Jonathan Demme is taking over an upcoming Bob Marley documentary for Martin Scorsese, seeing as how Scorsese’s busy–there’s supposedly a George Harrison documentary in the hopper–and all documentaries about boomer musical legends must be directed by one of the two. Demme will get started on the Marley movie just as soon as he finishes The Neil Young Trunk Show. While I can understand why any older artist would prefer to have their work chronicled by either the guy who did The Last Waltz or the guy who did Stop Making Sense, the aging icon who makes the next one of these might want to liven things up a tad by considering Michel Gondry, or maybe someone who goes by “Spike.”
“I am thrilled and humbled by this extraordinary opportunity to participate in fashioning a motion picture that can serve as a worthy vessel for the spiritual and musical brilliance of Bob Marley, who, most everybody agrees, is one of the greatest human beings of modern times,” Demme said in a statement.
Ziggy Marley, one of the film’s executive producers, said: “His empathy with my father’s body of work and his unique understanding of the musical documentary form makes me confident that this film will be the ultimate celebration of my fathers’ life.”
Putting aside from the question of whether anyone other than Scorsese or Demme has a unique understanding of the musical documentary form, which of these guys would you rather chronicle the life of your favorite band? Would you prefer Scorsese’s sudden zooms and between-song interviews…
…or Jonathan Demme’s less obtrusive style?
“Bad” or “Perfect Kiss”? Or would you rather set Peter Bogdanovich off to making a follow-up to the four-hour epic he created for Tom Petty? And if Scorsese is R. Kelly, and Demme is Akon, who’s T-Pain? Don’t even mention Jim Jarmusch.
Bob Marley Doc Goes To Demme After Scorsese Drops Out [The Set List]
Shine a Light (2008) - OFFICIAL TRAILER [YouTube]
Talking Heads “Burning Down The House” [YouTube]
[Photo: Getty Images]
Interesting question (except for that last part). For me, Marty makes better movies; Demme makes better concert films. The Last Waltz is terribly overrated. The music is fantastic, but it’s really not that well shot, and not only does he totally ignore the rest of the Band other than his coke buddy Robbie, he makes them seem like mental defectives. He fails to include any audience or shots of the decked-out Winterland Ballroom (they served the audience a full Thanksgiving dinner, for God’s sake). Worst of all, he inserts himself right in the middle of an event that really wasn’t about him in the least. Shine A Light was OK but the plants in the front rows were stupid and no one in the world wants to see close ups of the Stones. If Marty was secure enough to just stay the hell out of sight, I’d appreciate his films a lot more.
Stop Making Sense is fantastic, and I loved Heart Of Gold too. Demme seems to have a better understanding of the genre. Basically, concert films are inherently boring no matter how many fast cuts and close ups you employ. Just present the concert honestly and let the performance speak for itself, I say. Looking forward to Demme’s take on Marley.
Demme, for his work on “Stop Making Sense” alone. I just showed the film to some 6th graders today, and they were thoroughly confused, and incredulous that such a band could have any big hits.
Slightly off-topic, but Steven Soderbergh made this: [www.imdb.com]
Are the Maysles brothers still alive?
@Chris Molanphy: Just one of them. Albert, I believe.
My roommates and I accidentally stumbled upon Demme’s ‘Heart of Gold’ on cable - and watched all of it simply because it looked so gorgeous. We had a long discussion that EVERY performance based rock-doc should be made by Demme. Except he should add some Scorsese elements like a rat in front of the statue of liberty or something.
Actually, Demme is a smart choice for a Marley biopic - he’s done a lot of doc-work in Haiti and understands the Caribbean context better than most big-name directors. But I do hope that he gets Marty to sit down and reminisce about doing spoonfuls of coke with Bob at Studio 54 back in the day.
Michel Gondry would probably dress up a bunch of Rastas as whimsical ballerinas or some other ridiculous shit.
Just saw “Shine a Light” in IMAX, and (spoiler alert) my fave scene is when Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci savagely pummel the catering manager. They weren’t portraying characters or nothin, they were just there at the concert.