A homecoming for ‘Amazing Grace’

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This image released by Neon shows Aretha Franklin in a scene from the film, ‘Amazing Grace’. (AP)

Franklin docu has gala premiere

Not many, if any, of the great music documentaries or concert films have ever screened in the exact location where they were shot: “Woodstock” did not show at Woodstock, and “Wattstax” did not premiere at the LA Coliseum, needless to say. But Sunday night, “Amazing Grace” had its official southern California premiere right where the recording of Aretha Franklin’s live gospel album and belated movie accompaniment went down in 1972: the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in South Los Angeles.

Although the word may not exactly fit with the African-American Christian tradition, the word “hub” was used a lot Sunday, in connection with intentions to turn the church and its surrounding area into a site that will be recognized by the city of LA as a civic monument to Franklin.

On top of all that, said LA County supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, “We’re going to put in an application to have the Southern California Community Choir [which accompanies Franklin on record and film] designated on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with their own star. We’re gonna do the historical designation and then we’re gonna do the walk of fame. She deserves that, doesn’t she? Doesn’t this choir deserve this? Doesn’t gospel music deserve it?”

Many of the original choir members were on hand for the premiere, including choir director Alexander Hamilton and standout soloist Mary Hall, who helped organize the screening. They gave an impromptu gospel performance of their own just off the red carpet in the blazing LA sun before the screening, while inside, the contemporary version of the Southern California Choir ran through two spirited numbers before the screening. Because the screen that was set up to show the film blocked the area where the choir sat in the filming, the choir members mostly sat amid the audience, creating a surround-sound effect better than anything available via THX.

Distinguish

Once the movie started, it wasn’t always easy to distinguish between the whoops and audience sing-alongs on screen and what was happening with the 2019 crowd. It didn’t hurt that the church building, formerly a neighborhood movie house, is virtually unchanged from how it was captured on screen in early 1972, except for the addition of eight earthquake-proofing pillars in the sanctuary and a changeover from the original theater seats to pews. When Lady Soul walks down the aisle on two occasions (one for each night of recording/filming), attendees turned around to imagine her there.

A shot that the original director, Sydney Pollack, took through the projection room window prompted crowd members to turn around and see if that window was still there. It was, although, with a movie showing in the former Mayfair Theatre for most likely the first time since it was converted to a church in 1958, that projection room went unused and a digital projector was set up amid the rear pews.

For producer Alan Elliott, who bought the uncompleted film reels from Warner Bros. and shepherded the project for more than a decade, and two producers who came on to the movie later, Sabrina Owens, Franklin’s niece and estate executor, and Tirrell Whittley, it was a homecoming to a home they had only previously seen through hundreds or (in Elliott’s case) thousands and thousands of hours of looking at the ‘72 footage.

“We could have gone to the ArcLight, easily,” for the premiere, Whittley said. “We could have even gone to (the theater in) Baldwin Hills tonight. But the decision, mostly made by this man here (Elliott), was, ‘Nope, we’re going to the church where Aretha recorded this movie.’”

For many of a certain age and spiritual inclination in the African-American community, the album “Amazing Grace” – said to be the biggest selling black gospel album of all time, and Franklin’s highest seller to this day – was so important, it was as important to them as “Rumours”, “Frampton Comes Alive” or even “Thriller” eventually were to anyone else. And that was decades before anyone ever realized there was an unseen film attached.

Ridley-Thomas grew more solemn when Variety asked about the death a few short miles away of hip-hop’s Nipsey Hussle, after a shooting less than two hours before that most of the visiting celebrants were not yet aware of. “I’m doing my best” to keep apprised of the situation, he said. “We send our condolences to any of those who came to know him and respect him and were a part of the trajectory of his life. There was an increasingly more positive perspective on the millennial generation that we saw through him.”

Hall, who very much deserves costar status on the movie, alluded to the many forms of pain that inform the joyful noise heard in both its 1972 and 2019 forms inside the sanctuary. “Forty-six years ago,” she said, “when Aretha said, ‘I’ve come through many dangers, toils and snares,’ I had not come through any. I was 22 years old, not knowing nothing, a young lady starstruck – first singing with the King of Gospel (James Cleveland), and then to be with Aretha Franklin at 22 was an awesome experience. But 46 years later, I can truly say that through many dangerous toils and snares, nothing but a God and his amazing grace has gotten us to this point.” She then thanked her current pastor for giving her the weekend off to organize the screening and performance and assured him she’d be back at her post next Sunday. (RTRS)

By Chris Willman

This news has been read 9889 times!

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