Long a best-selling classic on vinyl, tape & various digital sound formats, Aretha Franklin’s legendary Back-to-Gospel two-day recording session from 1972 finally solves the synch-sound technical issues that initially kept it off the screen. (It really took 50 years?*) Worth the wait, it remains compromised by missteps from hired-gun filmmaker Sydney Pollack who likely got the (last minute?) call from original releasing company Warner Bros. because of all that handheld skating action in his THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY/’69. But even without expecting the curated/cultivated concert approach used by Martin Scorsese’s in THE LAST WALTZ/’78 or in Jonathan Demme’s STOP MAKING SENSE/’84, this is pretty haphazard work. Not necessarily a bad thing since it offers a chance for spontaneous capture without polish; we are after all guests at a recording session in a church crowd. Mick Jaggar & Charlie Watts show up for Day Two, why not us? But Pollack’s roving 16mm cameramen coverage isn’t up to the task: drab looking/inadequate camera positioning. (And the eyesore location of the New Bethel Baptist Church.) But none of this ultimately matters when an amazingly young, fresh, even demur-looking (don’t let that look fool you!) Aretha lets out, along with fine backup & choir, with one mighty roar after another. Even smiling through a real piece of family drama when Papa Preacher C. L. Franklin (his speaking voice uncannily like Nat King Cole) pulls focus to passive/aggressively put his daughter in her place for briefly abandoning Gospel for ‘Pop’ & R&B in a speech both celebratory & admonishing.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Quick resolution of various technical and ‘rights’ issues undoubtedly eased by the deaths of original producer/director Sydney Pollack in 2008 and Aretha in 2018.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Brief Warning: The film climaxes at the end of the first session with Aretha digging into the title track like nobody’s business. Nothing quite compares after that.
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