One Love

25 Feb, 2024

Solid music-first if unchallenging depiction of Bob Marley.

I left the cinema feeling a little short changed. Knowing that the family were closely involved (the first names on the end credits were family members in production roles) I wondered what we hadn’t been shown.

I’m not at all embedded in Marley’s story, and only superficially informed about Jamaican politics, history and culture. Meaning that, at least, I didn’t watch and focus too much on trying to line up what I knew about the time and the place (there was a bit of this with Napoleon).

Three bits of post-movie homework added some depth to my understanding of the movie.

On my way home I re-listened to Peter Adamson’s history of philosophy podcast episode where he covered Rastafarianism, and spent some time on Marley’s One Love concert. The episode is relatively recent, and it was my first encounter with some of the themes I would see again in the film. They felt right as I was watching, and going back to that podcast episode helped reinforce that impression.

Second was an article that I came across in the Guardian a few weeks earlier by the linguistics consultant to the film. I'd forgotten about it until I started watching, and then during the film I was mildly worried about the authenticity of the characters' dialogue – I'm no judge of what authentic Jamaican Patois should sound like, but care enough about these things that I want them to be respected. I need not have worried.

Finally, an article by a music journalist Vivien Goldman (also in the Guardian) did a good job of filling in and verifying some of the biographical detail, and resolving some of the compromises required of a two-hour movie. Goldman worked as a press officer during the events of the film and was present for some of the key events.

So, while the experience in the cinema was a little unsatisfying, it was worth digging into the background a bit afterwards and finding the extra depth to both the production and the historical person.