2. Amy is a 2015 British Documentary directed
by Asif Kapadia.
It follows the life and death of the singer
Amy Winehouse.
Over 100 interviews were conducted for the
film with Winehouse’s friends and family.
3. Purpose
One purpose of AMY is
to inform the audience
about Winehouse’s life
and to present her in
ways that se wasn’t
shown when she was
alive.
Another purpose of this
documentary is to
investigate the possible
reasons for Amy’s death
and the unknown causes
of her problems.
Another purpose could be
to raise awareness about
the struggles of being in
the public eye and the
issues it can cause for
people.
4. Codes and Conventions
A convention used by this
documentary is
interviews. As the subject
of the documentary is
dead this is one of the
only ways to get
information and the
interviews are one of
main things that carry the
narrative.
Another convention used
is archival footage. This is
what most of the
documentary consists of,
both seen before and
unseen footage before.
Another important convention
used is music. The music
almost sections off the
different parts of Amy’s life
and is also used to
emotionally manipulate the
audience
5. Mode
This could be an
observational
documentary as the
director didn’t really have
an impact on what was
filmed only what was
included. As none of this
footage is his own except
from the interviews he
didn’t influence the
footage or behaviours.
Narrative
The documentary
follows a linear narrative
as it goes through
Winehouse’s death from
start to finish.
It is also a single strand
narrative as the only
concentration of the
documentary is Amy
Winehouse’s life and
career.
Type
This could be a fly-on-
the-wall documentary as
a lot of the documentary
is footage of concerts and
home footage which isn’t
staged and just follows
casual and usual about of
what her life was like.
6. Conclusion
Even though AMY is mostly archival footage and carried by interviews
rather than a single narrator it still feels like a usual and typical
documentary as it uses the codes and conventions expected in a
documentary.
