Asif Kapadia’s Amy definitively chronicles the downward spiral of Amy Winehouse. As documentary, the film engages with a relatively familiar narrative: it exposes the horrors of celebrity, how it exacerbates our most basic impulses and transports us to an irreversibly public life. It principally asks the questions “how?” and “why?” and allows the story to flow and turn naturally.
None of this may seem especially remarkable; indeed, in the hands of another director -- or, perhaps, if centered on a subject of less immediate intrigue -- this film’s approach may have come off as both emotionally trite and dramatically inert. But Amy transcends, and it’s due to a combination of artistic prowess and organic storytelling.
In fact, Amy is a devastating gut-punch of a watch. Even for fans of the artist and her sensational music, the cumulative effect of this documentary is likely to sneak up on you. That Winehouse’s life became so unfortunately public -- that is, that so many details of what was happening to her were already out there -- is smartly acknowledged and played off of by Kapadia. Amy doesn’t relish in the details so much as it meditates on them. It confronts the very notion of the inevitabilities that come with being a typically “damaged” artist.
In actuality, Kapadia leaves major details out, including a cataclysmic trip Winehouse took with her destructive boyfriend-turned-husband, Blake. The depth of the director and his team’s research is made immediately, powerfully evident; a healthy amount of the documentary is dedicated to rough camcorder videos of a young Winehouse out with her friends, touring at local bars, shooting the shit. Just having in mind the singer’s eventual physical transformation while watching these is enough to give Amy an instant, visceral pull. Kapadia’s method here is simple but, in effectiveness, immense. He’s whittling down the figure to the human; the superstar to the artist; the tortured addict to the emotionally scarred. His opening act sufficiently, tenderly conveys that this is not a film resorting to reverence. It’s a film about a person.
Amy is chronological, documenting with a mercilessly steady pace Winehouse’s increasing dependence on drugs and alchohol. It paints her opportunistic father and problematic boyfriend in seriously unflattering lights, and expectedly maintains profound sympathy for its subject even at her ugliest. But, in methods both subtle and overt, Kapadia digs deep. We get a sense of Winehouse’s innermost being, a substantial accomplishment on the part of the film’s team.
The director integrates Winehouse’s lyrics organically. He never inserts them to call attention to a state of mind, or to shift the mood. Rather, her words and her sound dictate the film’s sensory journey. When her remarkable voice swoons in, out flow the tears. Her words call attention to her life’s events, with an elegant typeface used to make note of the songs’ central ideas. But it all flows; her artistic journey is the film’s narrative journey, and it makes for a spellbindingly musical experience.
Amy’s exhaustive depth is also crucial to its success. As we watch the most important figures in Winehouse's world come to life in home videos, Kapadia’s interviews with them add texture to the proceedings. He doesn’t film his interviewees, finding that conversations get more personal and intimate when they’re merely being recorded for audio. The difference shows. The voices of friends, family and acquaintances feel so uninhibited and so affected -- their recollection of memories alongside the actual images we see stings with intensity. And Kapadia seemingly gets everyone under the sun to participate. Even Blake, the troubled boyfriend, chimes in with commentary -- and his voice, at once defeated, monotone and indifferent, speaks volumes about the effect she had on him. To have this narration telling the story would be one thing; that we have access to the perspectives of the passive mother and business-minded father, along with many others, makes for a cathartic experience. That holistic approach lends the film an enormous amount of credibility.
Finally, there’s the vital element of complicity. The well of sadness that is Amy’s core may have formed out of its tragic conclusion, but Kapadia isn’t content to rest at that point. As the film dives into its harrowing final third, we observe the very deconstruction of a person. We watch her, unwittingly thrust into the world’s spotlight, torn apart by comics, newscasters and even friends and family. Winehouse’s sense of self erodes, and she’s mocked for it. There’s a perverse demand to know it all -- the flash of the cameras is unendingly painful here, as are the reels of news programs “reporting” on her status. Part of the reason the theatrical experience is so visceral and personal is the cascading, inescapable sense of guilt. Kapadia isn’t condemning anyone in particular, but he bravely and astutely acknowledges the role our culture played in her demise.
Again, Amy isn’t flashy. It’s small and intimate and careful; it points to all sides, as the present-day voices of Winehouse’s inner-circle tell the story. And what results is a despairing, emotional and honest cinematic account that may not make for the most thrilling or enjoyable movie of the year. But Kapadia’s methods are engrossing, and the story he tells is compelling. Moreover, there’s the memory of Amy Winehouse herself: a voice that will go down in history, a poet whose words cut to the bone, a person with a radiating smile and a bellowing laugh.
We may not have known that last part before. Not only does Amy introduce us to its subject as we could never previously know her, but it conflates her very identity with her music and her poetics. It’s that astonishing construction of a musical genius that renders Amy so beautiful, so raw and so bold.
(But yeah, bring lots of tissues.)
Grade: A