So many others have offered up excellent reviews of "Amy", that it's unnecessary to recount the story. We all know about the girl under the beehive hairdo, but do we really? Director Asif Kapadia has crafted an unflinching look at talent and the price of fame. As the best documentaries can do, the viewer is inexorably drawn into the story. "Amy" is a stunning achievement. Those who didn't know, or care about this woman's musical gifts and only followed her sad misadventures on the covers of supermarket tabloids cannot deny the artist she was.
Amy was a unique creature, a true jazz singer in an age of auto- tuned and manufactured pop stars. A gifted writer as well as a gifted singer, the high points of this film are watching the rare footage of Amy doing what she did best, singing. The conceit of showing her words on the screen as she sings was a brilliant move by the director. "Rehab", her best known work is revealed as a rather silly throwaway pop tune, ironically becoming the song that made her world-famous. The power of songs such as "Back in Black" and "Love is a Losing Game" are undeniable.
Two unsettling sequences emerge in the film's second half. One, watching Amy's unscrupulous husband Blake Fielder-Civil being interviewed at a restaurant. He's drunk and asks who's paying for the booze he's swilling since he's admitted that he's broke. He smirks and gestures at Amy, sitting a table away. The look he gives says it all. She's got the fame, attention, and money...but it's really all his. Chilling. The second sequence is Amy's last public appearance at a huge concert in Serbia. She's drunk and refuses to sing. The vast crowd goes from loving her to hating her in a heartbeat. It's impossible to look at her in the footage and not realize the end is very near. In a film that has a number of tear- inducing scenes, this is the one that finally got me. Amy is eaten alive and we all got to watch it. The rest is history.
At two hours, the film feels a little too long and covers the same ground a number of times. Other than that, this is really worth seeing. You don't have to be a fan of Amy's to understand what killed her. She came undone by both her personal demons and those who used her, when all she really wanted was to play music, her way.
Amy was a unique creature, a true jazz singer in an age of auto- tuned and manufactured pop stars. A gifted writer as well as a gifted singer, the high points of this film are watching the rare footage of Amy doing what she did best, singing. The conceit of showing her words on the screen as she sings was a brilliant move by the director. "Rehab", her best known work is revealed as a rather silly throwaway pop tune, ironically becoming the song that made her world-famous. The power of songs such as "Back in Black" and "Love is a Losing Game" are undeniable.
Two unsettling sequences emerge in the film's second half. One, watching Amy's unscrupulous husband Blake Fielder-Civil being interviewed at a restaurant. He's drunk and asks who's paying for the booze he's swilling since he's admitted that he's broke. He smirks and gestures at Amy, sitting a table away. The look he gives says it all. She's got the fame, attention, and money...but it's really all his. Chilling. The second sequence is Amy's last public appearance at a huge concert in Serbia. She's drunk and refuses to sing. The vast crowd goes from loving her to hating her in a heartbeat. It's impossible to look at her in the footage and not realize the end is very near. In a film that has a number of tear- inducing scenes, this is the one that finally got me. Amy is eaten alive and we all got to watch it. The rest is history.
At two hours, the film feels a little too long and covers the same ground a number of times. Other than that, this is really worth seeing. You don't have to be a fan of Amy's to understand what killed her. She came undone by both her personal demons and those who used her, when all she really wanted was to play music, her way.