“I don’t think I’m going to be at all famous. I don’t think I could handle it.”
This was the movie I watched only because I had to, because I’d watched all the other documentaries nominated for an Oscar this year, and I didn’t want to leave one out. I’ve never been a huge fan of Amy Winehouse’s music, and I hadn’t felt particularly sorry for her: one more talented musician who wasn’t prepared for how hard fame can be. One more person who snuffed themselves out too young.
I don’t have any patience with stories about how hard the life of a celebrity can be (eye roll) so I was surprised at how much I liked the film. Created from news footage, concert videos, studio shots, and personal film from phones and camcorders, it paints a very detailed picture of her life, train wrecks and all. I didn’t want to like the movie, but I did anyway.
One thing I noticed was that we rarely see the people who talk about her, most of the time it’s just their voices on top of the footage. We might see them from an old movie or photo, but there’s very few shots of people sitting in a chair being formally interviewed for the movie.
That editing choice created a distance between the interviewees and Amy. The clips and cuts never allow someone else a chance to steal the spotlight, or make the story about their contribution or their loss. The story stays focused on Amy and the choices she made.
“I wouldn’t write anything unless it was directly personal to me, just cause I wouldn’t be able to tell the story right…”
The lyrics she wrote were incredibly personal; the film highlights a lot of the songs she wrote while working through one situation or another. And yes, they go into detail about “Rehab.” I’ve always known the song wasn’t very subtle, but I hadn’t realized it was word-for-word what was going on at the time.
But Amy rarely comes across as self-pitying. She’s flawed and shy, overconfident and insecure at the same time. But she doesn’t point fingers.
The filmmakers point a few fingers to be sure; her parents’ neglect, her father’s self-centeredness, her husband’s all-encompassing drug habit, and anyone in the studio who kept putting her on a stage when she was wasted. But they don’t get all over-dramatic, reality TV announcer, “THIS IS THE PERSON WHO KILLED HER” about it.
In several interviews her husband incriminates himself. In candid videos her father shows himself for the attention-hog he is. And while I never feel very sorry for the very famous, and I know nobody forced her to be a celebrity, or made her into an addict, I also wish someone had been there for her backstage at her last show in Serbia, someone to talk to her for ten seconds and say “Okay, no. You’re not going on.”
There’s a lot of wonderful moments in the film, and not all of them are as depressing as you might think. The video of her showing a friend around her apartment is adorable, the interviews where she’s clearly bored are hysterical, and the live footage of that distinctive voice of hers is amazing.
One of my favorite parts is the story behind “Back to Black.” Friends chime in about her heartbreak, we hear her own words about losing someone, and we see photos of the lyrics in her own handwriting on notebook paper (complete with ballpoint pen hearts, I sometimes forget she was only 27 when she died.)
But it was the editing of the song that I loved: they showed the studio recordings of her laying down the solo track, which morphed into the full radio version, and then faded back into her voice in the studio, singing alone, on the very last line. That scene, and the ending, were definitely my favorite parts of the movie.
She didn’t want to do it, she told everybody she didn’t want to do it. But apparently she had to do it. Can’t go anywhere, can’t hide anywhere, but she needed an escape. Then the drinkin start.
…Escape route, innit?
I know it’s an awful thing that we “rate” a celebrity biography based on how it shows their death: was it tragic enough? Did it show enough to make us sympathetic, but not so much to make us uncomfortable?
That being said, I think the filmmakers walked that line very well. By the end we can feel like we know her a little better, and if we don’t feel sorry for her, with all her money and fame and talent, we at least recognize that the inside of her head wasn’t a fun place to be. And the series of pictures of her in her home near the end of her life, sleepless, stoned, and much, much too thin, are definitely hard to look at.
And let’s face it: the ending is what you’re waiting for, and it didn’t disappoint. The last five minutes were especially well done; it felt tragic without being maudlin. The choice of images was carefully done, and the quick transition to slow motion at one point was surprisingly effective; it’s tough to do that without looking cheesy and silly, but they pulled it off.
The music they chose was heartbreaking. I’ve heard some complaints that the score at the end, where we see the reactions to her death, wasn’t one of her own songs. Some feel that’s an insult to her as a musician, and I understand that feeling. But I was blown away by the music right at that moment. I thought it was beautiful and tragic, and reflected the sheer waste of talent, and even the anger that a lot of people had towards her.
A lot of people like to ridicule her, because she threw away an amazing gift by destroying herself with alcohol and drugs. I certainly never felt sorry for her before I saw the film. But she feels much more like a real person after watching it.
You can hate the entitlement of some famous people, or celebrity sob stories, or overdramatic biopics (and I do, I hate all those things) but you can still…well I don’t know if “enjoy” is the right word, but sure, you can enjoy it, because it’s interesting, and it was tastefully done, and because they told a story really well.
Edited to add: and it’s official, Amy wins for Best Documentary Feature!