April 10, 2019
Page 7
‘Amazing Grace,’ a Fitting Tribute
O pINIONAted
J udge
by
d arleen o rtega
My annual trip to attend the Full Frame
Documentary Film Festival in Durham,
North Carolina, always yields a crop of
films that would be hard to find any other
way. I saw 16 feature-length films over the
four-day festival; I’ll cover eight here and
the rest next week.
As it happens, one of the best films I saw
opens at Cinema 21 in Portland on Thurs-
day, April 11--a long-delayed Aretha Frank-
lin concert film called “Amazing Grace.”
In early 1972, 29-year-old Franklin, at the
height of her career, recorded a gospel al-
bum at the New Temple Missionary Baptist
Church in the Watts neighborhood of Los
Angeles. The album is not only one of the
most popular gospel records of all time, but
is Franklin’s bestselling album. Sydney Pol-
lack was on hand to film the event over two
nights, but the film portion of the project
was shelved because the sound and images
were not in sync, and the film was only fin-
ished after Pollack’s death. Its release was
delayed by the wish of Franklin herself, al-
though her family readily consented to its
release after her death last year.
The film’s release all these years later
feels, if anything, more impactful; we have
the opportunity to watch the young queen
of soul singing black gospel music in ex-
actly the setting and with the exact com-
munity where such music is meant to be
played, and the film conveys something of
the music’s genuine meaning for her. She
is accompanied, thrillingly, by gospel leg-
end Rev. James Cleveland and the Southern
California Community Choir, and watching
them thrill and respond to Jackson’s glori-
ous singing is itself transporting. The film
feels so intimate, capturing the sweat of
Franklin, Cleveland, and the other singers
and the spontaneous emotional response
of members of the choir and congregation,
which includes Mick Jagger and Franklin’s
minister father. Franklin is particularly fas-
cinating to watch; she expends vast quanti-
ties of energy, mostly with only a very slight
smile, and, indeed, seems to contain an oth-
erworldly combination of fire and stillness.
The film recently premiered at this same
church, with some of the choir members and
the choir director in attendance. That feels
only fitting; we are invited in to what was
for them an epic experience of worship.
What a gift!
Full Frame this year featured a range of
truly wonderful biographical documenta-
ries, each taking a uniquely effective ap-
photo Courtesy a Mazing g raCe llC
Aretha Franklin’s long-delayed concert film “Amazing Grace” captures the late
Queen of Soul recording a gospel album at the New Temple Missionary Baptist
Church in Los Angeles.
proach to its subject. My favorite was “Toni
Morrison: The Pieces I Am,” which exam-
ines the cultural and literary legacy of the
great Nobel Prize-winning author. The film
capitalizes on the fact that Morrison, now in
her 80s, is herself a great interview subject;
in an extended interview for the film and
also in clips from many past interviews, she
dazzles with her perspective on her work,
on black experience, on the publishing
world--well, on pretty much anything. The
film also makes excellent use of interviews
of others (such as Angela Davis and Oprah
Winfrey) with whom Morrison shares im-
portant intersections--people who were in-
fluenced and inspired by her writing, her
contemporaries, her longtime editor. Their
cumulative impact helps us to better appre-
ciate the remarkable clarity and resilience
it took to produce such a brilliant body of
C ontinued on p age 11