To watch the film is to witness an energy, an incredible source of life that draws everyone in and then, just as quickly, is snuffed out.Īmy Winehouse with Juliette Ashby at the Jamon Jamon restaurant, Camden Town, 2003 © Juliette Ashby, courtesy Mongrel Media)Īmy Winehouse’s first album, Frank, (named after her idol, Frank Sinatra) was released in 2003. In the film, one gets the sense, from the very start, just how much larger than life Winehouse was: animated and clever, smart, flirtatious and when she opens her mouth to sing, the world stops. As soon as producers heard her they were in. I put it on in my car and it blew my mind. It didn’t fit with the girl who didn’t want to be noticed. I got this package through the post with a demo tape with two songs on, and the Jiffy bag was covered in stickers and hearts and kisses, and it had, “Amy”scribbled over it about 100 times. Nick Shymansky, Winehouse’s first manager, learned of her when one of his clients, Tyler James, a friend of Winehouse, sent him a demo: Many of Winehouse’s uncles on her mother’s side of the family were jazz musicians, and she grew up listening to jazz - taking, as Winehouse said herself in an interview with Dazed Magazine, “Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan. While at the school Amy founded her first band, a short-lived rap group called Sweet ‘n’ Sour with her friend, Juliette Ashby.
Also, when she was nine her grandmother suggested she attend the Susi Earnshaw Theatre School to further her vocal skills. I just wanted her to be herself.” Amy Winehouse came from a Jewish, working class family. I didn’t want her to be grouped with all those other people who died young. For me it was about taking her off the pedestal and humanizing her. She literally walked down the streets I walked down. In an interview with American Vogue he said, “She wasn’t like this person from another planet or the other side of the world.
Kapadia grew up in the same neighborhood as Winehouse.
Constructing the film from 100 interviews, archival footage and home videos, the result gives the sense of actually sitting with the singer - the gaze is near, that of a loved one, rather than the more voyeuristic images shot by the paparazzi. And by doing this he complicates the story, telling it through her own words and the words of those close to her. Why do we desire to die so much? Because we desire to say so much.Īsif Kapadia’s documentary Amyreconstructs the late singer, Amy Winehouse, by giving the viewer the full story, Amy’s entire life from girlhood until her death. Amy Winehouse performing at Somerset House, July 2007 (© Rex Features, courtesy Mongrel Media)
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