over his body. If he’d had regular medical checkups after the toe operation, it might have been caught earlier and he could still be alive, Blackwell says.

Title: Bob Marley Feature Film

source:shadow and act

Excerpt: First, let’s revisit the long and winding path that Bob Marley projects have taken, since the Warner Bros announcement in 1999…

Excerpt: so there was the 1999 Warner Bros. project which was to be based on Timothy White’s 1998 novel Catch A fire: The Life of Bob Marley; the film was to star Bob Marley’s son Rohan (as Bob) and Lauryn Hill (as Rita Marley), but nothing ever materialized.

Excerpt: In all, it appears to me that the Marleys were simply trying to give Bob a proper remembrance on film, and would go with whomever they felt provided them the best opportunity to ensure that happened.

Excerpt: Fast-forward to today, February 2nd, 2011, as news comes that Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald (director of documentaries like One Day In September and Touching the Void) has signed on to direct Marley, a production that’s being put together with “full cooperation of Marley’s family,” as Deadline states. It looks like he’s just taking over the Scorsese/Demme documentary that’s been in limbo for awhile now.

Title: Rohan Marley Says No Actor Can Play Bob Marley

source:indiewire

Excerpt: The long struggle to get a Bob Marley film made has been well documented on Shadow And Act (I recommend reading this post for the details: http://bit.ly/hEs4jj). What we have ended up with after all that is Kevin Macdonald's documentary MARLEY, which will world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival this month

Excerpt: 
He said: "My father was not just a man, but a spirit dancer. You have to come with that vibration and it is not something you can act. In Jamaica, when you are a light skin, you are the outcast. To play my father, his struggles and how he overcame it all, would require you to bring tears to my eyes. It has to be one of his sons. And we're not, none of us, in Hollywood."

Title: Berlin 2012: Director Kevin Macdonald Bob Marley

source:the hollywood reporter

Excerpt: Macdonald's Marley, which contains 50 songs from the late reggae legend and 10 from other artists, aims to be the definitive documentary about Marley, who died of brain cancer in 1981 at age 36.

Excerpt: Rohan Marley, one of the singer-songwriter’s 11 children and billed as a protagonist in Macdonald's doc, told a news conference ahead of the movie's official screening that any fictional version to be made requires something no actor has.
"My father was not just a man but a spirit dancer,” Marley said. “You have to come with that vibration, and it is not something you can act." He added: "In Jamaica, when you are a light-skin, you are the outcast. To play my father, his struggles and how he overcame it all, would require you to bring tears to my eyes."

Title: Marley movie set for SXSW

source:realscreen

Excerpt: The film, which examines the life and times of reggae legend Bob Marley, is billed as having been made with the support of the artist’s family, and promises to be “the definitive life story” of the musician, featuring “rare footage, incredible performances and revelatory interviews with the people that knew him best.”

Excerpt: Marley is one of the first seven films named for this year’s Austin event, and the only documentary announced so far. On the conference side of the event, SXSW has also unveiled a number of panel sessions slated for this year’s event.

Title: Kevin MacDonald Says His 'Marley' Doc Is Headed To TIFF

source:indiewire

Excerpt: “I’ve got the Bob Marley film, which I should be finishing up the edit of today,” he told us. “And then the plan is to take it to Toronto.” While not officially announced (yet) as part of TIFF, who unveiled their first wave of films this morning, attendees in Toronto can add another big ticket title to their plans.

Excerpt: But MacDonald didn’t just finish Demme’s work. He explained, “I came on, started over from scratch, and I’ve made my film, which has been a great experience.” It looks like we’ll get our first taste in Toronto and with Marley touching upon music, politics and culture in a way that very few artists ever do, it should be a fascinating portrait of a man whose influence clearly resonates.

Excerpt: Still, he says, the idea nagged at him: “When I went to Uganda for ‘Last King of Scotland’ I was amazed at how Marley was present there and I’ve subsequently seen it in other parts of the developing world – Marley as this kind of saint, a philosophical and religious figure.

Title: Bob Marley was 'beyond' famous, says director

source:bbc

Excerpt: The Oscar-winning film-maker behind The Last King of Scotland says he is making the film, Marley, because of the star's "continued resonance around the world".

"He's gone beyond being a famous musician, he's now a philosopher and prophet," he adds.

Excerpt: Macdonald has been given unprecedented access to the Marley family's private archives - the first time they have granted a film-maker full authorisation.

Excerpt: "I think that what is important is what he says to people around the world. He manages to be a serious political figure to some, but he can also be an icon of rebellion."

Title: Ghana’s Cape Coast Castle to feature in Bob Marley documentary

source:ghana business news

Excerpt: The Cape Coast Castle was chosen to feature in ‘Marley’ because of the historical role it played during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. It is also to show the reggae legend’s ancestral slave roots.

Excerpt: “The opening shot of the film will feature a tour of Cape Coast Castle, a fortification in Ghana that contains the infamous “Door of No Return” through which many Africans passed before being shipped into slavery”, Los Angeles Times reported citing the film director and Oscar-winner, Kevin Macdonald on February 8, 2011.

Excerpt: Considered a true legend, Bob is one of the most influential singers, songwriters, musicians and activists in history as well as famous Jamaican singer and songwriter
Generally credited as having popularized reggae music on a global scale, Bob Marley was the lead singer and guitarist of The Wailers from 1974 up until his death in 1981.