Better than One Love, don't miss the documentary on Bob Marley by Kevin MacDonald

The director of The Last King of Scotland resurrects the icon with archives and interviews with Ziggy Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Lee Perry, Chris Blackwell, Rita Marley…

The biopic on Bob Marley, one Love, was released this week in cinemas, and it had a great start in French cinemas. The film starring Kingsley Ben-Adir did not completely seduce us, and we cannot recommend enough that you watch Marleythe documentary directed by Kevin MacDonald (The last king of Scotland, The Eagle of the Ninth Legion), to better discover the life of the reggae icon in all its nuances.

That’s good, the film released in 2012 is currently available for free streaming on Arte.tv (and broadcast on air this Friday at 10:40 p.m.). Having died prematurely in 1981, Bob Marley left such a considerable legacy that he is cited as a major influence by current musicians such as Rihanna or Ben Harper. His eventful childhood, his success, the assassination attempt to which he was subjected, his philosophy, his relationship with drugs, his political commitment, nothing is left aside. The film is based on unpublished archive images and pieces never before broadcast, but also on interviews with Ziggy Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Lee Perry, Chris Blackwell, Rita Marley…

In addition, the Arte website also offers Uprising Livethe recording of a legendary Bob Marley concert during his final tour with the Wailers, in 1980.

Marley director Kevin MacDonald: ‘I was never a huge Bob fan’

The problem of this documentary was basically very simple: how to evoke the life of an icon? How to transform the Jamaican Christ into a film subject? From the start, the Scottish filmmaker chooses clarity. Marley is an oral history, the story of the singer’s life from his birth to his death, told by those close to him. Academic? Maybe, but also unstoppable.

Made with the help of the family, the film never falls into hagiography; full of musical sequences, it is not diluted in the filmed concert either… The testimonies, archive images and recordings of his concerts end up composing a puzzle which does not hesitate to address the subjects which are angry ( his legendary infidelity, his political contradictions) without crushing the character.

Ultimately, there was no better subject for Macdonald. We know his fascination with Africa (The Last King of Scotland) and for the 70’s (One day in September), his curiosity for “ogresque” characters (Idi Amin Dada, Klaus Barbie) and especially for crossbreeding (a subject in the hollow of The Eagle of the Ninth Legion). This is precisely the axis of this documentary, the common thread chosen to tell the story of Marley, a complex and self-conscious figure who regretted “not having been blacker”.

The strength of the film is that, to guide the viewer through the scent of ganja, the director chose to put himself on stage, gradually becoming the singer’s Nicholas Garrigan – in The Last King of Scotland, we discovered Uganda and its dictator Idi Amin Dada through the eyes of this young white and naive doctor played by James McAvoy. There, it is the filmmaker himself who takes on the role of Candide, intoxicated (but never fooled) by the beauty of Jamaica, the charisma of the singer and his women.

This point of view, which could have been irritating, is ultimately salutary: faced with Rasta mysticism, faced with the all-consuming legend of Marley, Macdonald embodies rationality, a distanced look, by turns credulous and skeptical, enthusiastic and inquisitive. This dialectic, the filmmaker’s desire to never let himself be crushed by the legend, to make cinema at all costs (the intro, the sequence where Marley’s white half-brother listens to Cornerstone or the entire finale), means that he never lets himself be overwhelmed by his subject. And both come out growing. Ja Man!