Last Thursday was probably one of the heaviest days I’ve had at Cornell. I watched the documentary on Amy Winehouse, and it was actually quite different from my expectations. I had never really known too much about her prior to watching the movie–basically, I knew she was an incredible singer and that she had some drug problems.

What I found so interesting about this documentary, and what probably made it that much more impacting, was that the none of the movie included high-definition Hollywood reenactments. It was almost entirely low-quality clips and pictures from cell phone cameras played in sequence. This gave the movie so much more of a realistic quality. So despite the fact that she is known for being an incredibly famous musician, she is just another person at the core.

Another important point I’d like to make is that the movie focused so much more on her passion for music than he drug problem. I was expecting to sit in a 90 minute film about the slow degradation of a once brilliant star as a result of an increasing addiction to drugs. However, the movie focused so much more on her social relationships and her love for singing. The end of the movie, essentially her death, came as quite a surprise because there was so little discussion of the cause for it. This may have the effect of paralleling to her family’s perception of her rather than the twisted media portrayal–they saw her as a loved one with an incredible talent and drive, slowly being pulled away by negative relationships.