Ever since the Sydney Pollack-directed Aretha Franklin concert film Amazing Grace was unearthed and given its long-overdue moment in the spotlight earlier this year, gospel docs have become a thing at the arthouses. That could explain why the 1983 doc Say Amen, Somebody is currently making the rounds. I don’t mean to sound trite when I say you might have a spiritual experience while viewing this, but you’ll definitely be surprised by how easy it is to get swept up in the moving, joyful sounds that come out of Thomas A. Dorsey (who wrote the immortal standard “Take My Hand, Precious Lord”), Mother Willie Mae Ford Smith, The Barrett Sisters, The O’Neal Twins and other performers that director George T. Nierenberg captures on film. By concentrating on the artists, their music and their stories instead of — to borrow the title of an old Daily Show segment — God stuff, Nierenberg shows audiences how this transcendent musical genre known as gospel can make audiences both cry and dance in the aisles. 2:50, 7:15 & 9:30 p.m. at the Belcourt, 2102 Belcourt Ave. CRAIG D. LINDSEY
Music City Mondays: Say Amen, Somebody
