Amy Winehouse, Jazz Singer

Hello world! I, Arthur Gordon, am back once again to “Cross the Streams” with you, and this week, I wrap up my month long review of 2016 Oscar Contenders with a look at the lauded documentary, Amy – a look at the career of Amy Winehouse – which is available to stream over on Amazon Prime.But, before getting down to business, I want to remind everyone that you can see who wins the GoodTrash Media Oscar pool by joining us on February 28th, at 7PM CST on Twitch.TV as we LiveStream our Oscar Party. Also, if you’re a bit behind on the Oscar nominees, you can take a look at this nifty guide that we’ve put together to help get you up to speed. I now return you to our regularly scheduled programming with my take on Amy. 

The Oscars seem to enjoy music centered documentaries. In fact, two of this years nominees are centered around singers, jazz singers to be exact. A few weeks ago, I looked at What Happened, Miss Simone? which looked back at the life and career of Nina Simone. This week, I take a look at the life and tragic passing of Amy Winehouse. Both movies feature similar presentations – in fact, I think they play very well as companion pieces and focus on artists who didn’t necessarily set out to become famous in the manner that they did. Amy Winehouse, as presented here, never seems to be a woman fulfilling the dream of a little girl. She was looking to escape. Using archival footage, and voice over interviews, the documentary shows us that Amy wanted to set out on her own as soon as she could. Coming from a broken home, she sought a place to call her own, and her vocal abilities and artistic soul gave her the platform to be able to do so. The movie makes great use of personal footage taken by Amy and her friends.

It’s a peek behind the curtain of a girl who, like Nina Simone, faced many demons and they eventually caught up with her. Amy Winehouse had so much talent, but it never seemed like she was able to cope with the immense pressure on her shoulders. In a very telling moment, an interview that took place after her initial success shows her grappling with the ideas of celebrity, saying that the fans and public should just let her make more music, give her the chance because that’s what she’s good at. Amy is a fascinating study of fame and celebrity and how that affects people. It also challenges the audience, because it reminds us just how much we ask of our idols.

At the same time, the movie never tries to push blame off onto anyone else. It explores Amy’s own relationship with rehab, and they way she handled that. Out of the horses mouth, we hear different people reflect on the idea of whether or not they did enough to help her. At its core, Amy is a study of fame and celebrity and the destruction that that can lead to. Amy didn’t seek fame; fame found her. At heart, she was an artist, who was probably struggling with demons on some level – as I think we all do. However, it was the battle with celebrity that seemed to make those demons unbeatable. Even with friends and loved ones who supported her, success, awards, plaques, and millions of fans, Amy’s battle was one she couldn’t win.

The documentary is powerful. It allows for us to get to know Amy Winehouse. We’re with her before she was anybody. She was just a kid goofing off and singing happy birthday. We grow with her as her career unfolds. We get to see her stretch herself as an artist. When her name is announced as a winner at the Grammy’s, we’re swept up in the shock and awe of the moment. It’s a very well made film that’ll make you laugh and that’ll make you cry while never feeling manipulative. It is able to develop a connection between its audience and its subject which is where What Happened, Miss Simone? fails, I’d suggest. I think it also serves as a reminder that we should do two things. The first, is to respect people’s privacy; especially, those people who serve, work, or perform in high pressure jobs. Not necessarily celebrities, but anyone who has to deal with high amounts of pressure and stress from their job which may entail dealing with a mass of people. Secondly, I think it reminds us to take care of our brothers and sisters; to be on the lookout for warning signs that they’re dealing with issues that we may not normally see. It pushes us to take our relationships beyond the surface because that is where you’ll find the troubles. Very rarely will the troubles be on the surface.

Final Decree – 8.5/10 – Amy is a powerful warning of the dangers of celebrity, especially for those who may not necessarily be seeking it out. It does a wonderful thing by painting this picture of an ordinary girl thrust into an extraordinary world and not being able to cope with that. It’s a tragic story, that hard to watch at times because it reminds us of the way we made fun of Amy Winehouse’s pain. When she couldn’t perform, when her tours failed, when rehab couldn’t help – she became the butt of a joke that everyone was laughing at, except her. And that is when this movie is firing on all cylinders, it raises that mirror up and forces us to look at it. Because, in the case of fame and celebrity it most certainly takes two to tango.

Well there you have it my loyal reader, my last look at the Oscar contenders of 2016. 2015 was a really solid year for film. We had a number of good blockbusters, high concept films, indie offerings, foreign affairs, and shorts. 2015 may go down as a stand out year that ranks with 1999 and 2008. I hope that over the last few weeks I have provided plenty of new offerings for you to check out. Whether they were serious, such as Amy,  or silly, like last week’s Fifty Shades of Grey, there are so many options for striking up conversations about culture and humanity. Plus, 2015 may go down as the year that my man, the Osk, became a silver screen phenomenon.

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