Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back To Black’ Biopic
Amy Winehouse, the UK’s most precious artist who left an everlasting mark on the world's heart. Realness and rawness poured out through her art, connecting all human emotions together to share the same feelings, traumas, and experiences.. But when would the media let the art breathe on its own? Celebrities are always chased by cameras and the press, leading to common states of depression and anxiety but in Amy’s case, it goes much deeper. Reflecting all of her true self and life into her songs, allowed a wall to break between Amy and her audience, flooding in a whirl-wind of questions and observations about her life. There was an extremely blurred line between her privacy and her art as the audience never felt such closeness and relatability with an artist/celebrity to a human level which created an obsession with her ‘niche’. As much as it is nice to see an artist be transparent with her life as she walks, singing about hardships, her life events were not enjoyable for the artist herself.
It is widely known about Amy’s battle with substances and alcohol, a touchy subject that consumed the thoughts around her name when spoken aloud. What some people fail to recognise, is the strength Amy had to channel her feelings into art that makes her feel powerful. This is the problem that concerns me when a film based on Amy’s life is produced. It is frightening to think that the stigma around her usage is the only topic that comes to mind when thinking of her and her songs despite the barriers broken and paths created by Amy Winehouse.
The film that we are going to be discussing today, is a biopic called ‘Back To Black’. Usually on InbetweenTheirLines, we do not engage and promote the artist’s personal issues, we focus on the art. In Amy’s case, her music was heavily influenced by what was real to her in her life, so real life events would have to be mentioned throughout this blog. We understand and acknowledge the sensitivity on this matter, we will be analysing from the angle of the films plot and depiction of Amy, questioning whether this biopic is ethical or appreciative.
Critics had loads of negative criticism towards the director and the lead actress. The director, Sam Taylor-Johnson broke records for female directors with the commercially successful film, ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’, earning a BAFTA nomination and other multiple awards. Her first directorial film was ‘Nowhere Boy’ in 2009, which was a biopic on John Lennon’s early life. According to google and Far Out Magazine, Critics have pointed out that she does not focus on the details of his music career, solo or when he was in the Beetles, rather more on his character behind the fame. If the film’s angle was to show how this artist's reality and character was behind the fame, it could be digestible in that sense. However, with a sensitive and fairly recent case like Amy Winehouse’s, the appropriate approach would be ‘how she managed to channel her real unfortunate life situations into powerful music’. As well as gaining a reputation of shallowness when showcasing artists on their biopics, controversy struck as the world learnt of her 23 year age gap between herself and her husband. Aaron-Taylor Johnson was 18, starring in the film ‘Nowhere Boy’ where he met his wife, Sam, the director. Rightfully, the public questioned the professionalism and the safety measures when on set. Obviously, critics made accusations of child grooming and power imbalances, resorting to the uncertainty of Sam’s ethics.
With a record like this, it is risky to take on such a delicate story of an artist loved by millions. Marisa Abela played Amy Winehouse, which also sparked some debates. Critics commented that Abela did not nail down Amy’s physical appearance and mannerisms.
The film starts off showing young Amy bonding with her family through music. She was initially portrayed as a young ‘innocent’ naive girl, having a turbulent relationship with her father. I favoured the scenes showing young Amy creating the first parts of her songs that would later be heard worldwide, in her bedroom, on her guitar. Based in her home town, Camden, Amy heads to the Dublin Castle to perform some originals and covers, growing as a musical talent. In the early scenes of the film, Amy’s personality was very sassy and rebellious, which could be possibly an over-exaggeration as her character was seen as being rude and explosive, whereas, she was truly known to rebel against social norms, not allowing herself to be contained to a box. Marisa Abela is from Brighton, England. Amy Winehouse is from North London, England. The two places speak very different dialects, so it can be seen as difficult to imitate Amy’s London accent. When singing Amy’s song, Marisa tends to emphasise her jaw movement, making it look slightly unnatural. Amy has a very particular melisma when she sings, it is very difficult to nail down 100%. Her tone is quite nasally but if executed wrong, it could sound too whingey. Amy’s voice captures sounds of soulful depth, nasally whingey, smooth jazz and effortless melismas that left the world eager for more. Marisa’s adaptation of Amy’s persona whilst performing seemed like she was more concentrated on sounding like Amy rather than projecting Amy’s story in her lyrics. Everybody knows that Amy has vocals like no other, so I think it is less about sounding like her but being an extension of her story told through her lyrics. They should have focussed on how Amy pronounced certain words or lyric lines, what emotion those lines inflicted onto Amy to make her sing particular parts of the song the way she did. They should have made it more of a point to capture moments where painful truth meets powerful music. The film introduces her grandmother, showing a close bond between the two. Cynthia Winehouse was a singer in the ‘60s (which was brushed over) who encouraged Amy to pursue her career in music and also dated the famous Ronnie Scott. Cynthia and Amy were super close to the point that Amy got a tattoo of her on her arm and Cynthia passed down to Amy, the iconic ‘beehive’ (or ‘50’s pin-up girl) hairstyle that distinguished Amy’s look. It would have been a great moment to capitalise on her grandmother's past, how she performed and passed the torch down to Amy. Her grandmother was such an inspiration to Amy, I am intrigued to know if any inspiration on how Amy sings or commands the stage, stemmed from her late grandmother.
The film moves onto when Amy meets her ex-husband, Blake, at a pub one night. Noting down that Amy had personal issues she was already struggling with, such as bulimia and a growing alcohol usage. The bulimia was very brushed over, only being addressed in a quick scene, which should be marked as important, considering the film decided to heavily include her other usages. In the film Blake introduced Amy to the girl group ‘Shangri-Las’ for the first time, the first scene of intimate connection between the two which was likely false in real life. By this time, Amy already has records out, she already has a diverse range of knowledge on 50’s and 60’s tunes and jazz icons. I assume they included that to foreshadow the unfortunate events between the two with lyrics of “They told me he was bad/ but I knew he was sad”.
By this point, the biopic noted that Amy’s alcohol intake was growing, showing that she had seizures because of it. They portrayed her as immature, especially in the scene where there was a heated argument between her, her manager and her father, as the manager demands rehab and her father says no, leading Amy to side with her father and hug/hold onto him like a child holding their teddy when being scorned.
As Amy and Blake’s relationship goes on, she gets more and more famous from every project she releases, taking inspiration from the people and situations going on in her life. Again, this would have been a great moment to focus on how her life affected her music in both a good and bad way. What were the differences in her performance when she was in love or heartbroken? How many songs did she write a day when having inspiration from her new feeling of love? Did she use minor keys when writing about her heartbreak? Instead, the plot was more on the topic of Amy being a lovesick girl, who is torn between the pain of loss from her grandmother’s death and the pain of heartbreak from her husband.
The film shows Amy initiating her hard substance use whereas in reality, it was her husband who influenced her partaking. Laura Martin wrote an article on Esquire stating that the fact that Amy started using class A substances on her own was false. Going on to say “In her own lyrics in Back To Black, Amy famously sang “You love blow / and I love puff”. She insinuated that at the time, she wasn’t into harder drugs than weed. As chanted in the film, and according to her dad Mitch Winehouse’s book My Daughter Amy, she always used to say: “Class A drugs are for mugs,” which does probably ring true. However, while she later became addicted to heroin, in the film she’s shown calling a dealer for the drug and then taking it on her own. In reality, Fielder-Civil said he took “full accountability” for introducing her to it, telling The Jeremy Kyle Show: “I was smoking it on foil and she said 'Can I try some' and I said… I might have put up a weak resistance – the fact is whatever I said she did end up having some.”
At this point in time, Sam Taylor-Johnson should have been more accurate when talking about the most sensitive topic in Amy Winehouse’s life. It is a huge difference between Amy initiating substance use and Blake introducing her to substances. Instead of pointing fingers at who is to blame, this would have been a great opportunity to dive into Amy’s smart use of word play, specifically as she had complex feelings of her husband using substances whilst she only liked to smoke. As seen by her infamous catchphrase “Class A drugs are for mugs” and her lyric in Back to Black, “You love blow and I love puff”, it would be interesting to get inbetween her lines and see how far her love stretched for Blake even if he did things that she did not consider wise at the time, and how that would translate to her music.
On youtube, there are many videos of Amy Winehouse recording her hit tracks. In one of them, she recorded with Mark Ronson, he says “I couldn’t understand what everyone else was saying about this procrastinating, troubled artist”, in awe of Winehouse. The press and the internet did not make these vulnerable times better for Amy. They were stalking her, provoking her to get a reaction so they could bank off of it. Daily. The rumours grew, painting Amy as personas far from her truth, and with the angle this biopic is heading towards so far, it seems to be an accomplice to the rumours that surrounds Amy Winehouse.Throughout the film so far, there has not been any mentions of Amy’s growing success, the awards she has won and the people she started to connect with overseas in America, even with well-known producers like Mark Ronson. Instead they are focusing intensely on her relationship with Blake.
Wikipedia says that “In 2018, Winehouse’s estate announced they had signed a deal for a film about her life and career”
At the end, the biopic suggested that Amy relapsed after hearing about Blake’s newborn baby with another partner, which wrongly minimises all of Amy’s raw art and personal struggles to just being a lovesick girl. This makes Amy look powerless over a man whom she loved. Many important and key details that amounted to her tragedy were brushed over, but again if the point of the film was to celebrate and highlight her career and life around it, then why is she summarised as being a toxic lover of Blake. Where are the ethics?
Not to put shame onto Blake for his past actions as an addict, but Amy was a star, someone who was on her way up, secure in herself and her morals, sure, riddled with some insecurities but continued strong minded in her truth. Blake was already an addict when they met, he could have seen Amy as an opportunity to more substances.
I digress, if a biopic is made to honour a superstar of a singer, they need to honour what they honour most. Amy honoured and cherished her music so why were there a lack of scenes on her creative process? I don’t feel like there was depth behind the persona of Amy Winehouse. She was portrayed as ignorant rather than intelligent behind her songwriting.
I do agree that Sam Taylor Johnson was not a suitable choice of director when it comes to a sensitive subject like the life and career of Amy Winehouse. I am sure she is great at her job, but her past ethics in her personal life and the Lennon biopic should have been questioned out of respect for Amy's sensitive case.
A portion of the profit from the Biopic goes towards the Amy Winehouse Foundation, a charity established by her family to support young people struggling with addiction.
What do you think of the angle this Biopic went? Do you think it could have been avoided ? or do you think it would have been worth it if they focussed on her music career and the creativity behind it?
Bonus question: Do you think the Biopic would benefit from letting Marisa Abela lip sync rather than singing the covers of Amy’s hit songs? Comment your perception !
Thank you for reading, this has been InbetweenTheirLines on the ‘Back to Black’ Biopic of Amy Winehouse
