THE CLARK SISTERS: FIRST LADIES OF GOSPEL
US, 2020, 85 minutes, Colour.
Aunjanue Ellis, Christina Bell, Kierra Sheard, Shelea Fraser, Raven Goodwin, Angela Birchett, Demore Barnes.
Goodbye Christine Swanson.
The five Clark Sisters were a well-known group promoting Gospel songs, over 200 written by one of the group. They were established by their forceful mother, Mattie Moss Clark, who trained them, rehearsed them, controlled their business affairs. This brief film offers an overview of their lives, not without the audience reacting to the dominating mother, the daughters trying to find some autonomy. The family ministered in The Church of God in Christ.
Aunjanue Ellis gives a powerful performance as Mattie Moss Clark.
Many excerpts from their songs are included. While they tend to generic in God-language, there are references to Jesus, and in their home prayers, ‘In Jesus’ Name’ and, at one moment, ‘In darling Jesus’ name’. The sisters sang from the 1960s to the 1990s. They reunited in 2008 – a powerful force in US evangelical religious life.
1. The Clark sisters? Their reputation in the United States? Over the decades? Religious background? Gospel songs? Concerts, records, television?
2. The response of American audiences? American religious audiences? Outside the United States?
3. The sisters and their songs, compositions and arrangements by their mother, Twinky and her songs, the other sisters? The insertion of the songs throughout the film? Melodies, harmonies, piano and organ accompaniment, A Capella?
4. The personal story, 1963, Mattie Moss Clark, waking, her husband, waking the girls, at the piano, notes and harmonies? Indication of the talent of the girls? Indication of the pressures from the mother, her domination?
5. The outlining of the years, developments in the 1970s, careers in the 1980s, difficulties in the 1990s, reunion in 2008?
6. The church, God in Christ? Clark as the Minister, relying on his wife, her travelling for choirs, the brittleness between them, his demands, her unwillingness, not standing by him
at church meetings, his reaction to the girls, slapping his daughter? Mattie filing for divorce?
7. The character of Mattie Clark, music, always quoting motivations for God, ambitions, perfectionism, drive and domination? Her reactions with each of the girls? Relying on Jackie as the eldest? The interactions with Twinky, her compositions, playing the piano and organ, dependent on her mother? Denise and her ultimate rebellion? Mattie and her natty dressing, pillbox hats? Conducting choirs, treatment of the members, demanding? Recording studios? Intervening, praising? Her age, her daughters and possibilities for marriage, Jackie and her approval? The other daughters and going out, boyfriends?
8. The sisters working together, collaboration and the music, the songs, relationship with their mother, accepting her? Scenes at home, meals? Scenes of performance? Scenes of rehearsal? Collaboration over the decades?
9. The personal stories of the five daughters, the focus on Jackie, nursing, boyfriend, fiance, wedding? The screenplay not filling in the background is of the daughters, Twinky and her self-assertion, Denise and her self-assertion? 2008 and their marriages, children?
10. Mattie, older, getting sick, refusal to take the medication, eventually hospital, her death?
11. The funeral, Denise taking over, the reaction of the others, rifts in the family?
12. The reunion in 2008, subsequent success?
13. The religious perspective of the film, the language of God, alleluia, the repetition of “in Jesus�, a reference to “Darling Jesus�?
