Theory work on the film Amy.

1. AMY (Amy Winehouse)
Is anyone to blame for the death of Amy Winehouse? What content in the film makes you
feel this way?
After watching the first part of “AMY” and after being introduced to each person
throughout the documentary it was clear to see straight away that Blake Fielder-Civil was a
significant influence on Amy, she fell head over heels for this man. After also doing some

2. research, I have found that in 2008 Blake confirmed to the then newspaper “News Of The
World” that he was the person that introduced Amy to hard drugs, he says “I made the
biggest mistake of my life by taking heroine in front of her” he also says “I introduced her to
heroin, crack cocaine, and self-harming. I feel more than guilty” After doing this research I
would say that, Blake was the main factor in regards to the death on Amy Winehouse. I also
read that Amy got a tattoo of Blakes name over her heart, while he got one of her name
behind his ear… I can’t help but think that this has a much bigger meaning to it, when Amy
and Blake met at a bar in 2005 at a bar in Camden, Blake was already in a relationship at the
time, Amy and him dated for a bit and then in the documentary you can see Blake ring Amy
up and tell her that he wants to be with his current girlfriend, and that him and her should
just be friends, I feel as if Blake in a way kept Amy in the dark... when it came to him and his
girlfriend at the time, and I think this shows with the positioning of the tattoo, it’s behind his
ear, out of the way so no one can see. I also could tell straight away that Amy was way more
invested in Blake than he was with her.
Do you think the film is, honest, truthful why?
Amy Winehouse had a lot of issues, with mental health, alcohol and drugs. I think this
documentary gives you such a raw insight in to her world, throughout the film you hear
from all of the people that were extremely close with Amy, her manger, father, record label,
producer, mother. All of these people recall events that happened throughout Amy’s life,
you hear about the impact of her mother and fathers divorce, I think that Amy never really
got over her father having an affair, throughout the film he is painted as one of the bad
guys, along with Blake. In the film Mitch is heard saying “Amy doesn’t need to go to rehab”
After doing research in to this, I have found an article from American women’s magazine
“Bustle” where he is seen saying that the film has misrepresented him when he talks about
Amy and rehab, saying “What I say is misrepresented. I say that Amy didn't need to go to
rehab, right? What I actually said was referring to 2005, Amy didn't need to go to
rehab at that point. Later on was a different story altogether, which gives a totally,
completely different meaning to what I said”. If what Mitch is saying is true and he
actually did mean his comments in this way, then the film has been misleading and
untruthful.
List the techniques used by the directorto show Winehouse’s battle with drug addiction
and why they may have been used.
After watching the scene from “Amy” where Amy uses Crack Cocaine for the first time, I can
see straight away how the director wants to highlight this, he does this by focusing on
footage where she’s completely “out of it” the director also edits some footage and puts it
in to a slow motion effect to highlight this more.
What do you feel is the overall effect of this sequence?
I feel that the director wanted this sequence to create a lot of emotion from the viewer, the
director does this by using different effects throughout, for example the slow motion effect,

3. the director also focuses on Amy when she’s in a vulnerable state, by doing this the director
knows, that this is going to trigger a sad emotion from the viewer. The director also
incorporates sad backing instrumental music to push more for a negative feeling or
response out of the viewer.