Amy Reflection
The documentary film Amy, provides viewers with behind the scenes footage of the megastar’s meteoric rise to fame as well as a firsthand look at the many demons she faced throughout her tragically short life. In addition to previously unreleased material, director Chris King adds a layer of depth to the film by including interviews of those closest to Amy. Individuals such as Mitch Winehouse, father of the late Ms. Winehouse, and Nick Shymansky, the Winehouse’s former manager, all agreed to sit down and talk to King about their respective relationship with the former superstar. Firsthand third person accounts, in addition to home video footage, aided in providing viewers with a unique prospective into the starlet’s short but remarkable life.
As an audience member, I found the movie to be particularly interesting because it provided watchers with a seemingly genuine look into who Ms. Winehouse was as a person. Gone was the media’s depiction of an off the rails carefree superstar. Instead, the audience was introduced to an incredibly insecure young woman; someone still searching for the approval of a father who long ago abandoned her and her mother. As a result, Amy entrusted people like the hard-partying Blake Fielder-Civil. A known drug addict and philanderer, Fielder-Civil seduced Winehouse and was partly to blame for her growing drug habit which, after their eventual marriage, resulted in a full-on addiction to powerful drugs such as cocaine and heroin. To make matters worse, Winehouse’s father refused to take her growing personal problems seriously. Instead of convincing her to seek help, or enter a treatment facility, he continued to book her for festival appearances. From there her condition worsened. Friends interviewed by Chris King spoke of binge drinking and bulimia in addition to her serious drug use.
Although near the end of her life Winehouse claimed to be off drugs, she was never able to put the bottle down. On a rainy summer day in July of 2011, the performer was found dead due to complications from heart failure. However tragic, watching King’s film made me think about the people who took advantage of the songstress. In my opinion, if Winehouse had been able to distance herself from many of the individuals featured in the documentary, then maybe she would be alive today, and we would have enjoyed significantly more from this hugely talented artist.
