‘Amy’ director Asif Kapadia: ‘She Was A Train Wreck’ [Video]

Director Asif Kapadia tackled the daunting prospect of creating a biopic based on Amy Winehouse’s life with the intention of portraying Ms. Winehouse in the most honest light possible. Kapadia incorporated Amy’s own words through interviews and archive footage to tell Ms. Winhouse’s story, as well as spicing up the film with previously unheard tracks from Amy Winehouse.

The most surprising result of Asif’s take on Amy Winehouse‘s life has been the alienation of the Winehouse family. Originally involved in the Amy film’s creation, the Winehouse family has disowned the film and criticized filmmaker Kapadia’s efforts.

Director Kapadia says the reaction wasn’t totally unexpected, particularly in reference to Mitch Winehouse, Amy’s father. The film places a harsh light on Mitch, portraying him as an opportunist taking advantage of his daughter’s talents for his own benefit and, whether true or not, Mr. Winehouse seems to enforce that image by continuing to draw attention to himself, says Kapadia.

“For me, the big plus-point of the film is, ‘Wow, doesn’t Amy come out looking great.’ Up to this point, she didn’t have a good reputation. In North America, you only knew of her late times. In England, people knew of her before, around the time she released the album Frank in 2003. But in America in particular, everyone had a pretty negative opinion of this girl. She could sing, but she was messed up, she was a train wreck. So, shouldn’t you be thinking, ‘At least my daughter comes out well?’ That’s what you’d hope people would be looking at.”

As far as Amy‘s objectivity, Asif reminds fans that nothing is entirely objective. Everything is colored by the creator’s point of view and the Amy director describes himself as a storyteller, not a biographer.

“Nothing’s objective. News is not objective. Everything you see has been edited. We’ve made choices. We had thousands of hours of interviews and we reduced it down. The film is my opinion of what I found from my research and the footage. But the clue is always in the title. Senna was about him. Amy is about Amy. It’s about them. That’s whose side I’m on.”

It has been pointed out that Asif’s use of Amy Winehouse’s music in the film was an ingenious way of letting Amy tell her story from beyond the grave, a way of letting Ms. Winehouse speak to her fans one last time.

“To me it’s a simple reading that Rehab is a cry for help. ‘What if I did this to myself? What if I did that to myself? When will someone really show how they care about me by stopping it?’ It’s like a child saying ‘I’m not hungry.’ Yes you are.”

Amy, starring Amy Winehouse, Mitch Winehouse, and Mark Ronson, was released in theaters on July 3. Check local listings for theaters and times.

[Featured image: Amy Winehouse courtesy of Universal Music/Amy]