Amazing Grace is a documentary distilled from rehearsal and two days of recording of the legend Aretha Franklin’s best selling, live gospel album with the same title at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, California in 1972. This documentary was supposed to be a double feature with Superfly, but the director, another legend, the dearly departed Sydney Pollack, didn’t know what he was doing, and if the world was a fair place, had no business getting the job in the first place. He gave the footage to producer, Alan Elliott, who fixed Pollack’s technical screwups (nothing can be done about the directing screw ups), but by that time, Franklin successfully sued Elliott two times for reasons that are unknown to me to prevent him from releasing the film. After the Queen of Soul’s death, he was able to strike a deal with the family so we could finally see this film almost half a century later, and it was first seen three months after her death. Always make a will, people.

If you love Aretha Franklin, regularly attend a Black church or genuinely love gospel music, read no further, go to the theater and see Amazing Grace. This isn’t going to be a review of the movie, but reflections stimulated by watching this movie. I probably should be the last person reviewing this film, and if you hate me after reading this, I accept your condemnation and plead ignorance, but if you want to answer some of my questions, please feel free to comment and enlighten me.

I was more comfortable watching Hail Satan? than Amazing Grace. I am a follower of the Triune God from the Bible and cosign the Apostle’s Creed. I love Aretha Franklin, but while I own her music, I would not say that I am a devout follower and would be shocked if I had a complete album or CD. She is a fabulous, excellent black woman so I’m here for all of it, and she is the only reason that I saw this film. I am black, but while I’ve attended black churches and felt welcomed there, I never joined one so whatever I write or feel is from a position of a welcomed guest and fellow worshipper, but not an expert. I’m ignorant of the true cultural context of this film though I am familiar with the spiritual context, which is why I know that Pollack had no business making this film because I would have no business making this film. It needed to be filmed by one of two types of people: a filmmaker not born in that worship tradition but became a part of it so he or she would know how to translate that experience on to film or a filmmaker deeply intimate with that worship tradition paying homage to a beloved experience.

Pollack was a tourist. While I welcome anyone to church, I don’t welcome anyone to come to church for any reason. I hate tourists, and I think that I hate a lot of my fellow viewers who come to see Amazing Grace as tourists. I do not consider this film a concert film because the film is as preoccupied with the church out of an anthropological curiosity instead of just the performance. I’m not saying that it isn’t fair. As a time capsule, I was captivated by the colorful clothes (Franklin wears a Pucci ensemble with a red blazer that I want now) and the elaborate or natural hairstyles, but I got big mad at two points in the movie. Pollock wildly gestures for the cameras to record Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts visiting. The fuck do I care that the Rolling Stone colonizers are there to get some material. I’m here for Jesus and Aretha in that order, not them. Aretha does not need them to validate her excellence. Then when worshippers get slain in the spirit, neither Pollack nor my fellow viewers had a fucking clue what was happening. Pollack gestures wildly but fails to capture it properly (in this film, he never saw a shot that couldn’t get obscured or shot poorly), and the other viewers laughed. It isn’t a joke, and they aren’t doing it for your amusement! They are worshipping, not part of the consumption process.  No one gets it! If you are going to see this film, do yourself a favor. If possible, see it at a theater located in a predominantly black neighborhood or go with a bunch of Christians who understand what slain in the Spirit means otherwise your head will be filed with thoughts of what Jesus wouldn’t do though He did flip a table and throw things, but not over someone laughing at Him. I feel as if this moment is a microcosm of the chasm between mainstream culture consuming and processing something out of their comfort zone, and it can never be breached. Don’t Stop Believing can be ours, but you’ll never get this.

Which brings me to my problem of music at church. I actually know the worship director, Matt Henderson, at my church and love all the singers, especially Katie Jones, so hopefully these comments are a relief to them if they noticed me heading out. It is me, not you. I regularly go to church, but I’ll come late and leave early to avoid the music portion of any church service. That isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy it per se. I can. I have. I do, but I realized that it often makes me uncomfortable. Amazing Grace is consciously a syncretistic product. It is the sacred being captured for the commercial, for consumption, and a part of me is always going to be uncomfortable with that and at worst, find it blasphemous.

I’m not judging the sincerity of the faith of Aretha Franklin or anyone else participating in exuberant worship at church, but as someone who rarely feels inspired to worship similarly, if I’m not feeling it, then I have the following options (as a kid, I was just a hostage): consume the spectacle as if it is a performance (and you know how I feel about being a tourist as opposed to being a participant); fake it; participate in a half-hearted lackluster fashion and resent it or do nothing and risk standing out. Music had the opposite effect in my relationship with God. It often made me feel distant and made me compare myself to others, and I was always lacking. It also made me question their sincerity. How much was ego and the satisfaction derived from performing and how much was genuine worship of God?  I don’t think that these are healthy thoughts to have when you’re supposed to be lost in love with God so I pull a Joseph and run. Amazing Grace sparked those thoughts in me. I think that the problem with watching this film as a Christian is that the behavior it inspires-wanting to join in by singing, clapping or whatever, is not appropriate for the space of a movie theater where you are expected to be silent or minimize the noise that you produce so you’re left with appreciation or your thoughts. There were times that I really wanted to dig in and enjoy myself, but it is not an option.

Amazing Grace captures something quite standard and ordinary, a worship service, because someone extraordinary is doing it so it made me question the custom itself. I want to be clear that I understand that Aretha is clearly in charge and has full agency. She is the boss, but I found myself resenting all the men talking around her even though they were not doing anything uncustomary or wrong (although there is one oddly shot scene when Rev Cleveland is holding her hand in an awkward position behind her back that looked uncomfortable to me). These men are her friends, colleagues and family. Except for rehearsal, she never talks. She only sings. Yes she is the film, and the singing dominates, but why were these distractions, some sermons and some stories, permitted since they obviously could never come close to her abilities? I found myself thinking about how people misinterpret Paul’s view of women in speaking in the Church. Is the root of this practice determined by a misogynistic demonic reading (at worst) or misinterpretation (at best) of Paul’s words? Is that the only way that some women can minister, by singing? And is this a case of men doing what they can to get some shine and make it about them when it isn’t? Can she not just be great with the choir? They are extraneous. And this is coming from the woman who mainly comes to church for the sermon and the fellowship! (Disclaimer: my thoughts aren’t directed at these specific men, but in general at the practice.)

Amazing Grace is like all effective and powerful work. It stirs emotions and provokes strong reactions. Those responses are not always positive, which is not a reflection of the content or the creator/Creator, but the receiver of the message.