The documentary Amy, which was about Amy Winehouse, started with Amy being born to a Jewish family in North London and how her life and music career developed leading both to her fame and destruction. The documentary included lots of “home-made” video clips of Amy at various times in her life, along with her music and the stories behind what inspired her to write these songs. The movie depicts how Amy being so young and talented became famous rapidly and how she could not handle the fame. It was so sad to see how being addicted to alcohol and drugs were preventing her from going further in her career (and more selfishly, preventing her from creating more of the beautiful music she was capable of). Of course, at the source of all of this was the clearly dysfunctional family life Amy experienced as a child, her tortured relationship with her Mom, and her relationship with her Dad who seemed to have a strong desire to ride on Amy’s fame for his own gain. The resulting deep depression, her destructive relationship with her long-time boyfriend who was also heavily dependent on drugs, and her inability to deal with all the attention and pressures that come along with fame, seem to have created a perfect storm for her sad demise. The abuse her body had taken from all the drugs and alcohol made her quite fragile, so even though at times she got closer to being “clean”, any slip ups put her in grave danger. Unfortunately, there are too many cases where fame and fortune end up having quite a negative impact ultimately leading to an individual’s demise and too often early death. Although the movie was quite sad as you watch the demise of a young and extremely talented woman, it was great to listen again to Amy’s songs such as “Rehab” and “Stronger than Me” and learn more about her life and what motivated those songs.

Before Thursday, I really didn’t know much about Amy Winehouse. I remember the media coverage when she died, but I hadn’t listened to her music or followed her story -I was simply too young.

The documentary changed all of that. Amy Winehouse was an absolutely incredible person.

The cinematic work followed Amy Winehouse from the age of 14 to her death at 27. She had an amazing voice, a true passion for jazz, and wisdom beyond her years according to those closest to her. She was a raging alcoholic and drug abuser, as well as a daddy’s girl. She hated the paparazzi more than almost anything and the media destroyed her concept of relationships. I didn’t know any of this information, but I could have without having seen any documentaries at all. Everything that ever happened to her is in her music, a rare thing for today’s music.

Her music is the heart wrenching and real and horrifying and beautiful, but was it worth her life? Because it was eventually her music that destroyed her. She couldn’t handle and didn’t want the fame, despite the immense wealth it brought her. She wanted to sing – not be stalked by paparazzi. The fame caused her to become an alcoholic and drug abuser, along with being bulimic and in a very unhealthy relationship with her eventual husband. She needed rehab, but she “aint got the time” and her “daddy thinks” she’s fine. She became an symbol of fame that her dad and husband weren’t willing to relinquish long enough to get her help.

The most unfair thing about her life was how the paparazzi and media used her over and over again. They relentlessly tore after her and not even death ended it. The documentary was heavy with the message ‘the media killed her,’ but yet they created even more media about her after her death. She was taken advantage of in the grave as her father, husband, and ‘close’ friends undoubtedly profited making videos about her. The documentary itself is a sham and deserves no recognition.

For those of you now interested in Amy Winehouse, I beg you – Let Amy rest in peace. Just listen to her music and you’ll know everything that Amy was at all the points of her life, no media needed. I’ve inserted a few of my personal favorite songs below.

Last week, when I saw the Amy Winehouse documentary, when I saw her life torn to shreds through the eye of a lens, I felt guilt.

That may be a strange feeling, me having played no part in her demise, having been only familiar with only a few of her songs pre-movie experience. But let me explain.

The movie is set up in a way in that you first see home videos of young Amy, singing Happy Birthday with her belly voice, carefree. You watch as she gradually gains fame, see her performing in jazz clubs, see her on talk shows, see her build momentum as an artist. See all her optimism, but also all her self doubt. Then, you watch her fall in love, have her heart broken, have all her pains displayed for the world to see. You watch her battle her drug habit, you watch the people she loves manipulating her, leaving her; you watch her win, lose, win, lose again. Until all her battles have been fought, and you watch her body as it is carried out of her mansion in a bag, lifeless.

The thing about this documentary is that it is invasive. Sure, okay, she’s dead. Sure, okay, someone, somewhere, signed some contract and all the clips featured are fine and legal. But you can even see, as the movie progresses, that the video clips of her life become a nuisance to her. She is no longer the happy teen singing Happy Birthday to the camera. The videos are no longer home videos. They are videos taken by the paparazzi, by people who are strangers to her. Even when using videos shot by her father and his crew, she expresses distress. She does not want them there. In all our attempts to get closer, as we try to catch a more intimate glimpse of her life, we somehow grow farther from her with each step.

Until finally, we realize. We are still invading her life. Here we are watching a documentary about her, thinking we are respecting her, understanding her, but in reality, the movie is an antithesis of itself.

Amy Winehouse went off the deep end because of how centered she was in the eye of the public. She was attacked, exploited, in a feeding frenzy in which we were the predators and she was the prey. And even after her death, we are still watching her, still judging her, still preying.

I heard small bits of Amy Winehouse’s music growing up, but like many people, my main association with her has never been her songs. Tabloid photos of her staring back at me under a headline that had something to do with drugs popped into my head whenever I thought of her before last week.

As often happens after learning more about a person, I felt horrible for Amy once I had heard her story. What struck me the most was that she was aware from a young age that fame would probably unravel her – the film included a recording of her saying, when she was very young, that if she ever thought she was actually famous she would “go crazy”. That context made watching paparazzi crowd her on the street or her father bring camera crews to her vacation spot much more difficult. Seeing her advance through her career when we knew the end of her story was powerful. I was struck by how even once she had died, the media and the public wouldn’t leave her alone – they carried her body out her front door, with a crowd and cameras gathered right next door.

We often talk about how judging someone immediately upon meeting them is wrong, but we forget that celebrities are people too, and they’re subjected daily to the snap judgements of millions of people. Somehow the idea of considering what might be going on under the surface (or giving people the benefit of the doubt) doesn’t always apply when you’re famous. It’s easy to see why this would be so devastating to someone like Amy, who was a little on the shy side and didn’t want the vast majority of the attention she received. I hadn’t though much about this until watching this documentary, so I’m glad I had the opportunity to see it and gain a better understanding of such a talented artist.

The documentary Amy exceeded my expectations. Going in, I thought it would be an overly produced show emphasizing only her drug use. While it did heavily focus on her downward spiral, it refreshingly described and showed her youth. The home videos of her as a child and teenager demonstrated her innocence and pure love for singing jazz, which is all she wanted to do. The progression of events are undoubtedly sad after she gets noticed by a record label company. Although her romantic relationships also took a heavy toll on her, I think the film emphasized that it was a large combination of both dealing with heartache and being thrown into the spotlight in an unhealthy way. I found it interesting that, although she wanted to be successful, the type of success that found her only unfortunately eventually led to her untimely death.

Amy Winehouse’s passion and commitment were also significantly emphasized in the film. She repeatedly remarked that all she wanted to do was be a well-known jazz singer. The fact that she wrote all of her own songs really resonated with me. In this day and age, a vast majority of popular artists have their music written for them. I feel that this undermines the whole purpose of music, which is to express yourself. Although her broken heart and drug addiction were the main inspirations for many of her songs, she still managed to beautifully and understandably express her complicated and unique feelings. Although, in my opinion, she tried to use music as a sort of therapy, it was very unfortunate that she didn’t have a support system of the necessary strength to help her get into rehab sooner and stay there longer. I think she might still be alive today if she had had much stronger support, which is very sad to think about. I think anyone in general deserves a strong support system, let alone someone with mental health issues and a drug addiction. Because of this, the documentary affirmed to me that, because everyone is going through their own difficult issues, it is only worth being nice and helpful towards others, as it could help them more than we could potentially know.

As a self-proclaimed connoisseur of music, I rarely pay attention to artists that have too much spotlight on them. There is a specific lack of authenticity once an artist is relegated via a monetary tag. Once an artist becomes popular, they lose the ability to have a say over their craft and they are asked to make one thing above all – money. Despite my youth when Amy was big, I never paid attention to her. Everyone listened to that one song that made her famous (Rehab) and that was all I knew Amy for.

I’m sorry Amy…

Whether it was your story or the director of the film, the movie theater was quieter than ever. Not because nobody was making any types of sound, but because you handed me, through your lyrics of poetic masterpieces I have never heard before, the vivid pictures you painted filled all my senses.

A truly touching and tragic story about someone that was meant to be great, but not famous. Amy I have added you to a list of selected artists. I listen to you now unaware of your mainstream popularity and I push past the studio version of your songs and go straight to the live performances – where you shined for a small group of people, but crumbed under the crowd.

I miss the artist you could’ve became, I miss the artist you were. I never knew you, but I met you today at Cornell’s Cinema – just me and you and no one else and you left my heart wrenched and broken. A brokenness only your music has mended.  A brokenness only your lyrics can glue.

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.

Seeing Amy was a pretty good way to spend time in the lull preceding Fall Break.  Before I go any further, a general public service announcement: Cornell Cinema is awesome and more people should take advantage on it.  I typically go at least once a month and I can’t recommend it enough.  Cool theater, cheap tickets, good film selection.  Check it out. (Disclaimer: I don’t work for the Cinema.  Really.)

As for the documentary that we saw on Thursday night, Amy was a really interesting look into the life of a superstar who suffered a tragically common fate.  I thought that the documentary started out slowly at first as it laid out the exposition for Amy Winehouses’s rise to fame.  The thing that I appreciated most in this part was a greater understanding of her musical roots.  As a musician, hearing her perform jazz as a teenager really sheds light on the motifs and stylings that she would later work into her pop hits.  And of course, while it’s not the most entertaining to watch, this exposition is necessary to show how she really was just a sweet kid at heart–making her death that much more tragic.

The latter part of the documentary depicts her struggle with drugs and alcohol.  While this section moves much more forcefully, it’s much more in line with the typical story of a person who struggles with the limelight. This makes the overall focus of the film not so much about a particularly devastating period of time for one women, but rather about the innocence that was lost on the way.

I thought that I knew and loved art. Turns out, I didn’t know it too well. Amy was an amazing piece of art, from the artist whose life we viewed through a secret lens, to the actual production of an untold story.

So often the media does, unfortunately, an excellent job at portraying celebrities to be villains, drug users, and anything else that separates them from seeming human. This highlights the importance of celebrities’ voices being heard, and their abilities to tell their own stories, with their mistakes, rationale, and moments of growth.

In this film, James Gay-Rees (Producer), Asif Kapadia (Director), and their entire team, did a phenomenal job telling Amy Winehouse’s story – it was almost as if she had put it together herself. Her story was told through many paradoxes – art, love, abuse (in its many forms). Nonetheless, you felt her. It felt like a conversation was had between an individual audience member and Amy, as so much of the footage was home videos and interviews.

What I love most about art is that no one piece, only tells one story. Every piece is layered with stories, and so was Amy. The film told the story of the star, her mother, her father, her close friends, her boyfriend, her bodyguard, her managers, and so much more. Even though the film didn’t tell their life stories as it did for Amy Winehouse, it gave perspective into their stories, and their relations to Amy.

With art that you’ve really engaged with, you cannot walk away the same. You have some new thought, new feeling, or something else. When I walked away from this masterpiece of art, I walked away knowing Amy Winehouse, knowing what specific pains could lead to, and thinking about society’s role in the destruction of good people.

It began with music.

The camera focuses in on a bunch of teenage girls in Southgate, documenting a sleepover, joyful and unworried. Amy, though vastly different in face and stature, opens her mouth, trills and riffs emerging as casual and easy as breathing. Here, we catch a glimpse of her musical prowess even at the tender age of 14.

The scene cuts to some early videos of Amy with her friends, showing a playfulness and kindness which had never been displayed by the media. We then see Amy at her audition with Island Records, singing her self written song “I heard love is blind”. Here, we see someone yet untainted by the poison of fame, someone with a love of music pure as the fourteen-year-old girl who sang during that sleepover.

That someone would never be again. Though funny in many places and beautifully composed, there was an omnipresent sense of foreboding during the entirety of the documentary. We know how Amy Winehouse died, it was only a matter of waiting for the scene to appear on the screen. The backstories, combined with Anthony Pinto’s penchant for nostalgia-inducing music, left me with a sinking feeling in my stomach during the whole movie. I’ve followed Amy’s musical journey since Frank, from her girlish tones on “Cherry” and jazz riffs on “Know You Now” to her more mature sound on Back to Black.

For me, when I think of Amy Winehouse, I don’t think of the drugs or the addiction. I think of the talent which was stolen too soon. I think of the jazz spirit which manifested itself within someone so young. I think of the voice of soul, so rare in nowadays music industry, which was extinguished far too early. I don’t think of the drugs, because that was a separate person. When watching Amy perform, it was evident that there were two major separate identities within her that battled for dominance. There was the young, rebellious girl who loved nothing except music and music alone, thinking of nothing except of bringing soul and jazz back to the modern music industry. This girl took crap from no one and allowed no one to boss her around. Then, there was the media-constructed, peer-molded Amy. This version of Amy was born of a mother too weak to enforce rules and a father absent from his family. Her desire for her father’s approval caused her to revert to childishness as an adult, becoming unable to make her own decisions, always seeking guidance from her father or her string of boyfriends.

When I think of Amy Winehouse, I think of the first girl, because that’s the one I believe was the real Amy. Her very last recording was “Body and Soul” with Tony Bennett, a jazz icon and one of Amy’s biggest idols. I believe that Amy knew she couldn’t last much longer under the feeding frenzy that her life had become under the influence of the media and her money-hungry father. She knew her time was coming to a close, which is why it was so fitting that this recording–an iconic jazz classic, sung with an iconic jazz singer–was her last. Her story began with music, and in the end, it ended with music.

I see her stumble onto the stage, and sit down with her back to the cheering crowd while she pulls off her high heels. I see her face, tired and empty as she turns to a mic but doesn’t start singing, even as the music blares out and waits for her response. The screams and whistles turn to jeers as she stands before them, a skeletal girl with big hair and a shiny gold dress who refuses to give them even the smallest part of her. This is the point from which I can see the rest of her life. From here, I can trace the path to her ending-a red body bag shoved into an ambulance.

Walking into the theater, I had no more than a vague idea of who Amy Winehouse had been. The ‘Rehab’ girl– a bold, loud-mouthed drug addict. The documentary did not reject my assumption. However, it also revealed a vulnerable, emotionally unstable human being. She was plagued by mental illness and drug addiction, and seeing it from such a personal point of view made the media’s mocking response to her problems despicable. At the same time, seeing the addiction destroy her was frustrating and painful. When Amy finally got clean and won her Grammy, an event that should have been one of the most exciting of her entire career, she turned to her friend and told her “This is so boring without drugs”. The singer began showing up to concerts too high or drunk to perform. Her behavior was blatantly self-destructive, and her end was sadly predictable: her heart stopped after drinking too much alcohol.

But I don’t view this as her personal failure. Not only was she in the grip of addiction, but she unfortunately did not have someone to help her through it– to say ‘no’ for her, to be the willpower that serious addiction takes from a person. She was a victim of the misguided belief that addicts’ recovery should be their own responsibility and their suffering is their own fault, without even considering what drove them to drugs to begin with.

I remember hearing the song, “Back to Black” a few years ago and all I thought about this song was that it had a good melody and Amy Winehouse had sung it perfectly with her exceptional vocal talent. However, I discovered there was much more behind Amy Winehouse’s songs after watching the Amy Documentary last Thursday. Amy Winehouse’s songs were all very successful and received high acclaims. Yet, these acclaims were built upon the expressions of the singer’s sad emotion. Amy Winehouse suffered serious depression due to her parents’ separation and her her dad’s negligence of her. Writing songs and singing to songs were the only ways besides drug and alcohol abuse to keep herself distracted from the depression that she suffered. It was very heartbreaking when I found out that Amy Winehouse never wanted or cared about any of the success because she felt apathetic towards everything due to her depression. She recognized her collapsed mental state too late; she asked for help too late and she received treatment too late. Therefore, she lost the battle to depression and went “back to black” and eventually died from poisoning.

This documentary did not only show me in-depth the emotion behind Amy Winehouse’s song, but it also raised my awareness towards depression. Sometimes, I have friends around me who always seem to stress out due to school. Most often, I think it is a phase that everyone goes through and just tell them that everything is going to be alright. However, through this documentary, I realize that I should not be selfish with stating my supports. People who are depressed may be hiding their emotions, and others may hardly notice they are depressed. We should always give our strongest support to others when they seem to be upset. We should do everything we can to make sure that everyone can stay mentally healthy and need not to suffer like Amy Winehouse did.

Last Thursday we discussed discrepancy of gender differences in all types of media outlets. The first thing we discussed was sexism in the novel industry. Studies have shown the books with male leads produce more awards and are more of what the general audience “wants”. While books with female perspective are given significantly less awards. This carried on into sexism in the film industry. We discussed the difference in the amount of success films with male leads and those with female leads. Of course those with male leads were more successful and perceived to tell a more universal story. The attractiveness in casting a white male perpetuates the stereotype that being a white male is the only way a person can be human. In other words, we have been indoctrinated that the white male’s story is the only relatable story that can be told. Which is apparent in the lack of women and minority lead films.

Next, we eventually moved onto the topic of minorities on TV. Many people brought up the advances there have been in the TV industry, which has been much easier to achieve than film industry. I believe it is because the film industry is less versatile than the TV industry. As a result, shows like Empire, How to Get Away with Murder, Scandal, and Fresh of the Boat have been doing well with their minority lead cast. However, there is still can be improvements made in general as shows such as the Bad Girls’ Club, Love and Hip Hop, Basketball Wives’ etc still portray women, especially black women in a negative light. Hopefully, in a couple of years they playing field will be even and there will be more of the former type of shows than the latter when it comes to minorities.

On July 11, 2004, one of the world’s greatest artists died on account of alcohol poisoning that caused her heart to stop. It is sad that when most people hear the name Amy Winehouse, they think of some artist that threw away their gift by allowing drugs and alcohol to consume their life. Early on, Amy had a difficult upbringing; her mother, Janis Winehouse, never took on a parental role and raised Amy and her siblings all on her own. Her father, Mitchell Winehouse, left their family when Amy was young; her parents divorce and the lack of her father’s presence would impact Amy’s future relationships in ways that ultimately consumed her life. She moved out of her home at age sixteen as soon as she got offered a deal to perform at various bars and night venues throughout London. Basically, this extremely talented young jazz singer had the potential to be great, but without a mature adult figure in her life to keep her on the straight path it was short lived. She had to define various elements of her life on her own and was always influenced by the people she loved, which was everyone, even if they did not benefit her in any way.

After watching the movie AMY at Cornell Cinema this past Thursday, it really caused me to reflect on the life one leads when they are considered famous. From the very beginning, not only did Amy say that she did not see herself being sucked into the pop culture of the time, but she also said that her passion and greatest talent was “doing the music” and no other aspect of her life came close to being as important as that. It seemed like all of a sudden, Amy was an extremely popular figure – especially after her song Rehab came out – and every second of her life needed to be recorded and shared with the world. The amount of pressure that fell on this incredibly talented, humble, love seeking girl was just unbelievable.

She fell in love with a man named Blake Fielder and their love was toxic, passionate, and harmful. They met at a night club that he ran and to her he became the world; she would have done anything for this man. After meeting him, Amy feel into hard drugs such as cocaine, crack cocaine, and heroine, on top of being an alcoholic, and because of her petite body and lifestyle choices, these items all had detrimental affects on her career and loved ones. It is sad that this girl was looking for love and affection from anyone who would give it to her, and ultimately gave up on the idea of happiness and the hope that she would one day escape all the pressures that were put on her. Never before have I listened to a truer, unique vocalist perform her own jazz songs with the amount of emotion to her work as Amy Winehouse did. She will always be remembered and her story will serve as a warning to fame seekers for a very long time.