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we have to do is unravel what these
lyrics are about.’ Everyone knew she
could sing, but maybe people didn’t
realise how well she could write.”
In assembling interview subjects,
Kapadia and his team realised
that there was no definitive angle
on Winehouse’s story – not just
because there cannot be any single,
categorical reading of a person
by many people, but because
Winehouse deliberately behaved
differently with various people in her
world. “She had a really complex
social and family life,” producer
James Gay-Rees says. “She had
her old friends, her famous friends,
her new friends and not so famous
friends, and she would present
different versions of herself to all
these different people. So they all
had completely different reflections
and experiences of her, and not all
of them married with each other.”
In addition to this, many of
Winehouse’s closest companions
had vowed to one another that
they’d never tell the most private
parts of their dear friend’s story
– but soon realised that if they
remained completely silent, their
side of the tale wouldn’t be known.
“I had to get so many different
people to trust me,” Kapadia
says. Adds Gay-Rees: “It was all
quite recent and painful for a lot
of people, and there was a lot of
guilt and… baggage. The whole
experience took an awful lot out of
all these people, understandably. It
is hard to imagine what it must be
like to see your closest childhood
or teenage friend going through the
perils of celebrity and mega-
fame, knowing that there
were underlying issues
that would come to the
fore. Amy was just a
Jewish kid from North
London, who became this
phenomenon.”
“[Amy] is about a person who
wants to be loved,” concludes
Kapadia. “Often, when those who
cared for her did try to show her
love, she pushed them away. She
was a very complex, intelligent girl."
Amy is a film about love.”
T he detonative cocktail of
talent and a tumultuous
personal life has seen many
icons fold into early notoriety, and
history. New biographical
documentary Amy – which includes
scarce archival performance and
interview footage, as well as
appearances by ex-husband Blake
Fielder-Civil, parents Mitch and Janis
Winehouse, and musicians Mark
Ronson, Pete Doherty, Tony Bennett
and Mos Def – takes audiences into
the sadly truncated life of neo soul
singer Amy Winehouse, who died in
July 2011 at just 27 years old.
“Something happened with Amy
Winehouse, and I wanted to know
how that happened in front of our
eyes,” says director Asif Kapadia.
“How can someone die like that in
this day and age? And it wasn’t a
shock; I almost knew it was going to
happen. You could see she was going
down a certain path.”
Premiering at this year’s Cannes
Film Festival and quickly becoming
the highest grossing British film of
all time, Amy tells the story of the
vocalist’s life through her own lyrics,
which appear on screen as each
chapter of the tale unfolds. “The early
instinct was that the songs would
be key,” explains Kapadia. “They’d
be the spine of the film; we thought
we might build the narrative around
these songs. Once you understand
[Winehouse’s] life and you read the
lyrics, they run much deeper than you
might have thought. I thought, ‘All
Amy is a startling and stirring view into the life
of an undeniable icon. By Zoë Radas
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Amy Winehouse with friend and flatmate Juliette Ashby (2003)
visit FEATURE DVD&BD
26 OCTOBER 2015