Gabo: The Creation of Gabriel Garcia Márquez

A serviceable documentary profile of revered writer Gabriel Garcia Márquez, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, filmmaker Justin Webster's Gabo is notable for interviewing cohorts of Márquez in the South American literary firmament—Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Xavi Ayén—rather than guest Anglo academicians and various celebs. One startling exception: President Bill Clinton, an ardent admirer of Márquez's writings, who says that the author's works affected Clinton's own views on South America. Growing up in a small town in Colombia, Márquez was raised mostly by grandparents, who imbued him with a different vision of life that would nurture his "magical realist" prose style. The young “Gabo” initially worked as a newspaper reporter, and he would repeatedly return to his journalism roots, even as his novels (including One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera) earned classic status. Late in life Márquez would use his talent to condemn the rise of narcotics and gangsterism in Colombia. Despite the Clinton interview, Gabo does not dwell on the State Department's infamous banning of Márquez from entering the U.S. because of his political views. His high-profile friendship with dictator Fidel Castro is described here as a complex love-hate alliance that Márquez often used to help free prisoners from Cuban jails. The great author's script contributions and adaptations for movies and TV are minimized here, although they might have lent more visual interest to a presentation that heavily relies on talking heads and archival footage. Still, given Márquez's superstar status in world literature, this made-for-libraries biographical portrait of the author is recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)