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we have to do is unravel what these lyrics are about.’ Everyone knew she could sing, but maybe people didn’t realise how well she could write.” In assembling interview subjects, Kapadia and his team realised that there was no definitive angle on Winehouse’s story – not just because there cannot be any single, categorical reading of a person by many people, but because Winehouse deliberately behaved differently with various people in her world. “She had a really complex social and family life,” producer James Gay-Rees says. “She had her old friends, her famous friends, her new friends and not so famous friends, and she would present different versions of herself to all these different people. So they all had completely different reflections and experiences of her, and not all of them married with each other.” In addition to this, many of Winehouse’s closest companions had vowed to one another that they’d never tell the most private parts of their dear friend’s story – but soon realised that if they remained completely silent, their side of the tale wouldn’t be known. “I had to get so many different people to trust me,” Kapadia says. Adds Gay-Rees: “It was all quite recent and painful for a lot of people, and there was a lot of guilt and… baggage. The whole experience took an awful lot out of all these people, understandably. It is hard to imagine what it must be like to see your closest childhood or teenage friend going through the perils of celebrity and mega-

Amy is a startling and stirring view into the life of an undeniable icon. By Zoë Radas

T he detonative cocktail of talent and a tumultuous personal life has seen many icons fold into early notoriety, and history. New biographical documentary Amy – which includes scarce archival performance and interview footage, as well as appearances by ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil, parents Mitch and Janis Winehouse, and musicians Mark Ronson, Pete Doherty, Tony Bennett and Mos Def – takes audiences into the sadly truncated life of neo soul singer Amy Winehouse, who died in July 2011 at just 27 years old. “Something happened with Amy Winehouse, and I wanted to know how that happened in front of our eyes,” says director Asif Kapadia. “How can someone die like that in this day and age? And it wasn’t a shock; I almost knew it was going to happen. You could see she was going down a certain path.” Premiering at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and quickly becoming the highest grossing British film of all time, Amy tells the story of the vocalist’s life through her own lyrics, which appear on screen as each chapter of the tale unfolds. “The early instinct was that the songs would be key,” explains Kapadia. “They’d be the spine of the film; we thought we might build the narrative around these songs. Once you understand [Winehouse’s] life and you read the lyrics, they run much deeper than you might have thought. I thought, ‘All

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fame, knowing that there were underlying issues that would come to the fore. Amy was just a Jewish kid from North London, who became this phenomenon.”

• Amy is out on Oct 28

“[Amy] is about a person who wants to be loved,” concludes Kapadia. “Often, when those who cared for her did try to show her love, she pushed them away. She was a very complex, intelligent girl." Amy is a film about love.”

Amy Winehouse with friend and flatmate Juliette Ashby (2003)

OCTOBER 2015

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