Release Date: 1/01/2005
Recording Date: 6/2006
Tracks: 5
Label: Eagle Vision
Type: CD,DVD
- Genre/Styles
- Soul, Motown, Smooth Soul
Album Tracks (5)
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What the Critics Say
This hour-long documentary has the usual ingredients needed for a satisfactory overview of an important musician. There are excerpts of performance footage from throughout Marvin Gaye's career; excerpts of interviews with Gaye; and interviews, done specifically for the film, with important associates of his. Those include Motown head Berry Gordy; Motown peers Lamont Dozier, Martha Reeves, and Kim Weston; Gaye's two wives; biographer and songwriting collaborator David Ritz; and assorted relatives, musicians, and studio cohorts. Somehow, however, it's an uneasy mix that falls short of being as comprehensive a treatment as Gaye deserves. In part that's because the performance footage only shows short excerpts of songs spanning a roughly 25-year period, from his early-'60s rise at Motown to shortly before his death, leaving most soul fans hungry for more. Some might also find the use of a narrator voicing quotes taken from Gaye interviews, and the occasional (if sparing) use of actors to reenact scenes of his life, a little contrived. Most crucially, however, there are a lot of gaps in the coverage of the evolution of Gaye's music, and if you're not already fairly familiar with it, you might have a hard time putting all the pieces of his artistic progression together. It's not bad as an impressionistic outline of his life, giving non-Gaye experts a sense of how troubled his personal affairs were and how his attempts at creative growth were sometimes met with resistance, though there are a few unusually interesting comments from the interviewees. The bonus material includes more extracts from the interviews done for the documentary, and decent live footage featuring some of his most famous songs ("Let's Get It On," "Hitch Hike," "What's Going On," "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)"), though unfortunately it's not specified when and where these performances were filmed. If you do want more complete performances, incidentally, you can check out the DVD The Real Thing: In Performance 1964-1981, which offers 16 such clips. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
