Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace

classified U
Film

Please note: This was screened in Dec 2019

Director
Alan Elliott, Sydney Pollack
Cast
Aretha Franklin, James Cleveland, Southern California Community Choir
Details
86 mins, 2018, USA
Primary language
English

We’re screening some of 2019’s biggest hits - (re)discover The Favourite, Bait, Amazing Grace, Pain & Glory and If Beale Street Could Talk.

Almost 50 years after technical issues scuppered its original release, Sydney Pollack’s concert film about Aretha Franklin’s legendary gospel album Amazing Grace finally makes it to the big screen, and is already being hailed as one of the finest music documentaries ever made.

Shot over two nights in January 1972 at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, the film shows a then 30-year-old Franklin return to her gospel roots. The resulting album, Amazing Grace, sold more than 2m copies in the US and remains the highest selling live gospel album of all time, as well as one of Franklin’s bestselling albums.

This extraordinary document of a truly remarkable figure in American music lets you witness Aretha Franklin as you've never seen her before. Nothing short of a revelation, soaring from one chill-inducing moment to another, this soul shaking, transcendent film captures the energy of Aretha’s performance in a way that is nothing short of electrifying.

View the British Board of Film Certification’s Ratings info for this film.


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