Near the end of Amazing Grace, the long-unseen documentary of the 1972 live recordings that Aretha Franklin made over the course of two nights at Los Angeles’ New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, her father, the Reverend C.L. Franklin, approaches the pulpit. Part of his sermon appears on the double LP of those performances, but it is captured here in its full glory by the legendary filmmaker Sydney Pollack. Franklin describes his daughter’s gift as “that intangible something that she has that’s hard to describe. It took me all the way back to the living room at home when she was six and seven years of age. I saw you crying and I saw you responding, but I was ‘bout to bust wide open.”
That particular feeling, of being in the presence of both the ineffable and the irrepressible, is one way to describe the majesty of Amazing Grace. Forty-six years later, the album still stands as the best-selling live gospel LP of all time and the pinnacle in Aretha’s formidable run of Atlantic LPs, capping a run that spans from 1967’s I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You through 1972’s Young, Gifted And Black. Which makes the unseen documentation of this momentous occasion all the more agonizing. “NOTHING has tortured my soul more than knowing one of the GREATEST recorded moments in gospel history was just gonna sit on the shelf and collect dust,” Questlove wrote in a lengthy Instagram post a few years back, regarding the anguished fate of Amazing Grace.
It’s not quite clear just why Franklin objected to the film’s release, as she loved the performances and the music. In one story, it’s rumored that the singer saw the footage near the end of her life and “she knew it amounted to a eulogy.” There were a slew of setbacks, like Pollack forgetting to use a clapper board—meaning 20 hours of footage to sync to audio, which the director soon abandoned in order to focus on films like The Way We Were. Warner Brothers shelved the project in 1972 and after years of persuasion, producer Alan Elliott bought the reels from them in 2007. But even after the footage was synced, Franklin legally blocked festival screenings in 2015 and 2016. Only with her recent passing did the family finally give the film its blessing, with wider release expected early next year. At that point, Amazing Grace will rightfully take its place as one of recorded music’s greatest documentaries. After seeing the film’s premiere at the DOC NYC festival on Monday, here are a few takeaways of note.
Pollack was known more for big Hollywood dramas than documentaries, so there’s a certain coarseness to the film, which perhaps made it too uneven for television broadcast (its original intention, as stated in the film). It’s not warts and all, so much as sweat beads and unbridled enthusiasm from Franklin and the congregation. Angles are slightly awkward, there’s plenty of footage of camera people in shots, and the cameras take forever to focus on parishioners. There’s not much to be seen in terms of rehearsal footage or behind-the-scenes intimacy; it’s just all right there in that room and it needs little else. One long zoom brings us to the sight of Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts tucked into a corner of the church, zealously clapping along and knowing they are part of history.
In the mind’s ear, the double album casts the immaculate aura of a gleaming cathedral, but the film reveals a more humble setting for the concert. The New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, located in the post-riot Watts neighborhood of L.A., probably doesn’t hold more than 200 people. The ceilings are low and the white walls behind the pulpit are mostly bare, with plain drapes covering a window and a painting of Jesus with John the Baptist wading waist-deep in the Jordan River. Such modesty only amplifies the majesty on full display.
Though it appears near the end of the album’s second disc, Franklin’s first night performance of Marvin Gaye’s “Wholy Holy” opens the film. Released less than eight months earlier on What’s Going On, the gorgeous ballad had yet to ascend to the gospel lexicon when Aretha and the Southern California Community Choir turned it into a vintage hymnal. That heart-buoying feeling is immediately felt on film, with Aretha seated at the Steinway, her blue-shadowed eyes shut and fluttering throughout the song. She instantly taps into the vibrant spirit coursing just beneath the pop number’s surface.
Elsewhere, the Reverend James Cleveland says the line separating secular pop and gospel is fine indeed, noting that “it depends on who you sing it to.” This leads into an ecstatically funky blend of “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” and Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend,” further proof of Franklin’s brilliance in blurring that line and finding the transcendence in that space.
Outside of a fine shot of her strolling through the church in a floor-length fur coat, Aretha is decidedly more modest in her attire and demeanor. While in her later years she became synonymous with that word in the pop culture lexicon, there’s nothing in the film that screams diva. The white gown she wears the first night is spectacular, but even that takes on a sort of heavenly humility: Having worked herself into a lather, Franklin’s brow full of sweat reflects off the dress and gives her an iridescence on-screen.
Franklin and choir’s show-stopping renditions of “Amazing Grace” and “Never Grow Old” are legendary on the original album, and the film amplifies these moments to powerful effect. In these two performances alone, one can feel the essence of gospel music and its unbridled capacity to move. With Franklin at the piano for “Never Grow Old,” the performance becomes so moving that one parishioner is overtaken by the emotion and staggers towards the stage. Another gospel legend in the room, Aretha mentor Clara Ward, has to quickly move to the woman and tend to her mid-performance.
Such spirit also powers “Amazing Grace.” Talking before the number, Rev. Cleveland notes that even in rehearsal there were tears overflowing. Aretha’s voice hits so many resonant highs that choir members, seated throughout much of the concert, spontaneously stand and testify with Sister Franklin. And Rev. Cleveland is so overcome by the moment, he has to abandon his post at the piano so he can cover his face and weep. When he recovers, there’s a close-up of his hand at Franklin’s back. For a moment, her hand clutches his, each supporting the other. It’s a sight that, like the most soul-stirring gospel songs, imparts the strength to carry on.
