AMY: A documentary film

This latest documentary about the great jazz/blues singer/songwriter, Amy Winehouse, is directed by Asif Kapadia and currently on general release. It has had mixed reviews. I saw it last night.
 It felt apt as today, July 23rd, is the fourth anniversary of Amy's death, although it feels like a lot longer the world has been without her. She died of a heart attack brought on by alcohol poisoning.
  The film expresses Amy's fear, from the outset her career takes off and even before, that she would not be able to cope with the consequences of becoming famous. There were those who stood by her through her drunken, drug fuelled episodes, such as her two long-standing school friends and her first manager.What the film shows is that some of those close to her and who loved her also became part of a music industry machine in whose interests she became  their product. 
   Amy's brilliance, originality and superlative voice, like much great art came out of the pain of a difficult childhood, stormy adolescence, love and loss of love; her father and mother separated when she was 9years old, the very time before puberty when a child needs to feel secure. Then a stormy adolescence, when she started to develop bulimia and later relationships that were intense, wonderful and destructive.  She was vulnerable and particularly so in her relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil, later to become her husband and who introduced her to crack cocaine and heroin.
    Although some of those close to her tried to help her go to rehab when things started to go wrong, her desire for her father's approval and advice, which was that she didn't need to,( so she said, No, No, No!), prevented her from getting help at an early stage. She did later get help and got off drugs but couldn't give up the bottle.
   She didn't want to go on her final tour but her agents would not listen. Too much money at stake. Her only way of getting her voice heard eventually was self-sabotage, getting pissed on stage in Belgrade, unable to sing and booed off by her fans. This was the saddest image to me of a vulnerable, beautiful and talented young woman, who just wanted to write her songs and make music.