Amazing Grace — once was lost
Aretha Franklin Masterpiece Now Is Found.
Amazing Grace, starring the Queen Aretha Franklin, was filmed live in 1972 at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts, Los Angeles. It just might be the greatest music documentary ever made. The recording was released in 1972 and became the largest-selling gospel album of all time. Twenty hours of film were shot over a two day period filmed by five 16mm cameras. The documentary film directed by Oscar winner Sydney Pollack was considered “lost” and never released until now, about a year after Aretha Franklin’s passing.
The reason the film was never completed or “lost” was because Pollack was inexperienced with shooting live music and did not synchronize the sound. All sorts of technical experts of that era tried in vain to fix it. Pollack never gave up, and after dying of cancer in 2007, he handed the project over to music enthusiast Alan Elliott. It took the heroic efforts of Elliott to untangle legal rights and correct the technical errors and the film Amazing Grace was brought back to life as if you were sitting in church with Aretha and the magnificent choir. You can see Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts in the back of the church rocking out to pure gospel. The Rolling Stones were about to record “Exile on Main Street” their most gospel influenced album.
The early reviews from film festivals this year are stunning. The film was magic, pure musical magic and it captured her glory and brilliance. It is raw, simple and an amazingly profound experience. Her voice is so powerful and soulful it was as if they captured lightening in a bottle. Rest easy Sydney Pollack, it is a masterpiece. The original footage has been restored and the audio remastered into a feature-length documentary opening April 5th. Even with the grainy film and jerky cameras this may be the best music documentary of all time.
