Aretha Franklin’s ‘Amazing Grace’ film in theaters
NEW YORK — Three years ago, Alan Elliott was at the Telluride Film Festival, prepared to unveil the holy grail of musical works: A documentary on the making of Aretha Franklin’s “Amazing Grace,” which had been lost to the archives until Elliott spent decades restoring it so it could finally be seen.
But then, through lawyers, he got word that the Queen of Soul herself was trying to prevent the film from being shown. Elliott’s business partner, Tirrell Whittley, recalls the moment as “deflating.”
“It was disappointing. … You try to figure out what is it that happened,” Whittley said.
But as determined as Elliott and Whittley were to get the documentary to the world, they decided not to fight Franklin.
“It would just be wrong and the wrong spirit,” Whittley said, adding later: “In talking to Alan, it was really around patience and saying, ‘You know what? God may not have meant it right now. And that’s OK. Let’s just be patient. When God says it’s the right time it will be the right time, not just for us but for her, for her family, for her legacy.’”
That time has arrived, three months after Franklin’s death from pancreatic cancer, with the blessing of her family. And while there are parts of “Amazing Grace” that are rough, from a few off-kilter camera angles to choppy editing, it’s a profound, brilliant display of one of the world’s greatest singers performing in her element — the church.
“It’s the most important document of American popular music ever filmed,” said Elliott. “It’s completely unique to any other experience that I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of them.”
The album “Amazing Grace” is one of the seminal albums in not only Franklin’s discography, but the canon of American pop music. Franklin, then 29 and at the height of her fame, recorded the album in a Los Angeles church in 1972, with a full choir and an audience that included Mick Jagger, over two nights.