The release of AMY has given the masses an insight into the chaotic life of the prolific jazz singer. As it illustrates Amy’s dislike for the limelight, Ciara Sutton tells us why this documentary is heading straight back to black.
When I heard that Asif Kapadia was making a documentary on Amy Winehouse, I very suddenly became her biggest fan. I added her hits (as well as a few random songs I’d never heard before) to my summer playlist, I began belting Back to Black in the shower and I even watched the BBC’s pre-documentary feature on the woman herself.
Having now seen the film, I can safely say that, unfortunately, Amy would have had no time for me. My excessive excitement at the prospect of intruding on her personal life for approximately an hour and thirty minutes of entertainment, encapsulates all that she hated about fame (I’m sorry Amy).
With a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and it’s critical acclaim, AMY has had the success many anticipated it would. Kapadia portrays the beauty of Amy’s talent alongside her drug addiction, sorrowful personal life and tragic death, making a striking documentary. You enter the cinema knowing that ultimately Amy Winehouse dies and yet AMY also makes you laugh and celebrate music. When she sarcastically nod’s along with an interviewer’s claim that Dido’s music had the same raw emotion as her own, or when she judgingly questions that Justin Timberlake’s album is called ‘ What Goes Around Comes Around’, I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t help but let out a little snort. Amy had some serious sass.
I’ll admit it, I felt guilty enjoying the voyeuristic insights into Amy’s life whilst munching on my fizzy cola bottles. When you see the personal pain behind the gigs she was too drunk for and experience her dad in full arsehole mode, you realise that there was no one there to actually help her. Many of the people closest to her (namely her Dad, Mitch, and her boyfriend, Blake) didn’t appear to have her health at heart and parasitically fed off her fame.
It’s no wonder Mitch Winehouse is rumoured to be trying to make his own film, he looks utterly selfish in the documentary and now wants to present his perspective on his relationship with his daughter. But who really knows what an accurate representation of Amy Winehouse’s life would look like. What is apparent, however, is that this intrusion on her personal life is exactly what Amy could not cope with.
Ciara Sutton