JULY 28, 2015
Director Asif Kapadia caused quite a stir in 2011 with his acclaimed documentary on the life of the late Formula One racing driver Ayrton Senna. With “Senna,” Kapadia managed to create an involving biographical doc without showing any talking heads commenting on the subject’s life, instead relying solely on existing footage and voice-over commentary, an almost unheard-of technique in the genre.
With “Amy,” Kapadia has done it again. Jazz singer Amy Winehouse seemed to come from nowhere with her acclaimed album “Back to Black,” then spectacularly flamed out, beginning with drunken performances which made her the butt of jokes, finally ending with a fatal alcohol poisoning in 2011. The rise-and-fall trope is familiar in these kinds of “Behind the Music” style bios, but because Kapadia again relies on existing footage, including a great deal of home movie footage of the teenage Amy, he is able to tell her story in a way that a fictional film could not begin to approach.
I am one of many who knew nothing of her life prior to “Back to Black,” and the footage of Amy discussing her love of jazz and the influence of her role models (Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan among them) prompted me to reevaluate her vocal style in a fresh light. As many have said, if only she had remained a jazz artist, this deadly media circus may not have ever occurred.
If the “rise” part of the film is fresh and fascinating, the “fall” is less involving, simply because it is recent and familiar. Though the film does not let Amy off the hook in responsibility for her addiction, it comes down hard on her ex-husband, Blake Fielder, who got her hooked on hard drugs and sneaked those drugs to her during her rehab phase, as well as on Amy’s father Mitchell, who famously advised her against going to rehab in 2005, a step that might have saved her life.
What’s special about “Amy” is the respect the film shows for her artistry. Yes, the hook for audiences may be to witness her trainwreck of a life, but amidst this chaos, there was a real artist at work here, and the film illuminates that in a way that musical bios rarely do.
GRADE: B
