Watch Gospel According to Al Green For Free

Powerful

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Growing up in the sixties and seventies the sound of Al Green coming through a radio was always there for me. I can remember hearing his soulful strains coming over the air and enjoying every minute of those songs. But music changes, performers come and go and after a while I stopped hearing Green but never really noticed. That's because his hits continued to play for decades.GOSPEL ACCORIND TO AL GREEN tells us what happened to Green. He never really left, but his music changed. Why? Because Green found God. He took his talents and focused them on God rather than being the pop/R&B performer he had been.Director Robert Mugge, known for his numerous documentaries on music, takes on the task of telling us Green's story. In the extras he tells us of tracking down Green and talking to him, convincing him to talk about his life. Fortunately he finally agreed and we now have this film.Released in 1984 the movie combines an interesting mixture of interviews with Green and others in his life. Sure, this is the normal method used in most documentaries to present the life of the main subject but there is a way that Mugge does it here that is different than most. While the interview with Green, done at one time, is set in his recording studio it doesn't have that over lit preplanned look that most documentary interviews seem to have now. Instead it is low key, low light and highlights Green in a way that makes him more comfortable and reachable.Greens life from the time he found he could perform until the time this film was made are covered. He talks about finding a tune that he just couldn't get out of his head, one that his girlfriend at the time tired of and that record execs were not thrilled with. He finally convinced them to push the song. The song was "Tired of Being Alone" and was his first major hit.He reveals what happened in his own words, which seem kind of jumbled, about what happened when another girlfriend poured boiling hot grits on him before shooting herself in his home. It was a story I was unfamiliar with or had forgotten. You can tell in the way he discusses the matter that it still bothers him and he still has trouble grasping what happened.The movie talks about Green finding God, or I should say God finding Green. Moved by the spirit that filled him Green left behind a hugely successful performing career to begin his own church in Memphis. It wouldn't be until years later, after this movie was released, that he would go back to singing his earlier hits. As he says here he didn't feel he could serve that lifestyle and God at the same time.The interview material with Green is mixed with other interviews with individuals like Willie Mitchell who discovered Green and recorded his early albums and critic Ken Tucker talking about the impact of Green and his music. There is also footage of a performance by Green and his band at an NCO club. The last major portion of the film shows Green preaching at the church he founded 7 years before this film was shot.The film doesn't look as polished and perfected as many documentaries on musical performers do these days but then it was made over 30 years ago. That doesn't detract from the subject matter. It may actually enhance it, focusing more on Green and his change rather than on the images that could have been brought into play. What we are left with is a historical document of a man who found his calling, who left behind all that most would think is the most important aspect of life and instead discovered what was truly important instead.The presentation is well done by MVD with a solid transfer. But again, you have to consider the source material that it was made from. No blu-ray or restoration technique can make a slightly grainy film look like a completely shot on digital movie. The extras are limited but enjoyable as well, especially an interview with Mugge about the making of this movie. Green fans will find this movie a must have. Music fans will enjoy it start to finish. And those who believe in God will find his story one that they will enjoy as well.

This film is an interesting snapshot of a career that spins already for almost half a century. Born in Arkansas in 1946, Green made to himself a name since the mid-60s on the scene of soul music, which enjoyed a great success and was promoted widely, nationally in the US and internationally together with other trends (like pop, rock and folk) of the musical revolution of the 'flower power' generation.And then, in 1974 the change happened. A personal life incident (described by Green in the documentary film in a different version than the one recorded by other sources like the Wikipedia entry dedicated to the singer) triggered a process of returning to religion, and in only a couple of year we see Green becoming a reverend and buying his own church (this is also described in the documentary).More and more gospel takes precedence in his records and performances. The documentary itself includes testimonies by Al Green's musical partners about his beginnings, about the road to success, and his transformation from a soul to a gospel artist. The musical parts are recorded in one of his performances at a military base, and in his own church in Memphis – and this is certainly the most interesting part, as it documents how music becomes part of the religious discourse and ceremonies, and how the word gospel truly merges and combines its two meanings.As I said the film was made in 1984, at a time when his life was mostly dedicated to religion and as a singer he was singing only gospel. More than a quarter of century later we know however that as his career continued, Green returned to some of his non-religious songs, in a tentative to regain some of the success of his younger years.The 1984 film catches Green at a point in his evolution, which did not follow exactly the expected track. Asked in the film how he sees his life and career 20 or 30 years later, he predicts an universal acceptance of the gospel, and him as a priest of it. It is however more to the non-religious soul music that he is still known today, while the religious fulfillment did not disappear but was pushed back more to the space of his private life.