Amy (2015)

Archival footage and personal testimonials present an intimate portrait of the life and career of British singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse.

Director:

Asif Kapadia

Stars:

Amy Winehouse, Mitch Winehouse, Mark Ronson

Won 1 Oscar. Another 50 wins & 44 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Amy Winehouse	...	Herself (archive footage)
Lauren Gilbert	...	Herself
Juliette Ashby	...	Herself
Nick Shymansky	...	Himself
Tyler James	...	Himself
Guy Moot	...	Himself
Chris Taylor	...	Himself (archive footage)
Nick Gatfield	...	Himself
Ian Barter	...	Himself (archive footage)
Garry Mulholland	...	Himself (archive footage)
Jonathan Ross	...	Himself (archive footage)
Janis Winehouse	...	Herself
Mitch Winehouse	...	Himself (as Mitchell Winehouse)
Sam Beste	...	Himself
Bobby Womack	...	Himself (archive footage)

Storyline

A documentary on the life of Amy Winehouse, the immensely talented yet doomed songstress. We see her from her teen years, where she already showed her singing abilities, to her finding success and then her downward spiral into alcoholism and drugs.

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Plot Keywords:

drugs | montage | soul music | absent father | pot smoking | 

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Taglines:

A heartbreaking journey. A ground breaking motion picture.

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Genres:

Documentary | Biography | Music

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language and drug material

Details

Official Sites:

A24 [United States] Altitude [United Kingdom]

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

3 July 2015 (USA)

Also Known As:

Amy (la chica detrás del nombre)

Filming Locations:

London, England, UK

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$1,780,000, 10 July 2015, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$8,413,144

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$23,778,585

Company Credits

Production Co:

Film4,On The Corner Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

128 min

Color:

Color Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Amy Winehouse's immediate family were initially willing to work with the film's producers and director, having heard about the success of their earlier documentary, Senna (2010). They granted the filmmakers access to hours of archive footage of Amy and her family, as well as giving the filmmakers' their blessing to interview Amy's family and friends. However, they - in particular, Amy's father, Mitch Winehouse - soon began to feel they were being misrepresented in the documentary, that the negative aspects of Amy's life were receiving much more attention than the positive, and that footage had been edited in order to produce an inaccurate narrative of Amy's story, especially the last three years of her life. Mitch Winehouse has said that Amy's fans should consider seeing the film for the rare, previously unseen, archive footage of his daughter, but should pay no attention to the film's general portrayal of her, which he has labeled "preposterous". Even after the film was nominated for an Academy Award as 'Best Documentary', Mitch Winehouse tweeted on 14 Jan. 2016: "Still hate the film though."

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Goofs

Instead of putting Amy's Belgrade concert, filmmakers made mistake and the big zoom out was concert of Jelena Karleusa, Serbian pop/folk singer and not Amy's.

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Quotes

Amy Winehouse: I don't think I'm going to be at all famous. I don't think I could handle it. I'd probably go mad, do you know what I mean? I would go mad.

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Connections

Referenced in Late Night with Seth Meyers: Danny DeVito/Whitney Cummings/The Front Bottoms/Josh Freese (2016)

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Soundtracks

Wake Up Alone
Written by Amy Winehouse, Paul Staveley O'Duffy
Performed by Amy Winehouse at Eden Project, Cornwall, 2007
Published by EMI Music Publishing Ltd / Imagem Music
Amy Winehouse appears courtesy of Island Records

User Reviews

Back to Black

I saw this at the NXNE festival in Toronto last night. The movie was quite long, I must admit I was exhausted when I left. Not in a negative way, but overwhelmed at everything I had seen. The director had a lot of material to give us and he didn't hold back. The scene that I found the most powerful was the one in the recording studio with Tony Bennett, it was pure magic. I can't say that I followed Amy Winehouse, or was very familiar with her work, other than the song 'Rehab'. I did love her hairdo, it reminded me of the Ronettes. I am always fascinated by artists and how they develop.

We get a close up of Amy's artistic process. Her power was in her ability to constantly come up with song material that resonated with her at the deepest level and put those words to music. Combine this with a unaffected personality and an amazing ability to connect with an audience and you have a true force of nature. On the negative side, she had to deal with her personal daemons from her childhood. The tragedy was her use of drugs and alcohol. One gets the feeling from the movie of an almost inevitability of her path, but I guess that is always debatable.