Amy Winehouse is back in the spotlight with director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s new film, Back to black. The biopic looks at the late British singer’s rise to fame, personal struggles and the making of her Grammy-winning album of the same name. Both Taylor-Johnson and star Marisa Abela, whose stunning on-screen transformation into Winehouse is being acclaimed by criticssay it was crucial to remove any “judgment” when diving into this film.
“I felt like I had a huge responsibility in making this movie on so many different fronts,” Taylor-Johnson told Yahoo Entertainment. “One of the things I had to come back to was not having judgments, you know? And balancing that in a very careful way so that I could stay in her perspective.”
Winehouse, who has died aged 27, was known for her unique and powerful voice as she produced hits such as “Valerie” and “Back to Black”. She won five Grammys in 2008, including Record and Song of the Year for “Rehab” and Best New Artist. But Winehouse’s acclaimed album Back to black coincided with a incredibly tumultuous time in your life.
Winehouse struggled with alcohol and drug addiction. She was hospitalized several times, which does not appear in the film. Her volatile relationship with husband Blake Fielder-Civil It was tabloid fodder, and the British press documented almost every moment of the singer’s downward spiral. Winehouse eventually recovered from crack and heroin, but died of alcohol poisoning in 2011.
Initial Reviews of the Taylor-Johnson film outside the UK were critical of how some of the difficult subjects were handled, such as the eventual ex-Fielder-Civil being portrayed as a kind “addiction facilitator.” Yahoo asked Taylor-Johnson about how she decided to creatively deal with humanizing Winehouse and Fielder-Civil to a certain extent, while also staying true to the vices they suffered.
“Whatever our judgments were about the situations she was in or the people she loved were irrelevant to the story I was telling, because we were in her creative soul as she created one of the greatest albums of our time,” Taylor said. -Johnson. explains. “[Amy] was so open about her feelings and so authentic with them and non-judgmental, so I had to be in her truth and put my feelings, and everyone else’s judgments too, aside and just go back to the music, and go from goes back to how she constantly felt. So in some ways it was obviously very challenging but quite simple because she was [straightforward] in that regard.”
Taylor-Johnson said the paparazzi They are the villains of the film. Winehouse and Fielder-Civil’s on-and-off relationship was highlighted in the press, and the Fifty Shades of grey the director spoke about how her own marriage to actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson, 24 years her junior, was scrutinized online. Yahoo asked if any part of Winehouse’s story resonated with her during the film’s production.
“No, not at all. I don’t feel like there’s any comparison, I just felt… I guess one comparison is that, as a woman, I think things are more separate from a forensic standpoint,” she responds.
Taylor-Johnson continues: “So in that sense, I just need to see, you know, who she was as a creative soul and that everything else is everyone’s judgment,” she responds. “Let’s celebrate it.”
Abela agrees with Taylor-Johnson about the importance of putting judgments aside. The British actress, who sings solo in the film, says she trained “intensely” for four months before filming. Although she knew Winehouse’s story, she says she was surprised to discover “the intensity” of “Amy’s feeling.”
“The feeling that the things that she really wanted in life and the relationships that she had that were important to her, were relationships that she felt if they didn’t exist, she could die. to really get real,” she told Yahoo. “Like Sam was talking about, it’s not about judgment… it doesn’t matter what other people think. If this person leaves me, I might die and that’s a real feeling. like Amy felt, that’s what we were going to show.”
Back to black hits theaters on Friday, May 17th.
