Interview: Asif Kapadia, James Gay-Rees on Finding ‘Amy’

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CHICAGO – She burned like a firework in the sky, and just as quickly faded away. The unique voice of Amy Winehouse was fresh air into the music vacuum, and yet the delicate state of her destructive addictions succumbed to a sudden notoriety. Director Asif Kapadia and producer James Gay-Rees tell her story in ‘Amy.’

The documentary stands by itself as a trek into darkness, through a 21st Century life captured on video, film and photographs from childhood to superstar fame. Amy Winehouse was a girl from North London with a jazz smooth vocal styling seemingly from the gods. She was twenty years old when her first album, “Frank” (2003), brought her to a wider audience. The follow-up in 2008, “Black to Black,” established Winehouse as a one-of-a-kind singer and personality. The ironic song “Rehab” from that album was a huge hit, but couldn’t save Winehouse from her own tragic sensitivity to love, toxic relationships and substance abuse. The documentary follows the girl, from the early days to the final days.

Amy Winehouse
The Enigmatic Ms. Winehouse in ‘Amy’
Photo credit: A24

Director Asif Kapadia and producer James Gay-Rees are the team that brought “Amy” to life. Their first notable collaboration was in 2010, with the well-received auto racing personalilty documentary “Senna.” Gay-Rees is also the executive producer of the notorious pseudo-documentary by the artist Banksey, “Exit Through the Gift Shop.” They both sat down with HollywoodChicago.com to talk about their poignant and controversial film subject, and the process of the film itself.

HollywoodChicago.com: In the process of doing a document about a high profile subject, did you find yourselves getting new footage as the final edit was getting close, that was relevant enough to add into the film?

Asif Kapadia: It’s kind of a steady trickle all the way through. When we started off, we had a team of researchers for six months before editing even starts, covering the expected bases like BBC, MTV and all those types of places. Then we try to put those jigsaw pieces together in terms of who was there. You start with the family, the management, and then one friend says you have to speak to another friend, and you build out from there. It’s investigative research, and you come upon things like ‘you should speak to him, he had a camera there.’ In that process, sometimes it flows and sometimes it doesn’t.

James Gay-Rees: What did happen is that we had to make the longer film shorter. And since we’re doing a documentary, we know that certain footage exists, we don’t necessarily have the permission to use it. It was very late in the day when we finally got Tony Bennett, which was a pivotal scene. The issue became would we be able to use it. That’s what happens, there is great footage of her all around, but who actually owns it? It’s about the agreements.

Kapadia: It’s best to get that piece of paper signed there and then. There were so many people sensitive about this project, who would let us see the video but wouldn’t let us use it until they got an idea of our final approach. That’s a crazy way to do business, because the plug can be pulled at any time.

Gay-Rees: By the end, it was about trusting us.

HollywoodChicago.com: The first thing that struck me after the film was over, was how her short life was defined by the camera, and what it captured – and in the end, how it destroyed her. Since we’re all a bit older, and didn’t necessarily grow up with cameras in our faces, what did you learn about that phenomenon through the exploration of Ms. Winehouse’s life?

Kapadia: When I looked at the film afterwards, it was all about point of view. In drama, you don’t have people looking into the camera. But what you have in this case is a kid in the beginning, messing around with her friends, talking straight into the camera. When other people are talking to her and taping her, she is talking to them straight into the camera. When she tapes herself, she talks straight into the camera. As her career moves on, she’s performing straight into the camera. It’s literally having a relationship with the camera, which is a relationship with the audience.

When the paparazzi era begins, it’s about her hiding from the camera, being afraid of it. So it’s an interesting journey because it mirrors her relationship with us. Some of the most moving photos are the ones she takes of herself, when she’s in a bad way.

Gay-Rees: It’s her naked self, and I think that’s why people are responding to this film. The engagement with Amy is so intimate, because of the personal camera footage, it feels as if we’re having a conversation with her, just you and her.

Kapadia: When she is on camera with her boyfriend Nick, she’s actually flirting with him, but looking at us. It’s very interesting.

HollywoodChicago.com: Ms. Winehouse had a peculiar talent for picking the wrong people in her life, starting with the accident of her birth into her father’s realm. Again, observing her so closely, what is your opinion about a father’s relationship with a daughter, and how it shapes her choices in the mating pool once she comes of age?

Gay-Rees: That’s the 64 million dollar question, isn’t it? We need Sigmund Freud here. [laughs] The father/daughter thing is always a complex dynamic, and in Amy’s case it was an extremist relationship. It’s a classic case of Amy having a father that is on his own path, and a mother who is not present. So she can be construed as falling in between those two camps, and therefore trying to find a way to the right attention, and it was terrible for her self esteem. And then going forward, trying to find a motivation through her other male relationships. This is Freud 101.

The bad choices she made is the classic jazz narrative. Like Billie Holiday, she needed those bad relationships in order to do her thing. If she had functional relationships, there would be nothing to write about.

Amy Winehouse
Through the Looking Glass in ‘Amy’
Photo credit: A24

HollywoodChicago.com: Even though she was older when she passed away, I couldn’t help but think of Marilyn Monroe as I was watching Ms. Winehouse. Where do you think the comparisons between Amy and Marilyn are most acute?

Kapadia: Well, for one thing there is a part, when she is 14 years old, where she sings ‘Happy Birthday’ in the style of Marilyn singing to JFK. In that scene she has a lollipop, but in the end it’s a cigarette. The film is littered with cultural references regarding the people she is meeting along the way. Somehow this simple, ordinary girl from North London touched the radar of influential celebrities like Jay Leno, David Letterman, The Rolling Stones, Prince – the best of the best knew she was the real deal. She touched them, but didn’t give a shit at the same time. [laughs]

HollywoodChicago.com: If Amy were here, what question would you ask her?

Gay-Rees: There is about a million questions, but my question would have been, ‘if you had to rerun the story, would you go through what you went through to deliver the an album like Back to Black, and accept the consequences?’ Because that was the beginning of the end. Or would she have changed that story, for a different journey? It’s the classic ‘tip of the iceberg’ – the atmosphere was a perfect storm for destruction, but it does produce a classic piece of music.

HollywoodChicago.com: The quote by Tony Bennett at the end of the film, regarding Amy, was both surprising and incredibly wise. Since the 88 year-old Mr. B has seen his share of tragic show business stories, what do you think separated his perspective on Ms. Winehouse, that struck both of you as you interviewed him?

Kapadia: He’s been through that himself. He was a huge singer, one of the top guys, and then rock music came along. He went on his own journey with that downward trend. I didn’t know that, I just thought he was the cuddly guy we know now. His revival was simply a way to get him doing something again. When he collaborated with Amy, he could she that she was in trouble, and felt quite guilty about not doing enough about it.

One of the difficulties of doing the film was that all the good people felt a tremendous guilt, and felt uncomfortable that they were there with her and it yet it still continued. Whatever it is, everyone was a part of it.

HollywoodChicago.com: What do you both think the documentary contributes to both cinema art and general communication that no other form of exposition does?

Asif Kapadia, James Gay-Rees
Asif Kapadia, James Gay-Rees in Chicago
Photo credit: Patrick McDonald for HollywoodChicago.com

Kapadia: Cinema is one of the only arts that uses all of the arts. There is visual, technical, dance, music, writing, acting, editing – everything you can think of – and it is put together and projected on a big screen. We then go to a dark space to watch, and it’s like a dream. Cinema is about dreaming and taking us to another place.

The documentary space is about the truth. It’s not someone pretending to be Amy. It’s like I don’t want someone pretending to be Muhammad Ali, I want Ali. Amy was truth, and authenticity. And the whole style that we do is not talking heads, but staying in the moment. If we stay in the moment, on the situation as presented, you just look at her. And every time you see her as the film progresses she is different. The light that you saw in her eyes in the beginning, slowly fades away. It’s not fakery or make-up, it is real.

Gay-Rees: When you have characters as complex as Amy and Senna, nobody on earth can replicate that emotional honesty. When you have that much footage of someone, and create an intimate portrait as we did in ‘Amy,’ what is the point of creating a drama?

HollywoodChicago.com: James, what are the origins of ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop,’ and what was the art’s worlds’ reaction to it? Did it have the desired effect on that snotty institution?

Gay-Rees: What people should know is that Amy is Banksey. [laughs] Maybe I am Banksey. It’s undefinable, actually, because people think it’s all a hoax, but it is literally as it appears. It’s just that Banksey doesn’t give a shit about the rules of cinema, the rules of the art world and the rules of relationships, he’s just a maverick. What was the question again? [laughs]

There was a listing recently I saw that had ‘Mr. Brainwash’ listed as a artist right next to Picasso. There was all these artists, and here was Mr. Brainwash. It’s like the ‘King of Comedy.’ It’s a brilliant fine line.

HollywoodChicago.com: How did you first get involved with it?

Gay-Rees: I’d done all kinds of films except a documentary, and Banksey’s manager in Los Angeles got me involved. It started out as straight documentary about street art. The whole Brainwash thing took them by surprise as much as everyone else – it was a gift from the gods.

Kapadia: Chris King, the editor on ‘Senna’ and ‘Amy,’ also did ‘Exit…’

HollywoodChicago.com: As you both spent hours and hours with Ms. Winehouse, in many ways still a child rather than an adult, do you think given her circumstances exactly they were, was there any way to save her, and why?

Kapadia: I think if you’re going to save her, you have to save her sooner. By the end, it had been too long, and too late. The earlier period was the time to save her. The question always is about the great art – is the person producing it is harming themselves, or they are saved, and never created? I felt like she needed to get away from London, and go and see something and somewhere else.

Gay-Rees: I’d like to think if she’d made it another six months or a year, she might have made it. She was showing signs of wanting to turn it around. That’s where it starts. The whole philosophy of a person has to want to help themselves – that’s part of it, but not the whole part of it. Everybody around here has to find that crack to drive a wedge into. If she hadn’t been in that back-to-back tour situation, and just went into the studio with a couple people, and got that out of her system, then maybe?

”Amy” continues its limited release in Chicago on July 10th. See local listings for theaters and show times. Featuring Amy Winehouse, Mitch Winehouse, Blake Wood and Tony Bennett. Directed by Asif Kapadia. Rated “R”

HollywoodChicago.com senior staff writer Patrick McDonald

By PATRICK McDONALD
Writer, Editorial Coordinator
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

© 2015 Patrick McDonald, HollywoodChicago.com

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