According to EW:
New documentary Amy
explores a side of Amy Winehouse that may shock
even her most committed fans: her golden youth as a self-empowered
round-the-way girl from North London with talent to burn and attitude to spare.
Directed by Asif Kapadia (Senna), the film (out in july 3) highlights the
neo-soul diva’s path to superstardom, a period before –in the words of her
epochal 2007 hit single- they tried to make her go to rehab and she said, no no
no.
Since the dusky contralto’s 2011 death at age
27 from alcohol poisoning, she’s most often recalled in caricature: a tragic
junkie with an extravagant beehive and a self-destructive streak—a crack-addled
cautionary tale of celebrity excess. But Amy, which premiered to ecstatic
reviews in May at the Cannes Film Festival, aims to upend that image. Watch the
trailer:
Featuring never-before-seen archival footage
and interviews with her closest friends, ex-lovers, and collaborators (such as
the hip-hop/R&B producerSalaam Remi who
has kept his recollections of Winehouse largely private), the movie illuminates
the Grammy winner’s early struggles with depression and bulimia en route to her
evolution as an artist. “She was a really strong woman, this amazing
personality who had an awful reputation and whose humanity got lost along the
way,” Kapadia says. “It became a mission to make a film that does right by
her.”
But now the star’s family and former
boyfriend have come out swinging. Although the filmmakers secured the cooperation
of the Winehouse estate and conducted in-depth interviews with the singer’s
parents, this April a family spokesperson issued a statement claiming Amy “is both misleading and contains some basic untruths.”
In the film, Winehouse’s father, Mitch, is portrayed
as an absent parent more concerned with his own fame than supporting his
daughter. He’s quoted saying, “Amy didn’t need to go to rehab,” and is shown
arriving at an island retreat, where she was attempting to kick her drug
addiction, with a TV crew in tow. But in a recent interview, Mitch insisted his
full quote, “Amy didn’t need to go to rehab at that time,” was cut out of
the film. On Twitter, Mitch has
refuted his characterization in Amy, and he told a U.K. paper,
“Amy would be furious. This is not what she would have wanted.” (EW’s attempts
to reach him were unsuccessful.)
Reg Traviss, Winehouse’s boyfriend at the
time of her death, was also interviewed for the film but only appears in a
photo montage. In an email to EW, he claims the movie presents a “distorted
representation of Amy,” especially with regard to her father. “Amy had a very
close and very warm relationship with her father,” he says. “But the
documentary goes out of its way to portray their relationship as hollow and
problematic.” Kapadia, Traviss adds, “wanted to follow a familiar
narrative—that of the Sid and Nancy-type of
rise-success-shambolic fall. To make that narrative fit with Amy’s life, he had
to censor and in some instances completely omit parts of her life.”
Kapadia says he knew his film would likely upset
“certain people” but he doesn’t regret—or retract—anything that’s in the film.
“Is it nice? No,” he says, but he and his team made a commitment early on. “Amy
was no-bulls—. [We said] if we are going to do it, we have to do it properly.
So let’s just make that film and deal with it.”
Ultimately, the story is about Amy herself—and
her process as a singer-songwriter—and the documentary’s true power lies in its
insight into a woman who sometimes loved too much. “Generally, people had a
negative opinion of Amy Winehouse. She was a joke,” Kapadia says. “Now people
see the film and they’re changing their tune.”
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