A film critic who is not a literary youth, but a pure passerby

Brett 2022-10-30 09:28:47

I didn't know much about Amy Winehouse before, at best I've heard Valerie, Rehab, Back to Black, and I can't really appreciate jazz. I went to the cinema one weekend to watch this documentary. Because I don't have enough emotion to write a beautiful movie review right now, I just recall some details and feelings in small paragraphs.

1) I didn't know much about her songs before, but obviously her songs are based on her personal experience. Many of the stories about her experience in the film are connected by her songs, and the lyrics are closely linked with her experience. She said she doesn't write non-personal lyrics, but she also doesn't have endless sadness in the lyrics, which ends abruptly at some point.
2) When AMY first debuted, her personality was free and easy, and she made no secret of it. When she was on the talk show, the host teased her about her common accent. AMY teased that she was brought to do accent correction but it was useless. She was full of personality during the interview, and she couldn't hide her impatient face when the interviewer babbled about DIDO, which was popular all over Europe at the time, and here is one of the few laughs.
3) In the beginning, she was very enthusiastic about music. In the interview, she bluntly said that she didn't want to care about other things that have nothing to do with music. She just wanted to go to the studio to make music and write an album. Her royal pianist said: she has the purest relation with music, she needs music like she needs someone.
4) Although she became famous later, she was not polluted by the big dye vat and changed to another person. Throughout, her best friends were the two female companions she had grown up with since childhood. They also cared about AMY from beginning to end, but due to a series of blocking factors such as the management team, they could not pull her away from the final abyss.
5) Because of the lack of fatherly love since childhood, when AMY was able to have a close relationship with her father because of her career success, she could still see that she was full of dependence on her father. However, Mitchell Winehouse did not play a positive role in the whole process. He said that it is AMY's own business whether to go to rehab or not, and he should not be in charge of it. When his daughter was relaxing in Essex, he came to visit and brought the footage of the reality show. . .
6) In the last year of her life, the torment of drugs on her was shocking, and the film used a slow-play photo of her when she was on drugs. In the picture, her eyes were hollow and she looked like a skeleton. At this time, she had to face the overwhelming harassment from the media. In the last few months, the only person she could chat with was her bodyguard.
7) Her last public performance [the last performance in the film, please correct me if there is any discrepancy with the actual performance], she was in a trance and very helpless. Hugs, communicates with the band's players, but just can't perform. The audience was full of boos and sing-or-money chants, as she went from Grammy-famous jazz diva to Comedy Club comedian.
8) After the tour was cancelled, she cried and called her friends and said I fucked up this time. Until her death, she still longed for the opportunity to come back and get her crumbling career back on track. Her sudden death was a helpless stop.
9) I was sitting in the front row of the theater watching a movie, and when there was overwhelming media chasing the flashing spotlight, I couldn't open my eyes in front of the screen, and I could feel her helplessness slightly.
10) Cherish life and stay away from drugs and scumbags.

I probably won't like AMY WINEHOUSE because of this film, but her image in my heart will become three-dimensional from now on. The film is told from an objective point of view, without exaggerating her talents or attacking the characters who contributed to her eventual departure, but the audience has their own set. This is the fall of a genius. At the end of the abyss of death, there is a legend that will not be erased.

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Extended Reading

Amy quotes

  • Yasiin Bey: I became aware of Amy in 2004. I'm a big jazz fan and I really liked what she was doing. I thought it was unique, I thought it was edgy. And sincere. And that's the thing I like most about Amy. She didn't have any airs. She was real... She was just a charming, sweet lady. I had a bit of a crush on her, to be honest. She was raw, she was fast with a blue joke, could drink anybody under the table, wasn't afraid to roll a smoke. Had a big, giant laugh, and was just a sweetheart, you know?

  • Amy Winehouse: Success to me is not success to the record company or whoever. Success to me is having the freedom to work with whoever I want to work with, to always be able to go to the studio when I have to go to the studio... I think the more people see of me, the more they'll realize that all I'm good for is making tunes. So leave me alone and I'll do it. I will do the music. I just need time to do the music.