AMY WINEHOUSE

AMY
WINNER 2015  ACADEMY AWARD - BEST DOCUMENTARY

AMY WINEHOUSE

“She was one of the truest jazz singers I’d ever heard. To me she should be treated like Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday. She had the complete gift. If she had lived, I would have said, Slow down, you’re too important. Life teaches you how to live it, if you live long enough.”

Tony Bennett.

Review by Allison O’Donoghue               

Documentary by Asif Kapadia

What if...

My heart broke watching this documentary about the brilliant but brief life of the very talented Amy Winehouse. The what if’s come thick and fast. What if someone had stayed with her the night of her death? What if her father had said yes the first time her mate and ex-manager, Nick Shymansky urged her to go to rehab? What if she’d never met Blake Fielder-Civil? Of course, it’s a waste of time playing the what if game, it won’t bring her back. And little comfort knowing there was really nothing anyone could have done to stop her downward spiral, except Amy.

When I first heard Rehab on the radio, I automatically assumed I was listening to a beautiful black  African American female, the living reincarnation of Nina Simone. Imagine my shock when a skinny, bee-hived, tattooed British Jewish girl with a cockney accent popped up. Her first album Frank, really didn’t capture the imagination of Australia, but Back to Black certainly woke us up to her extraordinary voice, and expert jazz phrasing. She was a natural, gifted jazz singer with a brilliant future ahead of her.

AMY starts out featuring the early years. Amy with her family. Amy hanging out with friends Juliette Ashby, Lauren Gilbert and Tyler James. Amy, a normal healthy body weight, and full of fun ready to take on South London. The film taps into her musical beginnings and how she got started. It was all so easy. She didn’t slog it out for long, and maybe that was part of the problem. Fame came too fast, too soon. She couldn’t wait to leave home, smoke pot all day and hang out with friends, but that’s not unusual, we all want our independence, and pot smoking is not necessarily a prelude to stronger drugs. 

Her first album Frank introduced her to Britain and Europe, where she toured and developed a name for herself. But her second album Back to Black went global, and her trajectory hit lightning speed, giving her little time to adjust from relative obscurity to world domination. She went from someone who could go to the local pub for a pint and game of pool, to a prisoner in her own home, and didn’t handle the transition well. She got bored, she took drugs. She looked out the window and saw a sea of paparazzi, freaked out and took more drugs. When Rehab went global, she should have moved to a more secluded house, but she was convinced fame wasn’t going to change her.

 Too late, it already had.

Beautiful, unique talent.

The cracks were there from the beginning, becoming more and more exacerbated as she grew older. Bulimia was initially a weight loss program as a teenager, which she never really examined, and became increasingly worse as her fame grew. It was a way of purging the blackness that she often felt. Her lyrics were also a way of purging her soul of bad relationships, or lack thereof. Her lyrics were raw and real, people related to her, understood her instantly. Finally, someone was speaking their language. 

With financial success, she bought a flat in Camden, but her new found independence attracted sycophants and users. The biggest user was Blake Fielder-Civil. She was his cash cow to fund his veracious drug addiction, and he got her hocked on heroin and crack cocaine. It’s not a secret, he openly admits it. However, he doesn’t take any responsibility for her demise. Although, I really want to lay the blame on this creep, he facilitated, encouraged and enabled her drug addiction, however, the blame cannot lay solely at his feet. In truth, Amy was responsible for her own well-being, and consequent demise.

Thankfully, Amy got a reprieve from the toxic, enmeshed relationship she had developed with Blake when he went back to his old girlfriend. Heartbroken, she was inspired to write Back to Black and her global hit Rehab, which then became the benchmark for her writing style. Pain = good lyrics = good music = money = more fame = acceptance. But it wasn’t long before Blake saw the dollar signs and came back to plunder her bank balance. After all, the album was inspired by him, so why not reap the benefits? Such a shame. The opportunity to save herself and create the life she wanted with someone who genuinely loved her, had integrity, personal power, and possibly less addictions, was lost. The heart knows what the head does not. It wasn't long before Blake & Amy secretly got married in Miami while Amy was on tour.

What if…

There were plenty of people trying to encourage her to get help. Her old school friends Lauren, Juliette, Tyler, and Nick - all tried in vain. In the end they backed away, and waited for her to contact them, which took a long time. They couldn’t watch their beloved Amy destroy herself, her career and everything she cared about.

What if...

Amy with Blake Fielder-Civil

Mitch Winehouse, Amy’s father, doesn’t come out of the film looking too good. It could’ve been the way it was edited, as he doesn’t share a great deal of airtime with Amy, but when he does, he appears seduced by Amy’s fame and sudden fortune. He wanted her to be successful, and lived vicariously through her. He nurtured dreams of becoming a singing star himself but success eluded him, and in the end he drove taxi cabs around London. 

Of course, he loved his daughter and was “there” for her 24/7 and in his words, “evicted drug dealers at all hours”. However, like Amy, he wasn’t media trained and not prepared to face the wolf pack. Every time he opened his mouth, he fueled the fire of speculation, scandal and gossip that swirled around her, which created more salacious headlines.

With her father Mitch Winehouse.

A shaft of light streaked through the bleakness when Blake was thrown in jail for 2 yrs. A blessing. It gave her a chance to get clean, clear her head, and divorce him. But it wasn’t long before she replaced smack/crack cocaine with alcohol. Like a true addict, she swapped one drug for another. Instead of going into rehab, she went to St Lucia in the Caribbean, for 6 months, where she slept, swam, ate, gained a little weight, hung out with friends, and drank. She was always a drinker, but now she did it with a vengeance, which took a toll on her already ravaged, anaemic, bulimic body.

By this stage she was anorexic, nothing but skin and bone. Everyone remarked. Everyone commented but it made an ounce of difference. She had barfed up her food for so long, it had become a habit. By this stage her stomach would have shrunk so much that she wouldn't have tolerated too much food anyway. And was in danger of Re-Feeding Syndrome, which can hasten death. She should've been in hospital, on a drip, with a nasal gastric tube directly into her stomach, but no one enforced it or even suggested that sort of intervention.

Besides, she had a tour to do…

What if...

Amy and Blake Fielder-Civil

When she went back on tour, the 6 months of healing was gone in a flash. To calm her nerves before any performance, she drank. To accept all the awards thrown her way, she drank. To cope with the endless paparazzi parked out the front of her house permanently, and foul headlines, she drank.

What if...

Her doctor Cristina Romette, warned her over and over she was heading for an early grave if she didn’t quit drinking, and three weeks before her death, she did stop drinking. She made amends with all the people she loved, contacted old friends and begged forgiveness, and arranged to meet up with them at Nick’s wedding, which she was looking forward to. But by the end of the week she was dead, having succumbed to the bottle one last time. Her body gave out. She fell asleep on the bed, and never woke up.

Found by her bodyguard Andrew Morris the next morning, he could see there was no reviving her, she was gone. He remembered, the night before her death she said, “I’d give it all up to be able to walk down the street again.” 

Even though her death was not totally unexpected, it was still a shock. Her fans were devastated. Amy Winehouse influenced scores of female musicians, who were excited about the direction of music for women, but also the direction of British music. We all mourn the loss of a great lady, who was developing, and evolving. We’ll always wonder what the future looked like, if only she gotten through it.

What if...



Amy with producer Mark Ronson

Filmmaker Asif Kapadia doesn’t gloss over the ugly bits of Amy Winehouse’s life. On the contrary, he gives us a warts‘n’all depiction of her steady decline through stills, endless paparazzi shots, footage of her performances, and her very public disintegration. There is no agenda other than to tell her story, and let it speak for itself.  Her father Mitch complained that he hardly featured in the film, and that he looks bad - that’s because it’s not about you Mitch - it’s about Amy. Mitch appears to be in denial about her obvious addiction, and maybe he was seeing it at a distance for the first time.

No doubt, it was very upsetting for her family and friends. Kapadia shows us what happened, when and how, and lets the audience make up their own minds. Its heartbreaking!



Lost. Amy and Blake.

AMY is tragically bleak, and terribly sad - but strangely intimate. Be prepared to shed a few tears, whether you were into her or not, as the disintegration of a multi talented individual and a waste of a very special woman, is difficult to watch. 

RIP Amy Winehouse - if only you knew - you were too important.




Inspiration for the design of Amy's favourite Aunt Cynthia.

Update: Amy Winehouse's favourite tattoo artist, Californian, Henry Hate (Martinez) has vowed he will never reproduce her tattoos on anyone else. During their friendship, Hate inked 14 tattoos. Just prior to her untimely death, they had discussed covering over the word Blake, which she had tattooed above her heart. Sadly, she went to her grave with his name still etched on her skin. 

Amy with tattooist Henry Hate

The Jewish Museum London is holding an exhibition: Amy Winehouse: A Family Portrait, where Henry Hate has agreed to lend the exhibition sketches and designs of the 14 tattoos he embellished on her skin. 

For the full story click on the link: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/mar/12/amy-winehouse-tattoos-memories-henry-hate-exhibition-family-portrait

AMY out now on DVD.