Asif Kapadia’s Amy is a deserving winner at the Oscars

No two or three ways about it. If Asif Kapadia’s compassionately crafted, Amy, hadn’t snagged the Best Feature Documentary Oscar this morning, it would have sparked as much of an acrimonious controversy if Leonardo DiCaprio had been seconded for the Best Actor honour for The Revenant.

Kapadia, a prolific documentary and short filmmaker of Gujarati descent, displays an editing, scripting and directing style that is distinctly global. Of course, it helps enormously that the now 44-year-old British citizen must have been privy to the phenomenon that was Amy Winehouse.

The concerts of the British artiste, Grammy Awards-grabbing album Back to Black, and her messed-up private life, have parallels to the biographies of America’s Janis Joplin and to a degree, Jim Morrison. All of them endured troubled childhoods, were hooked on alcohol and drugs, and disclosed a death-wish in their imperishable lyrics and vocals, which continue to play on the turntables of our minds.

A trendsetter in melding jazz, rock and soul, Amy died, at the age of 27, of ‘alcohol poisoning’. Perhaps, it would have been the done thing to fashion a feature film on the petite diva, who wore her hair in a voguish retro beehive. After all, Joplin was reincarnated by Bette Midler in The Rose and Morrison in The Doors by Van Kilmer.

After watching Kapadia’s 128-minuter Amy, officially released on DVD in India, however, the documentary format comes across as a far more authentic, emotionally stirring and above all, an elegiac epitaph, than any biopic could.

At first viewing, to be honest, Kapadia’s ode to the songstress strikes you as a mere compilation of archival footage. As it happened, he could access incalculable hours of videographed interviews, rehearsals, recordings, giggly chats and even a rehab break in Majorca.

To say that here’s a bunging together of archival material would be a shallow reading of the look back in affection at a young woman whose meteoric rise proved to be fatal. She was cordial with the intrusive media, had issues with her father, spoke about a damaging break-up with her boyfriend through a song, leaned on her childhood friend Juliette for support. After a point, though, enough was enough.

Kapadia could have easily tied himself up in knots with the pile of material. Gratifyingly, there is an amazing clarity instead while combining the element of the fanboy as well as journalistic reportage.

Truly powerful sequences in the seamless documentary, show Amy Winehouse  uncharacteristically nervous in the course of recording a duet with her idol, the big band-‘n’-jazz singer Tony Bennett; her phases of striving to reconcile with her estranged father (reportedly, he wasn’t thrilled with the final cut of the documentary); and her heart-wrenching breakdown at a sold-out concert. She couldn’t take the myriad pressures, couldn’t perform on stage, only to be booed by the insensitive crowd.

Here, then, is a compassionate recap of the swift ascent and tragic downfall of a music star who once smashed the music charts. In addition, Amy is a slap on the face of fickle fans and the behind-the-scenes managers who have no scruples about encashing on an artiste’s talent.

The songstress’ burn-out was inevitable, perhaps. Kapadia has ensured that Amy Winehouse may have gone but will be remembered forever. This has deservedly fetched him an Oscar. And our gratitude.

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