The curse of great talent: Almost unbearably sad documentary Amy

Kind of odd that Amy Schumer's movie is called Trainwreck and ought to be called Amy, while Asif Kapadia's documentary Amy (about the life and death of Amy Winehouse) ought to be called Trainwreck. The message of this excellent documentary is that great talent can sometimes be a great curse, as it was for this poor girl who never really had a chance. A very middle-class North London Jewish girl who had the voice of a 60-year-old black American jazz singer - we hear this right at the top in home-movie footage when she sings Happy Birthday at about age 14 - she gets discovered very early and paid a huge signing bonus with a record label on the basis of voice and potential alone (her early performances are awful; she doesn't truly emerge until she stops playing guitar and works with a solid back-up band). We learn right off that her parents were both completely feckless, and her father abandoned the household when Amy was a preteen. She uses the signing money to buy or rent a place of her own, where she hangs w/ girlfriends and spends most of her time smoking weed, as she notes. It's downhill from there. One of the great things about this film is that her life was very thoroughly documented on film and video - tons of footage, much of it intimate, from which to select. There are a # of voice-over interviews about Amy but almost never do we see the subjects as they speak - a device that's like a dead spot in so many documentaries - it's almost always voice-over live video of Amy and friends. Despite one or two good life-long friends who try to help, her life spirals rapidly downward - and she's spurred on by malevolent husband, greedy manager and father, and the celebrity machine to continue performing when she is obviously extremely ill and deranged. She created for herself the role of in-your-face addict and bad girl and became almost trapped in her own image. She makes a few rehab attempts, and perhaps the saddest moment in the film occurs as she is at a celebration, clean and sober and a little wan, and says to a friend: This is so boring without drugs. Another almost unbearably touching moment is her recording of a duet w/ one of her idols, Tony Bennett, and she can hardly sing at all and he kindly coaches her along, very patient and worried. Watch it if you dare.