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BACK TO BL ACK The Amy Winehouse story is one of a huge musical talent stopped in her tracks by misery and addiction. Will Lawrence talks to Asif Kapadia who has turned her life and death into a compellingly bleak documentary
D irector Asif Kapadia likes to play the outsider. From his very i rst feature, the critically acclaimed 2001 drama The Warrior, to his current production, an adaptation of the novel Ali and Nino, he’s travelled to far-l ung corners of the globe. The Warrior took him to northern India and the Himalayas; Ali and Nino sees him i lming in Azerbaijan. Even when working on the BAFTA-winning documentary Senna, which charted the life and death of the celebrated Brazilian F1 driver, he was immersed in a world he didn’t know.
The team behind Senna have now turned their talents to another documentary, this time on Amy Winehouse. Simply entitled Amy, the i lm has already caused a stir at the Cannes Film Festival and i nally brings Kapadia home to North London where he grew up.
‘I have made a lot of movies,’ begins the 43-year-old director. ‘But while I live in London, I usually make i lms abroad, far away from home, and I almost use that as a way to be an outsider looking into another world. I haven’t really made i lms in the UK. I feel very much a Londoner, though, and when [Senna producer] James Gay-Rees called me about an Amy Winehouse documentary, he caught me at the right time. I wanted to make a i lm that would explore not only a fascinating talent, but also the world in which she was raised.’ Amy Winehouse was born in Eni eld and grew up in North London’s Southgate, going on to become one of the most widely lauded singer- songwriters of the early 21st century (she won i ve Grammys) before
20 THE LIST 4 Jun–3 Sept 2015
drink and drugs brought her life to an early end. She died in 2011 aged just 27. As Kapadia’s i lm shows, Winehouse was undoubtedly a prodigiously talented musician, though her complicated personal life led her down a dark and harrowing path where she became tabloid fodder and, in certain media circles, a source of ridicule. ‘It was so easy and it was a cheap gag,’ he remarks. ‘Every country in the world was making fun of a girl who, essentially, had a mental illness.’
The i lm follows a similar format to Senna, relying solely on footage and eschewing ‘talking heads’ with interview content playing out over the pictures. But while the F1 i lm was full of love and light and – despite the tragedy that ended Senna’s life – positivity and hope, Amy is a darker and much more intense experience.
‘Senna’s life was very positive and he was surrounded by love,’ explains Kapadia. ‘But Amy’s story isn’t a happy one. There is a lot of darkness and that comes out in her and the way in which she expresses herself. You have to be honest to the subject, so this is a heavier i lm. Senna was treated like a god but Amy was treated as something from the gutter.’ Throughout the process, the i lmmakers had to ensure that their documentary did not simply regurgitate the controversy and pain that dogged Winehouse’s later life. ‘We didn’t want to make misery porn,’ says producer Gay-Rees, insisting that they had to i nd the light to contrast with the dark. Indeed, one of the i lm’s greatest successes is the joy it i nds during Winehouse’s early life, which is shown via