Amazing Grace

What struck me about the 2018 documentary AMAZING GRACE was Aretha Franklin's expressions.  Yes, her heavenly voice, too.  How could it not?   But the lady looks preoccupied.  Concerned, even.  She stands at the lectern of the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in the Watts section of Los Angeles and sings the hymns that lead to a best selling record album.  The highest selling live gospel album ever.  Warner Brothers knew this would also make a rousing documentary.  It wasn't to be, at least when it was recorded back in 1972.  Did Aretha's curious face reveal a foreknowledge?

Maybe you heard that director Sydney Pollack (onscreen a few times, cuing the crowd) for some reason did not utilize clapperboards to help synchronize visuals and sound.  This resulted in un-fixable "lip flap".  Efforts to salvage the film were fruitless, and it was shelved.  Pollack spent his entire life attempting to revive the project while the footage sat in a vault.  In 2007, producer Alan Elliott, using technology that of course did not exist decades earlier, managed to get a workable hour and a half.  A few rounds of litigation from Ms. Franklin prevented its release until after her death.

The hymns are performed in what might be described as a slow boil.  A gradual crescendo during which that unmistakable voice thunders out praise to her Lord.  As many have described, AMAZING GRACE has moments as powerful as cinema can allow.  I tend to get chills when musicians get all inspired, and that certainly happens here.  In moments.  Often though, Aretha sports the visage of a Boss.  She appears firmly in control of everything happening in that church.  Everything.  She rarely smiles and appears more like a foreman watching underlings carry out their duties.

They are no slouches.  Consider the Reverend James Cleveland, frequently sitting at the piano.  Alexander Hamilton, directing the choir, some of whom can't help but leave the loft and raise Hossanahs.  There are also session men extraordinaire Chuck Rainey (bass) and Bernard Purdie (drums), both of whom would work with Steely Dan later in the decade.  Even Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts appear, in the congregation, on the second night of recording.

I'm grateful that this historic document was rescued and restored.  The remaining technical difficulties (somewhat spotty 16mm camerawork and so so editing) do not diminish the glory of Aretha and her singing, or the hymns she sings.  But I was expecting to be blown away, like I was during the great gospel doc SAY AMEN, SOMEBODY.  It didn't happen, at least much of the time.  Maybe it can be traced to whatever was distracting Ms. Franklin.  Was it Mr. Pollock?