Search - The Story of Gospel Music on DVD

Everyone gets a swing at it (almost).

Samuel Chell | Kenosha,, WI United States | 06/20/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Overall, a good balance of information and inspiration. Some of the "talking heads" are overused, others underused. The same goes for the performers. Some is familiar footage (especially Mahalia); some less so (Rosetta Tharpe). The film gives the viewer just enough of the Pentecostal, "Sanctified" tradition of gospel music-making to bring credibility and color to the words of the consulted authorities. Too much emphasis on emotive, collective singing would have worn thin just as quickly as too much intellectualizing. Perhaps there's excessive recitation of familiar history by formally attired expert-types, familiar ground about oppression and its positive outcomes (in story and song), though the film does manage to single out some of the key igniters and keepers of the flame.



The biggest disappointment is the failure to identify speakers and, in some instances, even performers and arresting performances! (What were the filmmakers thinking?) Most will have no trouble recognizing Mahalia, James Cleveland, Sister Rosetta, Shirley Caesar, but it can become frustrating having to backtrack (in vain) to identify certain individuals. The story could have used better titling and more provocative questions (Gospel's relation to pop music? To the evolution of jazz? Its drift away from clear elocution and close harmonies? Its increasing reliance on synthesizers, hard funk, glitz and glitter, and the often surreal confluence of the sacred and secular, the ultra modern and primitive, the spiritual and sexual).



Nevertheless, it's an overview and a start, with some occasionally surprising, delightful moments of spontaneity and originality. The "authorities"--theologians, historians, sociologists, ministers of music, etc.-- are in themselves performers (more so, in this film, than the musicians), clearly enjoying the opportunity to expound on a favorite subject (and relishing their role in the film). They're at times almost as much fun to hear as the music (esp. the guy at the piano, filmed with numerous Gothic candles as backlighting)--almost. Overall, the project could have used a stronger, larger role for the Holy Ghost. Maybe the director feared that, unlike the other performers and participants, S/He would insist on a credit.



But upon reflection, the undeniable "physicality" of Gospel music can in itself become wearing after awhile. When one has accumulated a generous sum of years, conceded to frailties once assumed to be the business only of "others," and moreover discovered the profound consolations of artful elegy (whether in Shakespeare or Wordsworth, Verdi or Ellington), the cheerleading associated with Gospel music (and holy rollers of any stripe) can begin to sound increasingly hollow. The presence of "the spirit" is no less welcome, but in the ineffable, mystic sense of "receiving" rather than "getting" it. No amount of emotionalism or calisthenics can match the action over which we as humans have no control: God's reaching down in manifestation of a divine and truly miraculous Grace."