Amazing Grace
— If you’re a fan of Aretha or of gospel, this documentary’s for you. If you’re in one of those groups, you probably already know the film documents the recording of Aretha Franklin’s 1972 live album at a Baptist church in Watts, and was meant to be released with the album of the same name—still the top-selling traditional gospel LP in history. Warner Brothers had hired Sydney Pollack to document the event, but Pollack didn’t use clapper boards at the beginning of each take, making it impossible to sync sound with the 20 hours of footage, so the album came out and the footage remained on a shelf. After Pollack’s death in 2008, Alan Elliott managed to digitally sync the footage and planned to release it in 2011 until Aretha herself filed a suit against its release. No one knows why Aretha objected, but she did and it’s only now that the footage of Aretha, at the top of her game, can be seen. It’s an unbelievable chance to see an iconic singer who deserved to be known as the “queen of soul.” (Shown at True/False Film Fest 2019.)
[2018. 87 min. Directed by Alan Elliott and Sydney Pollack. With Aretha Franklin, Reverend James Cleveland, C.L. Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and the Southern California Community Choir.]
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/nov/13/amazing-grace-review-aretha-franklin-documentary
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