Asif Kapadia’s 90-minute documentary on Amy Winehouse confirms the age old notion that watching self-destruction is like catnip for humans. We love to watch the rise but we even more we love to watch the fall. It’s big business and somehow has become a normal part of our daily lives. Though Winehouse’s legacy has long been tied to her drug use and sudden death, this doc will likely bring back the reasons most fell in love with her in the first place: that voice.
She was a brilliant musician, songwriter and singer. Brilliant is not an exaggeration in her case. She was gifted with vocal range, a unique interest in jazz singers, and that unteachable ability to connect deeply with the music. Her songs seemed to come from a dark place, one that Winehouse had never inhabited. She didn’t come from tragedy. She was never abused. She wasn’t mistreated by men. Her only real problem was addiction – to food, which led to lifelong bulimia that probably killed her, drugs (of course), alcohol and men.
This was part of what held back Winehouse’s ultimate acceptance as a true jazz singer. She was singing about stuff she couldn’t possibly have lived. She was fine as a pop star but would she ever join the ranks of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Tony Bennett and Nina Simone? This documentary makes a good case that she very likely will and should.
Spend enough time with addicts and you quickly realize that life as it is won’t do. It’s too boring. When your brain is addicted to the very highs you can’t tolerate the middle for very long. Winehouse’s addictions were more important to her than anything else, even her dedication to music and her will to survive. She was warned again and again but nothing could really stop her.
At one point she admits that life is boring without drugs. Her husband Blake is the one many accused of leading to her downfall, as he introduced her to crack and heroin. She wanted to keep him and he wanted to keep her money which gave him a steady supply of drugs and the good life. Once he was out of her life, however, it was still hard for her to maintain any kind of healthy life. It wasn’t that she couldn’t — it was that she didn’t want to.
Director Kapadia seems to want it both ways. We’re meant to see Winehouse demise as a tragedy yet she doesn’t have the kind of miserable upbringing someone like Marilyn Monroe had. She didn’t come from extreme poverty like Elvis Presley. The worst thing that ever happened to her was her mother putting her on anti-depressants when she was a teenager. Whether that helped opened the door for the continual need to zone out is up for debate. As it stands, she is more along the lines of Jim Morrison — someone to whom most things came way too fast and way too easy. Morrison has easily slipped into the legend zone, with no lingering negative feelings about his drug use.
Other than bearing witness to her downfall, the documentary does provide footage of Winehouse singing. It’s also a relief to see video of her being a normal teenager. She was funny and she didn’t much care what anyone thought of her. Even when she was hounded by photographers and her tragedy was splayed out for all to see in the tabloids she continued not to care. She wasn’t interested in fame, nor in having people like her. She was very simple in what she was — someone who liked to make music and someone who liked to get high.
In the end, the film goes on a little too long about someone who just wasn’t all that interesting beyond what she could do with her voice. She was so young when she hit it big she didn’t really have time to become someone interesting. As Tony Bennett says at some point in the film, “life tells you how to live it if you can stick around long enough.” Winehouse would have become someone interesting. Who knows what great things she might have done. Her withering body, her drunken antics, her loser boyfriends all eclipsed that undeniable talent. But perhaps it’s time for that story to change.
