Tomorrow - Episode 14: 'Amy' Director Asif Kapadia and How Not to Watch a Screener

Episode Date: July 8, 2015

Asif Kapadia, one of the most innovative documentary filmmakers in the world, joins Josh in the studio to talk about 'Amy' — his new critically acclaimed film about the late Amy Winehouse. Asif describes the art of putting together a documentary in detail and explains the origins of his unique style of constructing a narrative. The conversation also covers the back story of Asif’s award-winning documentary Senna, the difference between making a documentary and a work of fiction, and the exploitative nature of our relationship to celebrity and stardom. This episode was recorded before the recent events at Bloomberg. More on that the next episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey and welcome to tomorrow I'm your host, Josh with Tupolsky. Today we've got a very special guest in the studio with us. Well, she's really just me. I mean, Magnus is here, but there's a new film out called Amy. It's about the life of Amy Winehouse, and the director of the film is here with me, Asif, Capadia. Thank you for being here. Nice to be here.

Before we talk about the film, which I watched, maybe later on, I'll give listeners some pointers on when to watch the film and when not to watch it. I watched it actually, I had to watch it in three pieces in different environments. And we're gonna talk about it. But I'm curious because you've directed, you've directed documentaries and you've directed,

just straightforward motion pictures, just fiction films. Yeah, what's the word I'm looking for here? Drama, fiction. Drama, yeah. So I'm curious, are you leaning now, are you sort of moving away from doing dramatic films or into focusing on documentaries

or are you gonna continue to go back and forth? No, no, no, I like to do a bit of everything. I like to make short films, I do commercials, I work in TV, I'm a director, I'm a director and a writer. Did I not say that? Well, no, it's just that. I should've said that. You are a director and a writer. Yeah, so it all depends on the project and it all depends on what comes along and what mood I'm in

and the mood changes. You know, sometimes it's nice to switch and do something totally different. Right. No, that's interesting. I think we tend to think of our directors as very specific. Most directors do documentaries as well. Is that true? It says you does documentaries. That's true. Okay, that's true.

It's crazy. That's also true. But I feel like typically directors tend to get very, not pigeonhole, but they get, you know, they're in a category, you think of them in that category, they don't do a lot of other stuff. Like, exact Snyder's, if you made a documentary and I'll be very strange.

Drama is like a huge machine. It's like massive circus, you're lugging around and you know, it can be 500, maybe 1000 people on the crew and they cost millions and millions of dollars or, they don't have to but they can do and You know you have a long development process and you have to work on the script and you have to raise the money and then you're waiting for Cast and and what I've enjoyed doing about these documentaries with Senna and with Amy is that essentially the crew is really small It's like ten of us twelve of us core team and

With Amy that was no script literally someone said would you be interested in making this film and There was a gut instinct which someone said, would you be interested in making this film? And there was a gut instinct, which is like, this would be interesting. And then we just went off and made the film. And it was like, no paperwork, no development meetings, none of that, none of the BS that can come with fiction sometimes. Right.

So that's interesting. Actually, thinking about it now, you say it was about 12 people working on this film. And when you started, there's a lot of archival footage. You've got a lot of obviously, personal photos, personal video. But then there's pieces that are, you know, you've got stuff from

the Grammys and other, I mean, at some point, I'm guessing in the process of making this, you just go and get that footage later on, you worry about the licensing of it. Yeah, so one of the cool members of my team is our archive producer, Paul Bell. So his job is to go and search and clear the rights to all of this material. We have a team of researchers and then I have have an editor, and I have an assistant editor, and a sound team, and a producer, and a lawyer, and there's all these people out there, but very to the extent of people.

On this one, there's a lawyer that's more often than on previous films. Right. But yeah, that's part of it. Yeah, the archive, there's three things going on at the same time. I was interviewing people, and kind of doing my research and meeting people a bit like now, with me in a quiet place, microphone on a table and just talk, whatever

they wanted to talk about. I think you can hear that in the film actually, that it feels very intimate, some of those conversations. It's the first time really that most of the contributors that have spoken about their relationship to Amy, with an outsider, with someone who wasn't on the inside. I have an editor who's working away and then there's a research team searching for material, interviews, archive, photographs, everything and anything.

So all three are going on at the same time. And then each one kind of informs the other one. So if someone finds something great, then I can go and find out who that person is in the footage and interview them. Once they interview them, they may mention another person and we'll suddenly do a bit of research on that person. And the editor will be then taking whatever comes in and re-recutting and recutting and recutting

the story. Right. So it's interesting that you started this with no script. Now I haven't never made a documentary or a drama. I don't know how much you need to front load a story. But this, I mean watching Amy felt like there's certainly a narrative. The narrative is extremely strong. And I think that actually I was surprised by how quickly you where you enter the narratives because there's a you think when you start watching and with this

kind of picture, I don't know that much about Amy Winehouse, man. I know that she was, you know, I know her work, I know her music. I obviously know about her death. But you don't, you know, I don't know her back story. I don't know where Amy came from. And you don't really cover it that much in that you cover it a bit, but you sort of enter right at the moment where she's going from clearly, she's, you know, she's a teenager, she's starting to get into the music industry and sort of moves very quickly into that. Was it not, was, did you think it would, it took away from the narrative to go back to her childhood and to, you know, sort of how, you know, she talks about it a bit, you know,

there's a lot of, actually a lot of audio of her speaking, a lot of video of her speaking. You didn't want to go back to a certain point though? Well, the thing about these sorts of films, it's always tricky. Where you come in, often you know the middle or the ending, but you don't know the beginning. Both with Santa and with Amy, it was the beginning that took the longest to crack and figure out. One of the adages, a great writer, once said, you've got to come in as late as possible and get out. You know, one of the adages, well, a great writer once said, you know, you've got to come in as late as possible

and get out as soon as possible, very soon or every story. So you've got to figure out where do you come in where you can just kind of see the potential, you can see she's young. So we start the film, the opening scene is just 14 with her friends, but then we leap to, you know, she's just about to break it.

She's just about to make her first record. She's about to get a deal. And that seemed like an interesting moment to kind of capture her because she looks like the Amy Wine has to become famous, but she's not famous yet. There's the potential. She can sing, and it's also waiting up, you know, there's footage. You're making a movie at the end. So you've got a kind of lean and skew towards where do you have material where you can show something. Right. It's interesting there because I have...

And how interesting is to start too young? Who cares? Well, no, I think, and that's it. First, I was like go into the childhood a bit later. You don't necessarily start with it. Well, I had a question. The question in my mind was, how did she end up with these people? There is a kind of a hole there, but I think it's the, it needs to be there because it's not the focus of the film. The focus of the film is in, how do they make it famous? It's what happened. it's what happened really, when she was famous. I guess what hopefully what you get from it

is the fact that you can hear the raw talent. Anyone who heard that voice thought she had something. And then she started to write, and she could write as well. So before that, she's a teenager, and she's going to school and not finishing most of them, getting kicked out. She was quite a kind of a, you know, edgy kid, she kind of went off and did her thing. She was quite a bit older than her actual years.

Yeah. So she had experienced a bit of life, but, you know, really, we come in, hopefully, just at the point where things start to happen. Yeah. And it's all exciting, you know, you just amount to make it, you're performing, you're driving around, getting changed in restrooms,

and kind of putting it in. And it does capture that. I mean, I was actually, I was in the music industry before I became a journalist. And it actually reminded me of, I started out making music, the plane DJing at Raves. And there was some early bits of it where it is kind of like that thing

where you're traveling around. It's late at night, it's early in the morning, you're sort of like everybody's a little bit sketchy and you're just trying to get it a word in edgewise. I thought that, you know, can sort of remind me of that. Let's back up a little bit though. So you said, somebody came to you and said, do you want to make this film?

And how did you decide the previous documentary you made with Senna? And give me a little bit, explain a little bit of what Senna is about. So Senna was my first feature doc, and it's about a sportsman, a Brazilian racing driver, Formula One driver, and kind of people who maybe have never heard of him, or never seen a sportsman saying, how boring, who cares. It's not really about that, it's about him and his life and how he lives his life,

and it's kind of journey that he went on. He's an amazing charismatic guy. He's quite an inspirational character. He's very positive. And the story just kind of crossed over. It became the biggest kind of British dog ever. It was a big hit kind of all over the world. It did really well here. Over here, most people have never heard of him. But it went down really well. One loads of audience prizes at Sundance and LA Festival and you know, you know, straightly over and kind of all over the world. It really kind of crossed.

It went to Russia and did well. And so there's something about this guide. My aim, I suppose, was to make a film, a doc that is in a typical doc. It's a movie, for me these are all movies. To make it feel as cinematic as possible. It's an action film. You're watching this and you get caught up with the action.

The music, the sound design, all of that, I use people that do big feature films. You just get caught up with his life and his journey and the people that become his rivals are kind of amazing. These are real people, but when you meet these characters, you just think you could not have made it up. Right. And because wrestling is a bit larger than life.

Almost. The guy who ran the sport, Jean-Marie Balleste is unbelievable and then his big rival is this French guy, who could Alan Prost, who was like, you know, four times world champion and Senna was a three times world champion. So these guys are the best of the best. And because of the nature of the sport, because of the amount of money and sponsorship involved in Formula One, there are cameras everywhere.

So we were the first people to get access to all this material and be able to cut a film together and tie it out, it's archive. So you're in there, you're basically, you're hearing the story from his point of view. You're traveling with him, you're in the car with him, you really, everyone kind of falls for this guy. It became quite an intense experience.

Right. Now, if you haven't seen it, I won't tell you where it goes, but you know, you go kind of all the way with this guy. And unless you know, the better, I would say. But so what's interesting is that unlike a film that you might do this drama, I mean, and you're talking about you're sort of thinking of these as a drama, I think of these big kind of staged

things, which they're not. I mean, you stage a film, you've got, you've set, you know, set direction, and all those costumes. This is a case where you're working with somebody else's footage often, I mean, I'm guessing that you're like, I fit just, the camera could just pan a little bit over to the left here.

Well, because of the nature of that sport, there were times when he became so famous around the world, there might be 20 cameras on him. So what happens is, there'll be a camera from Sweden, there'll be a camera from France, there'll be a camera from America, there'll be a camera from the UK. And all of these people are filming him at the same time. So the way the film is made is that we would go and find out who's holding the camera. And we'd get every tape from each camera person. So we could intercut the scenes like a drama. So we'd have two people talking to you. You're never shot on you. You're shot on me.

A two shot, a white shot, a helicopter shot. So in the end, a budget. So we'd have two people talking to you. You'd be like, shot on you, a shot on me, a two shot, a white shot, a helicopter shot. So in the end, a budget is no way I would have had the budget to make a film like that. Right. Because it's covered so well, we have in Brazil, there's like half a million people watching a race and we've got a crowd of half a million people

cheering him on. Shot by helicopter. How do you find those people? I mean, it must be in... It's been five years doing the film, you know? Right, I mean, there's gotta be a huge run-up to actually collecting the footage. Yeah, so there's a long period of time on that particular film that the way the film was made was, it's really interesting,

because sometimes, you know, every film has problems, every... Every thing of art, anytime you make something, you have issues, you never have enough time, money, whatever it is. So, on... On Senna, it was a really complicated deal to get everyone on board. It took months. I had already started on the film. I was turning down over work. I wasn't getting paid yet because the deal hadn't been signed. So I've kind of jumped in now, I'm going to make this film.

I've got an edit suite, I'm working with an assistant editor. We're starting to look at material. And I'm waiting for the deal to happen so I can hire an editor. It took nine months for that deal to happen. So for nine months I'm not being paid. But for nine months I'm looking at a material. So what happens is the problem of not being able to get going on a film became the way we solve the problem. Because actually I spent nine months looking at a material and I just thought this material is amazing. It's all here. It's the best set of daily's I've ever seen in my life. We can make the entire film just

with all of this stuff that I've seen on YouTube and that we're kind of stealing and ripping from different places. Right. And that's what we do kind of stealing and ripping from different places. And that's what we do. We just started ripping it. So you started with like essentially third hand or second hand footage. Way back quality stuff off YouTube, editing it together and started screening it and showing it to people and by bit everyone fell in love. But then everyone would say, yeah, but it's a doc, you have to film someone.

And I'd say, I don't think we do. And it took a long time, but a more we screened a film, the more people got really caught people were to get you like somebody against a black backdrop talking about it. I don't think we do. And it took a long time, but the more we screened a film, the more people got really caught up with people. People wanted to get you like somebody against a black backdrop talking about. You know, a bookshelf over there and a plant over there. And the usual kind of thing. And people do that really well,

but because my background was in drama, I'm not, that's not my style. Most of my dramas don't have a lot of dialogue in them. So it just became the thing of, we kept showing the film and screening it. And people would just be really moved, and crying and laughing, and it just became, that was the only way to make the film.

And the more you show it, the more people loved it, the more they realized maybe there's something unique here. So that's always kind of exciting for me. If you make a film, you want to challenge yourself and you want to try to create a new style. And that's kind of what the film did. And did you have a script for a center? Or did that also do you ask?

Yes, so on center there was an expert. There's a guy on a team, there's a producer, James Gayriss, myself director, and there was a guy called Manish Pandy, who was the writer and the executive producer, who was the mad senator fan. He'd seen every race, he read every book, he'd been there, he had the photographic memory, I know nothing, so I'm quite happy to be the dumb guy who knows nothing, but I work with someone who knows something, and then my job is the director to try to find the best shots, the best angles, and to work with the editors, to try and tell the story, to make it work for people who know nothing. Simplify it, take out all the engines, take out all the technology.

Did you know were you were racing and found? I mean, did you know Santa? I'm a support nut. I know a lot about support. I'm interested in that. And so I was watching it. I remember it, but I'm not a center crazy guy at the beginning. I was in a formal one nut.

So I knew enough to know I like the psychology, you know, I was in a Formula One, so I knew enough to know I liked a psychology of sports people and I'd been trying to make a film about sport, but fiction films, you never believed the stories, you know, if you tried to write, I don't know, Michael Jordan's story down and the kind of things that he did in a drama, he said, come on, I stoop it, but he did it, you know, that's what's great about sport, right? And that's kind of what Senna was. Senna would be lost in a race and he had win it. And then suddenly it would start raining and he'd come through and he'd win and he'd do it again and again and he would just like, you get caught up in his story. It's interesting. You know, something that struck me and I'm going to, I do want

to talk about how, how you came to the Amy story. But, but hearing you talk about Senna and, and sporting this way or sports as we call it here in America. Why? I don't know. It seems like that extra ass is a problem in sports. It's sports. Sport is like, you know, like, you know, sport is just what is that? I don't know. That doesn't make any sense. That's the word that encompasses all. That's like he plays a sport. It's about one thing. Doesn't make any sense to Americans. Evident everywhere else, though, of course. But here's what I'm thinking. Obviously we're all wrong. You know, I think that sounds, that sounds right to me. I don't want to, I don't want to point fingers, but no, here's what I'm thinking. Hold me, see, we're all wrong. You know, I think that sounds right to me. I don't want to point fingers.

No, here's what's interesting. You were just talking about sports and the larger than life character. And I was going to get to this later on, but I feel like we're one of the things when I was watching Amy that I thought a lot about is Elvis. And I was actually just talking about Elvis Presley because I think he's sort of this mythical, he's an American myth in many ways. I think he's this mythological character that has this like incredible rise and this incredible fall.

And it's just sort of, it's dramatic and epic and sad and beautiful. And I thought the same thing about Amy when I was watching that. It's much smaller, I mean, I'm much smaller scale in many ways, but there's a certain mythology to it. And there's a certain building of a mythological character as you see her go from this 14 year old girl to this huge, almost a caricature of who she was, you know, not that anything was fake about her, you know, but how much are you interested in mythology

in these stories, and how much is this about trying to tell those real, the real mythologies? It's really interesting because Senna became this mythical character. That's him. He was like a good. I mean, he was for me like when you're making a film about him, you're dealing with someone from almost from another planet.

Because you know, the way these guys drive, they're driving at 200 miles an hour. They're thinking in a way that none of us could think. They're out of fittest people in the world. Because they're only like 20 guys that can drive a Formula One car at any given point. So he's the best of the best, right? Superhuman.

What I found interesting about Amy was for me, she was like a girl next door. Or as you know, the roundaway girl kind of thing there. She literally grew up in an area just like, she lived half a mile away from my door. She talked like we all talked. She was a typical Londoner, went to normal schools. So what I was interested in was actually breaking up that mythical image, that beehive,

the makeup, that kind of mega star, millionaire, you deserve everything that happens to you because you're rich. And take it all out of waste, trip it away, and underneath it is just this very ordinary girl with lots of insecurities, worries about her weight, worried about her spots, worried about her hair, worried about all that kind of stuff

that ordinary people do, someone that I could have known gone to school with me at a bus stop. So the reason I engaged with this one was almost opposite to Senna and Elvis or Michael Jackson. I don't know who these people are. Right. They exist in another universe. But I think Elvis, his roots, I think there is something true at Michael Jackson as well and I think there's a similar.

You know, for me, my first, he still came from another country. Right. I mean, you came here to land down the street. And he was on movies and he did all these songs. And that's how I remember him. Whereas this girl was really literally from down the road. From your neighbor. And who could sing.

And I know a lot of girls when I was growing up, but I could sing. But she could write. And she had this voice that was like, she was a jazz singer, which nobody was into at that point at that age. And then she can somehow, she hit something. She hit a mark, which translated to this mega sales and became a famous all over the world. You know, I could still go to lots of places in the world and people know Center, he's

pretty big around the world, but a lot of people had not heard of him. I've not been anywhere where people haven't heard of Amy. Right. So she's on that level so quickly from two records and one of them didn't even get a release here for a time. So in a short, special time, she went from ordinary girl to mega star, right? But she wasn't cut out for it. And it's a total juxtaposition to like a Britney Spears or somebody who is such a manufactured product. I mean,

I mean, not that they're not talented in a different way, but there's something that's, well, the authenticity is so, so there that it's too much authenticity. I mean, in a way, it's, it's like what really broke her is for the, how real she was. So I never thought about this before until I started kind of working on this movie and hearing people talking about Amy is that she,

you know, you hear about method actors, you hear about people who have to go into character, Daniel Day Louis or something like that and have to be that person 24 hours a day to kind of, well, Amy was like that when she sang. She had to go back into the emotion that she felt when she wrote the song and feel that emotion. If it's a song about a breakup and it's a deep relationship and it's kind of real heavy stuff she's dealing with and darkness and depression, she would then feel that emotion to sing it because then

she would sing it depending on the mood she's in now, which is kind of what jazz musicians do. You played away you feel. No two nights are the same and that's what she was. She was this very kind of interesting jazz singer that had to feel it. The problem is she'd become a pop star. Pop star, just sing a bloody record. Yeah. Even if you don't sing, just dance or mine. We don't care. But people want to hear the record because that's what they've paid for. Right. And that became the problem. Yeah. And if she suddenly did go into that triangle shape that she talks about in a story. Well, I mean, I feel like there's, I mean, I feel like there's a lot of problems.

That is one of them. I feel like she's also, I mean, the film, I don't touch on a lot of things. I mean, I think the big, the centerpiece, and when you think about these sort of stresses on this person who's become this thing, is this world of celebrity that she lives. And I mean, it's very clear you see this path

from being that sort of normal girl to this world of celebrity. And, you know, it's very common, I think path from being that sort of normal girl too, this world of celebrity. And, you know, it's a very common, I think now very common people say, oh, they weren't ready for it. You can't prepare anybody for it. In fact, you have somebody in the film saying, there's no textbook on this, there's no guide book.

And I think everybody gets that. Nobody really knows what it's like to be a celebrity until you are a celebrity. But you actually seen the story from inside her perspective a bit, you do get this impression of this overwhelming change in her reality. But what didn't change but was also deeply affecting and impactful were her relationships.

I mean, it seemed like particularly the relationship with her husband, Blake, and her father were very destructive in some ways destructive relationships. And those were not relationships that were new, essentially new to because of her fame. Although you do give the impression that Blake maybe comes back a bit. But maybe people change. Yeah. Not just her. Yeah. That's the thing. Everyone gets affected by your whole circle. Suddenly, that's a new dynamic, isn't it? So there seems to be, I don't know if it was a conscious decision or if it's just something that came up in the process of telling this story,

but her father seems to be kind of one of the causes of, of problems that she was having. And there are many situations in the film where it seems like, well, Amy's in trouble, she's trying to get clean. She needs a rest. She needs a good rehab. She needs to do whatever. And her, there's her dad sort of telling her to do the opposite or making her do the opposite. What is your take on that relationship and how detrimental do you think it was to her existence and to her problems? Obviously, this is all quite sensitive issues because you're dealing with real people.

This is the big difference between fiction films and drama and documentaries when people are still alive. Because there are people out there who are aware that this film has been made and they're uncomfortable with certain things. I mean, I guess my answer is that once I got into it, I spoke to a lot of people doing the research of this film, over 100 people.

I couldn't put everyone in the film. At the beginning, no one wanted to speak because everyone thought it was too sensitive and therefore I don't know. They didn't know who I was. I could have been another journalist that's going to try and take advantage of Amy and stuff. One by one, they did speak and they opened up.

And then people would talk and tell me what was going on. And it felt like I kind of, I owed it to Amy, really, to try to be kind of as honest as I possibly could do with the finished film. And that meant dealing with all the people around her, lots of people around her seem to make decisions, including Amy, it's really important. She made decisions which in the end were not great for her. She changed management. She's the one, I don't know if you pick who you fall in love with, but she fell in love with this guy, he went away, he went back to his ex, that's where the album back to black comes from, from that kind of depression she hits after he leaves her.

And then he came back on a scene, everyone warned her about him, but she took him back. There was something about him that she connected to. I mean, shoes of sad, they were kind of obsessed with each other. It was, you know, I don't know, it kind of sit and dance, you think. There was just something about the two of them. They both came from a certain background, they both had certain issues. She had self-esteem issues. He had issues from his childhood, which in a way, they looked at each other and it's like,

I know you, you know me, we have a perfect connection here. Let's get together. You know, there is something going on. Now, in terms of family and other people, I think everyone started making decisions, which just turned out to be bad for her in a way. They were not consciously doing it maybe, or maybe they were, but it just like they all kind of added up and added up and added up her team around her. were kind of putting her on shows that you just think, why is she doing that show at that point? Doesn't make sense. Right.

You're looking at it. Even at the time, I think people were looking at it and going, it doesn't make sense. But then kept selling tickets. People kept wanting to see her. No matter what state she was in, people want to go and see her. Even if it's just to see that woman who's obviously got a problem with a glass of wine singing rehab, that's all they wanted to say in there, egging her on.

And I feel like, I feel like, you know, one of the things that I felt when she died, and I remember thinking very vividly was, of course, I mean, she was, this was a person who you could tell was, on a path that was terrible, just a terrible path was very sick, needed to help. You know, and I think, it's the same thing, you look at like somebody like Michael,

we were talking about Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson was one of those things where, and it know, and I think it's the same thing you look at, like somebody like Michael, we were talking about Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson was one of those things where, and it's become something that's so publicly, I mean, you touch on it in the film, you've got comedians doing jokes about it and the media talking about it, but it does, you become so desensitized to the what is actually happening to a human being.

You know, and having dealt with, you know, some seeing, having seen alcoholism up close, right? And when you see how sick somebody can really be and how damaging it can really be, this is like, it's so clear watching the film how you think somebody there. So there's supposed to be somebody who says, all right, seriously, we have to do something, shut it down. We've got to fix this. You've got to go get help.

Whatever it is. And there are, there are intervals there, but you know where that happens. But it does seem like it was this kind of thing that no one could, what desensitize or not, no one could actually control what she was doing. I mean, you couldn't, and people say it, they say, well, you couldn't force her to go. You know, you couldn't throw her in a car

and kidnap her or whatever. But, I mean, how much do you think that desensitizing played into it played into the people around her? I mean, did were they reacting at all to everybody was just kind of like, oh, you're this tragic character, you know? I think yeah, that's that's really an interesting question. It's hard to kind of give an answer from the outside here, but you know when When I spoke to people around her all the people happened was, kind of everyone was in different compartments. There were very few people that around the whole time. So what would happen is there'd be a group of friends maybe she'd grow up with, and there'd

be a first manager Nick, and then something would happen, and there'd be her grandmother who was a key part of her life, actually. And then that's all, they were around for the first album, Frank. And then the manager says, I can't see you kind of let you do this to yourself, right? I can't be here. If you, unless, if you want to help, I'm here to help you, but if you're going to carry on, I can't be here. And her friends were kind of the same. So she moves on and there are other people that suddenly fill in that gap.

There's another manager that comes in, there's other people that come along. And those people maybe only knew her from that point onwards. So they think that's normal. Yeah. Now for the people who knew her before, she's actually got a lot worse. Right. And I think what happened was this kind of step of her getting slightly worse, but a new group of people coming around and getting her to happening again.

And none of these groups were talking to one another. None of them knew that Amy previously. So you just think this is who you are. Okay, you're fine. Then she gets worse and another group would come along. So that's kind of the interesting kind of dynamic of these different compartments around her life that I found. And somehow they didn't all come together. The kind of doctors, the experts I spoke to said, you know, if you're going to do an intervention, you have to bring all of these people, you have to put your own grievances aside, stop arguing amongst yourselves, come together to help. And for whatever reason, sadly, that never happened. I do want to get back to the production of the way you

made this film, because you didn't shoot anything for this, is that right? that the way you made this film, because you didn't shoot anything for this, is that right? The only bits that are in the film, which were shot by our side, there's a few drone shots and helicopter shots. Oh, okay, right, there's one in New York, and there's a... So that one I didn't shoot. Okay.

Yeah, that's a beautiful shot in Union Square. But I happened to... We're back from... That would have been some archive that someone else had shot. Oh really? That's a beautiful shot of New York, and you have this moment,

and I'm gonna go to New York, let's find a great shot. And so again, Paul Bell would have found something like that. And then there were a few shots in London where someone literally one day came into the edit suite. Someone else was working next door and they're like, they had a drone. It's like, listen to this, it's amazing.

Why don't we use that? You know, it was literally... Can you go to these addresses and just shoot something? And then they went off and they shot it, and they said, oh, that's no good. All of that ended up in a film. You know, there's a few aerial shots of London. I, when this film started, I was doing a film for the London Olympics and I shot the whole film from a helicopter.

And so there's a few shots that I've sort of nicked from that film. Right. But you didn't really shoot any, I mean, you didn't shoot any of the people who are speaking. It's all audio. Everything in the film in terms of people and images, it's kind of 99% is all I can. And you do quite a bit, this is something I was struck by watching it. And I don't know how much, if you were aware of this beforehand, were you a fan of her music? I mean, I had her CDs. I never saw her live, never met her.

I would not have called myself a fan at the beginning. I have friends who are really into their music, who really know what they're talking about, who saw her before she was famous at a festival, and they just heard this voice across the field, and they went over to see her and they were blown away, and I trust their opinion. And these two friends really pushed me to the film.

My wife really pushed me to the film. They were like, she's amazing, you have to do this, you have to do this, drop all that other stuff. I was on my an R-ing for a bit. And then I started doing research and I was like, actually, here's a story header I wanna get into it. And a big point of it for me was because it was a film

about my home city and I haven't made any films at home in London for a long time. And so what was it that brought it to you initially? I mean, was it just people mentioning it to you or was there something to do? How did the project come about? Yeah. So it all kind of goes it to you initially? I mean, was it just people mentioning it to you or was it something? Had a project come about? Yeah. So it all kind of goes back to the previous film, Senna, there was a guy at Universal Music in London who'd loved Senna,

who kind of had mutual friends with my producer, James Gehries. They must have met at dinner party or something and he said, what do you think? Would you be interested in making a film like Senna about Amy? And what this guy at Universal, said to James, the producer was Watson all. So James thought, okay, that makes sense. Let me call Asif.

After Senna, I got offered a lot of sports films. Yeah, a lot of people got in touch and please make a film about me. Please make a film about me. And I didn't really want to do that again. So I was waiting for them. The sports players getting touch with you, they're like, what'd you do this for me?

They people did. Really? Yeah, a lot of big names. You've been amazed. I mean, I love, we love to hear about them. Feel free to share. No, my,

my, my, I'd like to do this for my, okay, so if you're listening, he probably is listening. He's obviously a big fan of this podcast. You've been amazed how many people like

Senator, like that kind of most amazing. No, I know, I know the film and actually my producer, Magnus, who's Swedish, which is unrelated to his, his love for the film,

but he's been saying, I mean, even before, even before we set this up, he was like, oh, you gotta see Santa, this film's so good. And I have not, I admittedly have not seen it. I barely, I barely saw, okay, this is a, I barely saw, the thing is I saw a screamer, actually at the time, but I had a screamer for Amy. I started watching it last night, late at night,

and got about 40 minutes into it, and I was dead tired. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna pick this up tomorrow and then I realized that I didn't. And by the way, I'm just gonna say, what I'm about to talk about is not safe, and I'm not advocating for this. To not do this, that's right. Don't do what I did, but on my way into work,

I drove in and I watched the most of the rest of it on an iPad on the seat next to me, which is highly and advisable and very dangerous. And admittedly, I kept my eyes on the row most of the time. So I did miss a few bits, but the audio was playing through. Then I finished it at my desk, which is the wrong place to watch the end of this film. So if you're thinking about viewing it, and for some reason you have a screener, you're not in a theater. Yeah. Hopefully you have empire to it. a screener you're not in a theater. Yeah. Hopefully you have empire in it.

Last time I sent you a screener. Yeah. Sorry. I really abused my screener rights by moving through this. Anyhow, but it's not, it's not, don't finish it up in an office. That's my recommendation. But what was I saying? How did I get on this topic?

David Joseph, a universal music, had liked Santa. Contacted my producer. He then said, okay, I'm interested, contacted me. I had made lots of films about sports people, didn't want to do another sport film. So this was different enough because it was about a musician. So I knew Amy, a new of her music I had her seed is by wasn't a hardcore fan, but it was just something about her story and how it panned out. I guess there were loads of questions. And I think for me, to make a movie about anything, there's going could be a lot of elements and layers and questions that you want to answer. That's what makes

it a feature film. And the fact that it was a film about someone local, that it was a film about a city for me as much. It was about North London. Camden, in a particular place, at that particular moment in time, it was like, where everything was happening. It was like the center of the world, for a short period of time. All the musicians were going there. Everyone wanted to hang out there, a kind of darker characters who wanted to be something were there. There was loads the center of the world for a short period. I'm all the musicians were going there. Everyone wanted to hang out there, to kind of darker characters who wanted to be something were there. It was loads of drugs on the street. It just had this energy, and she wanted to live there

for that reason. So in the 60s, you might be in Carnaby Street in London, then it was Notting Hill, and then it became Candon. And so it was just something about getting that kind of place and capturing it is what made me interested to do the thing. Where is it now in London? Still in North London.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Just do that. You just say that because, no, I mean, where's the cool place in London now? You still here. Oh, I went to Shortwich and Hot place. You thought I was asking a candidate still existing? Yeah, it's not me and Hot, Shortwich and Hot place.

Oh, Shortwich. All of that kind of place. Shortwich is a place, right? Yeah. In the other city. It's kind of Bloomberg offices. All the poor areas, you know, they get regenerated suddenly. It hip moving in. That's right. That's what's happened with Brooklyn here. I mean, there's like Williamsburg Williamsburg was a bunch of factories and Greenpoint was,

you know, where the people who worked in the factories lived and now they're cool and very expensive. So, so, but you, but sorry, so you said 99% of this is basically footage that archival footage, right? So you did something really interesting and this is the, ah, this is a question I wanted to ask you. I think at one point I was getting to it, but I went off as I want to do on a tangent. What I didn't realize about her music, and what was extremely pronounced in the film, and I think like I, makes me want to revisit her music,

is she was not, these were not abstract ideas that she was singing about. They were not, you know, most pop music, most music you hear, it could be applied to anybody's situation. But when you go through the story, when you go through the her story, her really, you know, the personal bits of it, her music mirrors it almost perfectly. Now, I don't know if that's a testament to your skill as a filmmaker, or if it's reality. I'm thinking that it is reality. But it is kind of incredible. Did you discover that? I mean, you must have discovered that pretty quickly while you were doing it.

Yeah, so I started talking to people and doing these audio interviews. And while I was doing that, people started telling me stories. And then, you know, every now and again, I'd be off going somewhere at night driving in the car in London and I'd put the CD on. And I'd listen to the songs. And I'd just start hearing them again in a different way, because it suddenly, like, keyboards would pop up. and it was almost like a jigsaw puzzle or rather it was like a map that I didn't really understand.

Then I stopped listening to the music and I just printed out all the lyrics and read the lyrics and suddenly you read them as a piece of text, as a piece of writing and you realize that is the story so and so it's telling me about. And this person, I'll go who's this person and I'll ask someone to go, oh that's Ray Charles. And then you know, they'd know, they'd be all these clues that she'd put in her writing. It is like a secret is revealed.

Yeah, it's crazy. We just had it upside down or backwards or something. You know, the songs are there. We've all heard the songs a hundred and a thousand times. We've heard them all, we've danced to them. We didn't really pay that much attention. And all I'm doing is just saying, if you put the words up on the screen,

you stop going with the music and stop going with, you know, the beat and you listen to what she's saying and you realize she had written it all down a long time ago about her issues with men, about her relationships, about what she wants someone stronger than her, about herself to steam, everything, every song is based on a real person, a real incident. And then when I talk to the people, it's pretty much verbatim. Certain things rehab is what happened between her manager, Nick, and it's identical to the story about her being taken there. Suddenly they tried to rehab. So it's like, for me, this is going to be a particular kind

of musical where you have a story and you have a narrative and you follow it. And then you learn something about her and then she picks up a guitar and sings, and you're like, oh my god, that's what we just saw. I mean, literally, you think it's this romantic sort of, you know, when you hear the song, you think it's this kind of romantic poetry about rehab as a concept. Yeah, kind of ironic, kind of comments on it. It's not, it's extremely specific, it's very literal, and it happened, which I thought, which I thought, you know,

I was, didn't doubt truth in her music, but you don't realize that it's so close to the actual world. These are the kind of really simple, obvious things that then become big revelations. But her text is being out there on the internet all the time, but nobody really connected the dots. And I think that's what happened during the process of the film. Sometimes it's just about doing really simple things. Like just put the text up there and read it, and then listen to the song, and suddenly

it means something else. You'll never hear it the same again. You know, that's kind of the job of the director. And you use the lyrics in the film. I mean, that's actually a motif that keeps reappearing is that as you go through the story, you're putting the lyrics up on the screen. But writing, for me, is one of the best things about, you know, everyone talks about the voice, the voice, which is amazing. But I think having a blank piece of paper and writing something that's original, that's personal, that can translate all over the world and stand a test of time. That's the really, really difficult thing. There's no song unless someone writes it to start

with. It comes out with a music and all of that's her. I didn't actually play the guitar so well. No, this is something to me that was also quite surprising. I assume that she was like working with producers who'd be writing the music with her and it was sort of a typical pop situation where you've got like a team of engineers, producers, writers, and you've got the, you know, the singer in there, and they're all sort of working together. She's had like a Danone was just playing this stuff on her own, a Dan Electric guitar, and we're just playing this, writing these tunes, writing them down on piece of paper, and then taking them into the studio and going and doing them. I'm not saying that the producers and other writers are in pieces, but you know, she worked with, you know,

Salam Remi and Mark Roniston and Commissioner Gordon had great producers, but all of them, and I spoke to all of them, said, but she came in with this amazing raw talent. She had it. So, you know, that whole thing about, you know, a lot of, and I was talking to Rosen Radio this morning so I was like, when I've just said,

you know, it's like classic, you've got a white girl singing black music or jazz and can she really do it. But all of these people were like, she's the real deal. You know, I've spoken to like, you got Tony Bennett at one end, okay? Don't listen to me, listen to Tony Bennett.

Right. You've got, I know Prince loved her stuff and she performed the Prince, she performed the Rolling Stones, Questlove thought she was great, most death thought she was great. You've got these producers and producers for the Fuji's and Lauren Hill and Nars and all these people,

all of them said this girl was the real deal. And she did it like when she was 18, 19, 21. And you've got interviews with a lot of those people. Yeah, I met all of them. So on the interview piece, you talk to her father, you talk to Blake, you talk to all these people, right? Is there a director's cut of this somewhere where there's way more conversation that you do? Oh, yeah. I mean, look, yeah, because I spoke to certain people for like 12 hours, 15 hours. And you might have, you know, 15 lines in the film.

That's one of the problems with this kind of process, is you do all this work and research. And in the film, you just spend all the time saying, we've got to get rid of it, we've got to cut it out, we've got to cut it out. And that becomes frustrating, not just for me and the editor, but for the people I spoke to who feel like they opened their heart to me, and they're not in the movie. How come you didn't put this in? It's really tough, you know, you spend a lot of time talking to them

and asking them to be a part of the movie and then they do it and they open it hard to you and then they're not in a movie and then they're upset that they've been cut out of her life and you can't win. It's a really difficult thing. A lot of people are upset that they're not in the film. Yeah.

But it's kind of this really difficult choice you have to make where you all you can do in a movie. It's like, you know, you're adapting a huge Russian novel. You've gotta just capture the essence of it as best you can do in a movie is like you know you're adapting a huge Russian novel you've got to just capture the essence of it as best you can. It's some film but it's just dealing with certain people, certain rules that are applied when you're making a film, you can't have everyone in there, you can't. The real version of the film I guess is like you know eight feet tall and is the transcript of every single interview that I do. Because that tells you everything. It's a

show, it's a show on HBO, it's a season of a show or something. It's, you know, I'm not saying we're doing that, but that's the truth. It could be. Because then you get everyone's different perspective. Right. Because they're not always saying the same thing. Sometimes they're saying the opposite thing and it's really up to you to decide what you want to feel and believe.

By the way, you know what's interesting about it? I wasn't like, God, I need to see a documentary about Amy Winehouse. I wasn't sitting around thinking. I wish somebody need to see a documentary about Amy Winehouse. I wasn't sitting around thinking. I wish somebody would just do a documentary about Amy Winehouse. And in fact, I don't know that I was the one I first saw the first trailer. I was like, yeah, that seems interesting.

I don't know that I really want to see it. And having watched it now, there's a tremendous value there in actually seeing that story because it reflects so much about what's happening, what happens in reality, in in celebrity that is that. And art, for me, it's just a film about art, and when it's art comes from it, you know, creativity. And what do we do with it once it becomes?

And what's more important, the art or the person, what's gonna last longer, you know, or the revenue that the artist creates. All of that, right. All the business comes off, stuff. I actually thought it was really interesting. There was a scene. What would you talk about if you didn't have things

that needs to talk about? No, there would nothing. We would just sit here in silence. But that might be interesting too. There's actually a bit, which I thought was impressive for the label. There's a part later in the film where the label actually says, listen, you've got to, you've got to,

this is talking about art and money and the person versus the product. But the label actually says, listen, and I guess they're trying to protect their product as much as the person. But the label actually says, if you don't get clean, you can't perform, you can't go do this, you can't go make more records, which I think is unusual. I don't know how often that happens.

It seems like things get really out of hand for the most part, and you don't hear about label stepping in and trying to get the person to clean up. I don't know if they do that normally, but I think the situation got so messy that that came up. I tell you, I mean, I'm not in the music business, and I learn a lot because I, you know, I don't really know when a artist is performing where I don't understand how it works, who gets the money, but what I seems like, what I pit of learn is that, you know, the label, make money from CD sales, record sales, people buy tracks down low-dom. They don't necessarily make money from performance,

it's live performance. Yeah. And that's essentially what Amy made that record in 2006. It came out in 2007 here. For five years, six years she was performing back to blacks. And that was the time, and yeah, 100% correct about that. That was actually a time when music was in, there was a real valley where I remember,

because we had a studio in Brooklyn, we worked with a lot of bands and it was like touring is the only thing is the only way we get paid. Like we can put a record out, but nobody, we're not going to sell enough of that record to make any money. The label might make some money, but ultimately the gigs were the things that were important and when you do go into that in the movie, Amy has, it's all these obligations to play these gigs for a ton of money. But that is how a lot of artists, I think, I think if you look to this day, you will find

that that's where the money is for the artist is playing the live gigs. Because they can control much more of that. I mean, the label doesn't necessarily own those gigs, they can do sponsorships, they get a lot more money from the actual ticket sales. So yeah, I mean, I think it's still like that. Music is, you know what's interesting is that,

I've talked a lot about this recently because Apple Music and you know, people talk about the changing economy of music. And this is interesting because, you know, it's an art form that we've put a very clear value on, obviously valuable to people on an emotional level, clearly valuable for a long time to labels into artists, but it has changed dramatically. And that's a place, place with sort of a sacred space for artists where it's like, you can't get a live performance anywhere else. It's going to be live.

You have to be in the room and that they still have some control over that. But Amy did not, it's interesting, but in this film does not have as much control as she probably would have liked to have. It seems like. No, I think that's the thing. A lot of the artists I spoke to for the film, Yesim Bay, formerly known as Most Step, was one of the people who talked about, you know, if you're a solo artist, you got to be driving a bus, you've got to be in charge of career, you decide when you perform, you decide if you're not up to it, I'm not doing it tonight, you have to be able to take

that on and I don't get the feeling that she wasn't control sadly, she wasn't able to make those decisions or she was confused, sometimes she'd say yes and then she'd say no and nobody really knew. What's interesting, what you're talking about in terms of music, part of the thing about Amy's story that I found interesting anyway was that she was on that cusp from analog to digital. The first demo that she ever did that she gave to Nick Shamansky was a TDK A90 cassette tape, which he then played. She put it down, press play and record, and recorded her voice, gave him a cassette tape, he plugged it in a car, drove know, which he then played. He did it. She put it down, pressed play and record, and recorded her voice, gave him a cassette tape,

he plugged it in a car, drove around, heard her voice, found her and kind of, did you hear that? Did you hear that tape? I have heard it, yeah. Yeah, and it's, you know, it's great. It's amazing. She's doing some kind of jazz standards. By the ending, she's the digital girl, you know,

she's the one who kind of becomes the person who, you know, not only digital in terms of music, but she's the one when Facebook and YouTube and person who, you know, not only digital in terms of music, but you choose the one when Facebook and YouTube and all of this stuff newspapers have gone digital. They need more and more gossip and stuff to talk about on their websites. They're the most popular ones. You know, something you can just put on a,

he made her famous in America. Right, page six, Paris Hilton was the thing that a lot of people I spoke to, that's how they first heard about. No, I remember. I mean, they have a circle around some part of a body and it'd be pointing to be some crazy, witty thing written about when everyone's laughing.

That was the way everyone in the US got in on her, was by someone making fun of her. Yeah. And that song. You do totally humanize a person who is like a character to most people, and was so much of a character, and so much of a character that, you know,

you've got Jay Leno making, just blatant, just awful jokes about her drug use. When in reality, there's like a person dying from drug use, I mean, literally dying from drug use and alcohol abuse. And it's just kind of striking like how, I mean, we're just very fucked up as people. I mean, we delight in this stuff. We don't think much about it, and on the other end of it is an actual human being that is being, you know, in some ways tortured. I mean, are they responsible for it

on their own? Like you said, she made decisions. I mean, absolutely. But there's no possibility that any of those jokes or any of that shit helped. You know, because the human beings look at themselves up. You know, they're aware of what's been said about them. People do it. Don't admit to it, but they do it. And then they see negative stuff, and they see more and more negative stuff. If anything's gonna drive you to self-medicate more.

Well, she's very insecure. I mean, I think anybody who's an artist has some insecurity. I mean, anybody who does anything where you're putting yourself out in the world, in view for other people to see, it makes you incredibly insecure. I mean, every time we finish one of these,

I go, oh, fuck, that was the worst ever. He's all I can think about is what it's gonna sound like to somebody else. I'm thinking this is the worst ever. No, but don't worry. That's how I feel every time we do one. No, I think this one's actually going pretty well. I'm feeling pretty good about it.

Oh, it's another, what is this? Our safe word, right? Let me just explain. I said before we started. I said, if there's anything what is this our safe word, right? Let me just explain. I said before we started. I said, if there's anything you don't want to talk about, let's just have a safe word. You can just say it. And I decided to say for it should be blueberry. And so as if wrote it down here, um, and keeps pointing to it, he's pointed to it about

25 times. I just keep going right steam rolling right over it. All right. So we, we have to wrap soon, but I do wanna talk a little bit about it. I wanna talk about the music. We talked about the movie a lot, and that this is obviously a film about a musician and very much about the music.

Love music. That's the thing I love about it, right? I've heard the records, you've heard the records. Well, I really, Fenn and Love with, was Amy just kind of walking out, chatting to her friends in a cab, messing around, stands up, pick a big guitar, starts to sing, you're like, wow.

It's just the rawness of it. It's kind of, there's one word that kind of, it's a film about love, that up, pick a big guitar, starts to sing, you're like, wow, it's just the rawness of it. If there's one word that's a film about love, that's the word I would use, that's what it's all about in one way or another, but the thing about the texture, it's quite raw, and the roar of the bed of for me with her, because it's just her voice and her guitar and maybe one of a guy playing, and it's just like, she blows her away. Even if you don't like her stuff, you will hear someone, you cannot. It's undeniable. It will be impressed by her.

It's undeniable. I mean, her town is undeniable. And there's plenty of her music in the film that I would never have been a fan of. There's a lot of stuff that's very way less poppy than what most people know of her music. But it's still just beautiful, achingly, beautiful music. But what I was actually, what I want to ask about

is that you've got the score. Who did the score? I got Konantaniopinto. Yeah. The score is, so it's kind of, you kind of in like a touchy space, it seems like you've got this film about this incredible musician, this incredible singer, and then you've got to try to add to her story with music. So it seems like that would be a very, very dangerous, difficult position. But it is really a subtle and perfect like perfectly matched score

Like how did you get there? How much closer did you work with with the composer? Santonio is it's a big issue. I thought about it a lot I you know do you put music on the film about a musician? But I always I for me I treat them as movies and movies have scores and scores help tell the story Particularly when you've got just audio a lot lot of the time literally all you've got is audio to play with. So you have to kind of use sound design and use music. Now, Antonio, I've worked with previously

on this other film called Center, which you have to watch, not in the car. Yeah, no, particularly because of a subject matter. But do not watch this. But a very appropriate place to watch the film. Telling you, you don't want to watch this. If you're a passenger, you may get carried away. Yeah, just start going for it.

Don't mess with Center. So Antonio is an amazing composer. He's from São Paulo. He did City of God. He did Central Station. He works with Michael Mann on films, Collateral and various stuff. So he's like a composer, isn't he?

Composer. And I worked with him on a few films. He did Senna. He kind of chased me down. He's a Brazilian. And he was like, I love this guy. I want to do the music, I can't afford you. And he was in Brazil, I was in London, and he's like, let me try, let me try, let me find, write some music. That's awesome. And then I'll see if I can cut with it. So I was in London, he didn't even

watch in it at the film, just from his memories of Senna, he wrote this theme, which is a main theme of Senna, beautiful piece of music, so that you're hired. Now in that film, I was going backwards and forwards to Brazil quite a lot, so I got to spend time with him. On Amy, I kind of just asked him without thinking, I kept thinking, should I get someone that she's worked with before, should I get a producer, but in a way that's all too close to home. I wanted something that's slightly separate

from her music, so you don't get confused by it. So I never even got to meet him on this one. He was in Brazil. I was in London, he wrote this theme, this beautiful piano theme, which kind of develops and it's kind of the emotional, kind of underlying score. It's quite subtle, but it's there in the background. And it just works.

I'm glad, I'm glad you liked him. I'm glad you liked him. You're the first person to mention this. Really? Oh, I think it's critical. I actually, towards the end of the film, I mean, there's just a moment where I think it is very subtle throughout the movie. There's a point's, there's just a moment where I, I think it is very subtle throughout the, throughout the movie.

There's a point where it's not subtle at all. And it could have been, it's the point where it could have ruined the film, you know. And it's interesting that you need to see it, yeah, actually. Yeah. Well, no, I would like to see it and have it properly and see hopefully that I would like to see it.

I would like to see it. Because I don't know how it sounds if you're listening to it and you'll come to see it. It sounded quite good. Sounded quite well. Actually, because you need to hear her. At this point, I was listening to it. I was listening to it on your. It sounded quite good. Well actually, because you need to hear her. At this point, I was listening to it. I was listening to it in a pretty high-quality earbud. So you had your iPad and headphones on while you're driving down.

No, no, no, no, no. This was after I had gotten out of the car and went into the office. So I'm gonna ask a really dumb sort of partying question. What's next for you? No, but what do you do after this? I mean, something completely different. I'm doing a drama. I'm in a drama right now. Can you tell me anything about it? Yeah, it's a love story. Okay. Yeah, it's set in a caucus region. It's an old book called Alianino and it's a Christian girl, Muslim boy, set kind of where Europe meets Asia, Russia meets Persia. It's kind of book set a hundred years ago, and it's not like I said, something completely different.

In the background it's romantic. It's oil. Where there is oil, there is oil. But also love. We hope. Do you feel free to use that on the poster? A little bit bit, but also love. I think that'll be huge.

That's what you need. What else is there? No, yeah, exactly. Well, listen, as if thank you for coming and doing this. I really appreciate it. This has been actually a super interesting conversation. I, there were a lot of questions I had when watching this film and you've answered many,

not all of them. And I do, I just had to say, if you, whether or not you like Amy Winehouse, whether or not you think you'll be interested in this, this film is tremendous. I highly recommend it. It was exceeded my expectations. And also, I would bring at least some tissue with you

because it is a heartbreaking story. Thank you for coming. Thank you for doing this really good. Thank you, son. It was a good fun. Well, that's our podcast for this week. I'll be back next week, of course. And as always, I wish you and your family the very best.

And I want you to be with your family. I want you to hold your family close. I want you to tell your family that you love them. 1. Draw the line on the back of the head 2. Draw the line a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. you you