Amy (EOTWS)

End Of The Week Shorts #51 extract: Amy (2015)

A well-constructed documentary whose weight and punch lie entirely in its subject: Amy Winehouse. 

In putting together a chronology of Winehouse's career, Amy reveals a celebrity that was seemingly too human for her talent. Putting the meaning of her lyrics, the true events they describe, directly on the screen, this documentary allows her music to portray a picture of who she was before all else. Whilst we see private pictures and video, see her televised and public performances, there seems to be no better voice for Winehouse than her own. Depicting how she was tortured by the inevitable end she seemingly always saw coming, Amy is just as much about the shit storm that is celebrity as it is about the personal nightmare that it exacerbated. Whilst it's inspiring to see a musician so true to themselves, Winehouse's art when revealed for what it truly is disconnects more than it connects - and in an unspeakably melancholic way.