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PBS 'American Masters' documentary examines life and influence of Marvin Gaye
09:04 AM CDT on Wednesday, May 7, 2008
By CHRIS VOGNAR / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]
Marvin Gaye is a daunting documentary subject for one simple reason: Almost everything there is to say about the man has already been written.
Michael Ochs Archives
Marvin Gaye, shown in 1964, remains a towering figure in American music. Both David Ritz, in Divided Soul, and Michael Eric Dyson, in Mercy, Mercy Me, have probed the struggles between sacred and secular, the spirit and the flesh, that gave glorious tension and heft to Gaye's music. So Sam Pollard, whose doc Marvin Gaye: What's Going On premieres at 8 tonight on KERA-TV (Channel 13) as part of PBS' American Masters series, did the logical thing: He gave Mr. Ritz and Mr. Dyson plenty of screen time and let them wax rhapsodic.
He also mixes in ample interviews with Motown veterans Mary Wilson, Lamont Dozier and many others, adds snippets from a vintage Gaye interview, and includes just enough sublime concert footage. The end result is a sturdy and tragic portrait of a divided soul and once-in-a- lifetime musical talent that raises a different kind of question: When can we expect the big-screen version?
Jim Britt
Marvin Gaye at the time he recorded 'Let's Get It On' The answer should come soon enough; two Gaye projects are in the works, and Jesse L. Martin, who narrates What's Going On, is attached to one of them. In the meantime, this one-hour doc should give fans a fix of sexual and musical healing.
The outline of the story is familiar. Brutally beaten by the cross-dressing father who would one day shoot him dead, Gaye sang in dad's Pentecostal church before becoming a Motown prodigy and marrying Motown founder Berry Gordy's sister, Anna. A string of hits followed, then the social and sonic breakthrough of What's Going On, an affair with then-16-year-old Janis Hunter (the muse behind "Let's Get It On"), a bad cocaine habit, the comeback triumph of 1982's "Sexual Healing," more drugs and, finally, murder at the hands of Marvin Sr. in 1984.
But such a summary can do no justice to such a towering figure, and What's Going On manages to pack some fine detail into its 60 minutes. Smokey Robinson recalls how Gaye partially blamed himself for the death of his favorite duet partner, Tammi Terrell, who collapsed onstage with a brain tumor and died at 24. Mr. Ritz provides a brilliant analysis of how Gaye's experiments in vocal multitracking represented an attempt to harmonize the warring voices of spirit and flesh in his soul. Many ladies of Motown, including Ms. Wilson and Kim Weston, remember the young Gaye's incomparable magnetism – and his deep insecurity. (In a welcome comic touch, everyone agrees that the absurdly talented Gaye couldn't dance a lick.)
All that's really missing from What's Going On is a look at Gaye's impact on the R&B of today. Would there be an R. Kelly, another prodigious and troubled talent split between the pulpit and the street, without Gaye? How about the rapper Common, whose dapper street style, down to the ubiquitous knit cap, springs directly from What's Going On -era Gaye?
Maybe in another film. After all, Gaye's story is too big, and too sad, for any individual portrait. He needs his own gallery.
09:04 AM CDT on Wednesday, May 7, 2008
By CHRIS VOGNAR / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]
Marvin Gaye is a daunting documentary subject for one simple reason: Almost everything there is to say about the man has already been written.
Michael Ochs Archives
Marvin Gaye, shown in 1964, remains a towering figure in American music. Both David Ritz, in Divided Soul, and Michael Eric Dyson, in Mercy, Mercy Me, have probed the struggles between sacred and secular, the spirit and the flesh, that gave glorious tension and heft to Gaye's music. So Sam Pollard, whose doc Marvin Gaye: What's Going On premieres at 8 tonight on KERA-TV (Channel 13) as part of PBS' American Masters series, did the logical thing: He gave Mr. Ritz and Mr. Dyson plenty of screen time and let them wax rhapsodic.
He also mixes in ample interviews with Motown veterans Mary Wilson, Lamont Dozier and many others, adds snippets from a vintage Gaye interview, and includes just enough sublime concert footage. The end result is a sturdy and tragic portrait of a divided soul and once-in-a- lifetime musical talent that raises a different kind of question: When can we expect the big-screen version?
Jim Britt
Marvin Gaye at the time he recorded 'Let's Get It On' The answer should come soon enough; two Gaye projects are in the works, and Jesse L. Martin, who narrates What's Going On, is attached to one of them. In the meantime, this one-hour doc should give fans a fix of sexual and musical healing.
The outline of the story is familiar. Brutally beaten by the cross-dressing father who would one day shoot him dead, Gaye sang in dad's Pentecostal church before becoming a Motown prodigy and marrying Motown founder Berry Gordy's sister, Anna. A string of hits followed, then the social and sonic breakthrough of What's Going On, an affair with then-16-year-old Janis Hunter (the muse behind "Let's Get It On"), a bad cocaine habit, the comeback triumph of 1982's "Sexual Healing," more drugs and, finally, murder at the hands of Marvin Sr. in 1984.
But such a summary can do no justice to such a towering figure, and What's Going On manages to pack some fine detail into its 60 minutes. Smokey Robinson recalls how Gaye partially blamed himself for the death of his favorite duet partner, Tammi Terrell, who collapsed onstage with a brain tumor and died at 24. Mr. Ritz provides a brilliant analysis of how Gaye's experiments in vocal multitracking represented an attempt to harmonize the warring voices of spirit and flesh in his soul. Many ladies of Motown, including Ms. Wilson and Kim Weston, remember the young Gaye's incomparable magnetism – and his deep insecurity. (In a welcome comic touch, everyone agrees that the absurdly talented Gaye couldn't dance a lick.)
All that's really missing from What's Going On is a look at Gaye's impact on the R&B of today. Would there be an R. Kelly, another prodigious and troubled talent split between the pulpit and the street, without Gaye? How about the rapper Common, whose dapper street style, down to the ubiquitous knit cap, springs directly from What's Going On -era Gaye?
Maybe in another film. After all, Gaye's story is too big, and too sad, for any individual portrait. He needs his own gallery.
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