TIMES OF ISRAEL
by Jake Coyle
July 2, 2015

Portrait of the Jewish jazz sensation reveals her swift demise, offering a close-up of a toxic celebrity culture

Asif Kapadia’s Amy Winehouse documentary “Amy” is a slow, tragic zoom out. It begins with the intimacy of home movies and ends in far-away paparazzi footage. Our VIP access has been revoked. First seen as a bright-eyed 14-year-old girl singing a knockout “Happy Birthday,” Winehouse gradually recedes from our view as her renown grows, obscured by a blizzard of flashes and a deadening haze of celebrity. Fame arrives like fate: a destiny foreshadowed by Winehouse’s self-evident talent and her own ominous misgivings. “I would go mad,” she says of fame before its tidal-wave arrival. READ MORE