\u201cAmazing Grace\u201d captures a holy-grail performance by the Queen of Soul at a Baptist church in Los Angeles in 1972. Ms. Franklin had blocked its release.<\/b>
\nLOS ANGELES \u2014 One of Hollywood\u2019s holy grails, \u201c Amazing Grace,\u201d capturing what is considered to be Aretha Franklin\u2019s most transcendent gospel performance, is headed to theaters 46 years after it was filmed.
\u201cHer fans need to see this film, which is so pure and so joyous,\u201d Sabrina Owens, Ms. Franklin\u2019s niece and the executor of the Franklin estate, said in an interview. \u201cAnd the world needs to see it. Our country, it\u2019s in such a state right now.\u201d She declined to comment on terms of the deal.
Freed from legal entanglements \u2014 Ms. Franklin, who died in August, sued repeatedly over the years to block its release \u2014 \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d will have its world premiere next Monday, Nov. 12, in New York at Doc NYC, a festival dedicated to nonfiction cinema. To qualify for the 2019 Academy Awards, the 87-minute film will then receive one-week runs in Los Angeles in November and in New York in December. Alan Elliott, one of the film\u2019s producers, said \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d would likely arrive in wide release in January, perhaps coinciding with Martin Luther King\u2019s Birthday.
\u201cWe want to honor her legacy,\u201d Mr. Elliott said in a separate interview. \u201cHer artistry and her genius are alive in every frame.\u201d
\u201cAmazing Grace\u201d is one of the most famous films never released. It was shot by Sydney Pollack over two nights in 1972 at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles as Ms. Franklin recorded an album that would become one of the best-selling gospel records of all time. The New Yorker called the album, \u201cAmazing Grace,\u201d Ms. Franklin\u2019s \u201cmost shattering and indispensable recording.\u201d
Anchored by an 11-minute version of \u201cAmazing Grace,\u201d the record includes definitive interpretations of songs like \u201cMary Don\u2019t You Weep,\u201d a slavery-era spiritual. The Rev. James Cleveland, the pioneering gospel singer, was on hand to introduce Ms. Franklin. Mick Jagger sat in a pew toward the back.
But the film recording was mishandled. Mr. Pollack, who died in 2008, failed to use clapper boards, a crucial tool in matching sound with filmed images in a predigital era. And he had 20 hours of raw footage shot by five 16-millimeter cameras to sync.
Frustrated film editors at Warner Bros., which financed the shoot, ultimately gave up, having missed the 1972 release of the \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d album. Mr. Pollack turned to a new directing project, \u201cThe Way We Were,\u201d starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford. And the \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d negatives began to gather dust in the Warner vaults.
Mr. Elliott, who had been obsessed with the lost footage since working as a music executive in the mid-1980s, ultimately persuaded Warner to sell him the reels in 2007. (He mortgaged his house.) By 2010, digital technology had evolved to a point that syncing film and sound was finally possible.
As a planned release date approached in 2011, however, Ms. Franklin sued Mr. Elliott for using her likeness without her permission. That started years of legal wrangling, with Ms. Franklin and her lawyers blocking Mr. Elliott and the Telluride Film Festival from showing \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d in 2015 and 2016, even after deals for her compensation seemed to have been worked out. The singer\u2019s opposition appeared not to have anything to do with the film\u2019s content, which she had said publicly that she \u201cloved.\u201d
\u201cThere is just this deep-seated desire for something to not happen right now, so I\u2019d rather just respect her wishes,\u201d Julie Huntsinger, executive director of the Telluride Film Festival, told Variety last year .
Film insiders speculated that the release of the movie, which ends with a young Ms. Franklin performing \u201cNever Grow Old,\u201d was simply too difficult for the ailing singer to confront \u2014 that she knew it amounted to a eulogy.
Legal clearance finally came after Ms. Owens invited Mr. Elliott to her aunt\u2019s funeral in Detroit. A couple of weeks later, he contacted Ms. Owens about restarting talks. \u201cSabrina said, \u2018Why don\u2019t you come and show the movie to the family?\u2019\u201d he said. He flew to Michigan and did just that on Sept. 20. About 25 people were there.
\u201cThere was clapping and crying,\u201d Ms. Owens said.
Mr. Elliott said that he spoke to Ms. Owens as he left for the airport and she said, \u201cLet\u2019s do it.\u201d
Unless \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d hits an unforeseen snag, its release will mark the second time this year that a film will have made its way to theaters after decades in purgatory. \u201cThe Other Side of the Wind,\u201d which Orson Welles left unfinished upon his death in 1985, was completed and shown for the first time in North America at the Telluride festival in September. Netflix started streaming it last week.
Moviegoer interest in \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d will likely be strong. Feel-good documentaries such as \u201cWon\u2019t You Be My Neighbor?,\u201d about Fred Rogers, the star of public television\u2019s \u201cMister Rogers\u2019 Neighborhood,\u201d and \u201cRBG,\u201d which looks at Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court associate justice, have lately been ticket-selling machines. Movies built around music have also been doing well with audiences. Over the weekend, the Freddie Mercury biopic \u201cBohemian Rhapsody\u201d arrived to an astounding $50 million in ticket sales in North America.
And the dramatic late arrival of \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d is sure to shake up the race for best documentary at the Oscars. The film\u2019s producers may also try for a best picture nomination.
\u201cAretha would want us going for a best picture,\u201d Mr. Elliott said. \u201cAnd she\u2019d want to win, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

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