Film

Although Perry has appeared in literally miles of film footage over the years, almost all of it tends to capture only one dimension of his life and genius. Thankfully, filmmakers Ethan Higbee and Adam Bhala Lough, who obviously had a lot of fun paying tribute to Perry’s self-constructed “Upsetter” persona, manage to transcend the myth with a compelling visual portrait of a deep thinker and serious artist.

Born in 1936, Perry’s contributions to the world of music and art are truly legendary. From helping Bob Marley to “discover his voice” (and producing what many feel are Marley’s best performances) to almost single-handedly creating the remix form known as the dub style (with partner-incrime Osbourne “King Tubby” Ruddock), his resumé reads like a sacred scroll of reggae history. The Upsetter traces Perry’s life from his early days as a child in rural Jamaica through to the here and now, making the point that for all his past achievements,this is a story that’s still unfolding.

The man they call Scratch—a nickname he picked up after cutting his first single, “Chicken Scratch,” in 1961—has made a career out of confounding journalists with a defiant approach that rivals Bob Dylan’s interviews from the mid-’60s, back when Dylan regularly raised press conferences to the level of performance art. Until now, most of Perry’s interviews—or “outerviews,” as he prefers to call them—have consisted of little more than stream of consciousness rants. By retreating into surrealistic sermons and metaphors, the truth and depth of what he says to the press often gets obscured by an endless stream of absurd verbal riffs, but remarkably, Higbee and Lough somehow get Scratch to relax and drop out of character, creating a portrait that illuminates him in a way never before captured on film.

The Upsetter is a brilliant study in contrasts. Clearly, the juxtaposition between images and words is one that Scratch revels in, and that the directors worked hard to portray. And he clearly loves being in front of the camera—it’s hard to imagine any other septuagenarian choosing to sit for an interview dressed in full Plains Indian regalia against a backlit orange wall covered with graffiti. While cutting out photographs and composing collages, he discusses his life in a voice that is tender and sincere.

Perry even sounds wistful and sad as he recalls his early years spent in West Jamaica’s Hanover Parish. Speaking in hushed tones, he describes how he was left alone to live with his father after his mother fled in the middle of the night with all her other children. After his father remarried, Perry felt like “a slave” and tried unsuccessfully to hook up with his mother again. From there, he found a job driving a tractor—a career path that was sidetracked when the rocks he was digging up began talking to him and revealing their musical secrets. Shortly after that revelation, he left for Kingston to pursue his musical destiny.

Higbee and Lough’s film gets really interesting when Perry traces his relationship with Bob Marley through to the creation and destruction of his own Black Ark home studio. During these years, Scratch often produced and released up to 20 singles a week, and by the mid-’80s, the pace had exacted such a toll on him that he finally torched the studio in a drug-addled rage. Believing the compound to be possessed by demons, he moved to Europe, where he remarried and settled in Zurich.

Fans of Perry’s wild antics needn’t despair that he cleaned up his act to appear in The Upsetter. Several beautifully photographed archival sequences of his legendary impromptu performances show an artist at the mercy of his creative muse—a tiny man whose constant movement has burned every ounce of fat from his body. Composed completely of muscle and sinew, he nearly wears out the camera as it struggles to keep up with his frenzied kinetic movements. It’s almost exhausting to watch Scratch at full throttle he possesses so much energy and creativity that every time he opens his mouth, it’s like someone pulled the lid off a barrel of wailing magpies.

Chock full of period footage ranging from 1950s Kingston dances to Nyabinghi reasoning sessions with the Congos (singers Cedric Myton and Roydel Johnson, whose groundbreaking album Heart Of The Congos is considered the crown jewel in Perry’s discography), The Upsetter is a wonderful tribute to one man’s contribution to music—and for once, Scratch lets down his guard long enough to reveal the brilliant artist behind the madcap image. In the words of Carl Bradshaw, the Jamaican actor whose invocation opens the film: “Let me introduce you to a genius. His music is crucial. Crucial!”