Alan Greenberg

  • Alan Greenberg – Land of Look Behind [+commentary] (1982)

    1981-1990Alan GreenbergArthouseDocumentaryUSA

    Quote:
    There has never been a documentary like “Land of Look Behind”. Relatively unknown due to poor distribution and New York Film Festival skullduggery, this breathtaking film presents a unique epic vision with quasi-dramatic elements and cinematographic wizardry. The non-reggae original soundtrack is outstanding, as is the reggae music of Bob Marley and Gregory Isaacs. The great documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog has called “Look Behind” the non-fiction film that has influenced him most over the last fifteen years. Indeed, this film’s peers are the best of Herzog, Bunuel’s “Land Without Bread”, Flaherty’s “Nanook” and Leacock-Pennebaker’s “Louisiana Story”. With thoughtful viewing, one will see this moving documentary actually end with a lovely little dream sequence. No American has come close to making a film this ingenious in the last thirty yearsRead More »

  • Alan Greenberg – Land of Look Behind (1982)

    1981-1990Alan GreenbergArthouseCaribbean CinemaDocumentaryUSA

    Synopsis:
    In this documentary on the Rastafarians in Jamaica (homeland of the Rastafari par excellence — the late Bob Marley), director Alan Greenberg interviews some Jamaicans whose conversations suggest that the smoking of ganja, the worship of Haile Selassie (the former Ethiopian emperor) as a god, and the goal of Jamaican self-realization is their own kind of unified field theory. A young, poverty-stricken teenager listens to the reggae music on his radio as though it will magically lead him to a better future, and a pineapple cutter living in the “baddest” area of the island dreams of fomenting tourism in his exotic surroundings. The May, 1981 funeral of Marley himself brought Christian and Rastafarian beliefs together in tribute to the island’s hero, providing one of the most poignant vignettes in the Land of Look Behind.Read More »

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