I was first exposed to Gregory Isaacs in 1982 at age 13. The story begins with my cousin, Alan---a story I recounted here several years ago.
When I was thirteen, my dad took me to the Film Forum, just outside the West Vilage in NYC. My cousin Alan’s first film was being shown there, a film called Land of Look Behind, a documentary about Jamaica just after Bob Marley’s death. At the time I did not know Bob Marley’s music and I knew nothing about Rastafarians or Jamaica.
All I really knew was that when I was five Alan lived with us in our house in Teaneck, NJ. He and my dad used to take photographs together and process them in my dad’s darkroom. We converted our attic into a bedroom for him. Alan photographed me there. He somehow limited the available light to a shaft coming in from a single window.
He left us to go to Europe, where he studied with Roman Polanski, worked with Bernardo Bertolucci, and began his lifelong association and sometime partnership with Werner Herzog.
On the screen were astounding images of poverty in Jamaica, Bob Marley’s funeral, Rastafarian reveries, live reggae performances, prisons and military police, incredible landscapes, marijuana smoking, and English made strange by unfamiliar accents that often seemed hypnotic. It was a ninety minute cinematic poem, a dream that has stayed with me for almost twenty-five years.
Included in Alan's beautiful film is this extended sequence, featuring Isaacs talking and performing live in a little Jamaican club.
I wrote my recollection of Alan's film in 2006, as it was about to be re-released on DVD; I'm pleased to see that it still seems to be available. You can also watch the film on YouTube, in parts. More on the film in the rest of my 2006 blog post and here.
Related Reading
- Christopher Campbell, "Gregory Isaacs in 'Rockers,' 'Land of Look Behind' and 'Made in Jamaica'" (Spout)
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