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A new film about the singer is causing waves
Here at heat, we don’t throw the word “icon” around with abandon, but there’s one person who really does deserve the moniker: Amy Winehouse.
And as such, it was only a matter of time before a biopic was made about her.
In recent years, we’ve seen a wave of film dramatisations focusing on musicians, such as Bob Marley: One Love; Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody; Rocketman, about Elton John; and Bohemian Rhapsody, spotlighting Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. And while all were successful, they also each garnered criticism. One Love was called “highly sanitised”, while I Wanna Dance With Somebody was accused of not focusing enough on Whitney’s personal life.
For Back To Black – the Amy Winehouse biopic released in two weeks – however, the opposite seems to be true. In early January, after images emerged of Marisa Abela as a distraught Amy reacting to aggressive paparazzi and the arrest of her partner Blake Fielder-Civil (played by Jack O’Connell), fans took to social media to question the film’s sensitivity. One user called the scenes “f*cking revolting”, while another wrote, “Can we all agree to ignore this movie when it comes out?”.
Questions have also been raised over whether it’s too soon to make a film about Amy, considering that it’s only been 13 years since the star tragically passed away from alcohol poisoning at the age of 27, on 23 July 2011. Amy famously struggled in the spotlight, dealing with both drug and alcohol addictions, a problematic relationship with video producer Blake, and a lifelong battle with the eating disorder bulimia. So, anyone willing to tell Amy’s story would have to tread carefully – there’s a lot of love for the down-to-earth singer songwriter out there.
THROUGH HER EYES
It wasn’t without caution therefore that Sam Taylor-Johnson and Matt Greenhalgh took on the roles of director and screenwriter respectively. They worked together on another musical biopic – Nowhere Boy about a teenage John Lennon – back in 2009, and Sam had a personal link to the material from the outset, having seen one of Amy’s first live performances. In a recent interview, she revealed, “I was at [London Jazz Club] Ronnie Scott’s and it was a new talent night. [Amy] was just singing, without looking up and engaging, and she just looked so pure. It was an expression of pure soul.”
The narrative of Back To Black, told from Amy’s point of view, introduces the eventual award-winner as she breaks into the music industry with her debut album Frank at the age of just 20. The film then follows her devastatingly short caree
