Amazing Grace review – soul-shaking gospel from Aretha Franklin

A spellbinding performance by the late, great singer is captured in Sydney Pollack’s 1972 film – finally brought to the screen after a long technical and legal battleThe 1970s may have been the heyday of the rock concert film, but the genre was frequently marred by questionable performances and legal squabbles.

Whether it’s Led Zeppelin going off the boil in the wrangle-ridden The Song Remains the Same or the Rolling Stones finding themselves stars of an unfolding horror movie in the Maysles’s Gimme Shelter, these movies are fraught with strife.

It’s significant that the most celebrated concert film of all, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz, captured the Band as they were splitting up, cementing the genre’s long-standing funereal affiliations and serving as inspiration for Rob Reiner’s nail-in-the-coffin mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap.The story of Amazing Grace, centring on Aretha Franklin’s two-night performance

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