Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall

The documentary takes a narrow slice of Michael Jackson's life: the years from being the child star of the Jackson 5 to releasing Off the Wall in 1979 and becoming an artist on his own terms. The question at its centre is how the Motown machine, childhood fame and the narrow category assigned to Black musicians were broken. Spike Lee directed. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2016 and went out on Showtime on 5 February. The list of people talking carries the film: Quincy Jones, Berry Gordy, Marlon Jackson, Jackie Jackson, Katherine Jackson, Joe Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Pharrell Williams, John Legend, Rosie Perez and Kobe Bryant. The real material is archive. Performance footage, rehearsals and television from the Jackson 5 years through to the Off the Wall period make up most of it. Who it is for: anyone interested in Jackson as a musician and in the American pop industry of the seventies. Who it is not for: viewers expecting the contested parts of his life. The film stops in 1979 and never goes past it.