Amaz­ing Grace

This seems as good a time as any to explain why we use a clap­per board when it comes to mak­ing movies. It’s usu­al­ly a case of some young goon in shades and a Grate­ful Dead tee announc­ing the reel and the take, then snap­ping clap­per­board before dash­ing from the frame. This helps the edi­tor not only to iden­ti­fy the footage, but to per­fect­ly synch up the sound track, which is record­ed with sep­a­rate kit. If you don’t hap­pen to own a clap­per board, one of the actors can just announce the take and clap before the scene takes place. Mansplain over.

In 1972 direc­tor Syd­ney Pol­lack was com­mis­sioned by Warn­er Bros to chron­i­cle the record­ing of a live gospel album by Aretha Franklin at the New Tem­ple Mis­sion­ary Bap­tist Church – a mod­est, care­worn palace of wor­ship in Los Ange­les. He and his team cap­tured the images – and what images they were. He cap­tured the sound too – some of the most heav­en­ly to ever emanate from a human voice box. But in the mêlée of pro­duc­tion he neglect­ed to employ a clap­per board, and so image and sound were sep­a­rat­ed, to the point that it was deemed too much of a bureau­crat­ic faff to com­plete edit­ing of the film.

Franklin’s album came out and is deemed one of – if not the – great gospel disk of the mod­ern era. The footage, mean­while, was sent into a vault for some 38 years before Pol­lack died and it was ced­ed to pro­duc­er Alan Elliott who decid­ed to have a tin­ker. He assem­bled a cut ready for release in 2015, yet var­i­ous lit­i­ga­tions and Franklin’s own ambiva­lence kept the com­plet­ed film from pub­lic eyes for anoth­er three years.

There is some­thing vague­ly seedy about the fact that, fol­low­ing Franklin’s death in August 2018, the green light for a vale­dic­to­ry release was instant­ly flashed, per­haps going against her admit­ted­ly obscure wish­es. But when the final prod­uct stands with its shoul­ders in the clouds with­in the pan­theon of sub­lime con­cert films, it’s tough to be too irked about any bureau­crat­ic wheel­er deal­ing that went on in the background.

The vibe, sur­pris­ing­ly, is rather relaxed, as suit­ed-and-boot­ed parish­ioners par­tial­ly fill up the creaky wood­en the­atre seats and treat the record­ing as if it were a reg­u­lar Sun­day ser­vice. There’s the feel­ing that the audi­ence are wise to the euphor­ic work­out in which they’re about to par­take. Rev­erend James Cleve­land is emcee for the two nights, an out­spo­ken and gre­gar­i­ous gen­tle­man who is a child­hood friend of the star, and also accom­pa­nies on piano while sweat­ing profusely.

Aretha bare­ly utters a word between tracks. She daw­dles about, look­ing into the mid­dle dis­tance like she’s wait­ing for a bus. It’s mys­te­ri­ous as to whether she’s assum­ing a Zen-like repose and con­cen­trat­ing on the mat­ter at hand, or is just rat­tling off this per­for­mance like it’s no big thing. Either way, the results are immense.

Ear­ly high­lights include the soul-tinged foot stom­per ​‘How I Got Over’, and a decon­struct­ed ver­sion of ​‘Amaz­ing Grace’ that’s deliv­ered as if she were in an emp­ty room and com­muning direct­ing with Jesus Christ him­self. Choke back the tears if you can. And this is only the half way point, as we return again the next day for a set that comes off like more of a con­ven­tion­al show, which includes a short ser­mon deliv­ered by her father, CL Franklin, and more wind­ing, inter­pre­tive takes on the gospel stan­dards. Mick Jag­ger and Char­lie Watts can be seen loi­ter­ing in the back row, and as the set charges on, Mick sneaks clos­er and clos­er to the front row. Pol­lack, mean­while, can be seen dash­ing around with a cam­era, cor­ralling his team to make sure it’s all on tape and some­how able to remain emo­tion­al­ly neu­tral with­in the earshot of these extra­or­di­nary sounds.

And it gets to the point where there’s lit­tle more to say about this film. That is in no way intend­ed as a crit­i­cism – more that words do not have the descrip­tive capac­i­ty to amply com­mu­ni­cate the feel­ing of watch­ing Aretha Franklin sing gospel. Like a spir­i­tu­al rever­ie, it’s per­son­al and mys­te­ri­ous, inde­scrib­able and unbe­liev­able, but hor­ren­dous­ly mov­ing and rat­tles the very core of your soul. Not mere­ly one of the great con­cert films, but one of the great documentaries.