back to black (d. sam taylor-johnson, w. matt greenhalgh)

Back in the day Mr B & I went to visit the woman formerly known as Sam Taylor-Wood in her studio space in Shoreditch. Unlike many of her fellow YBAs, she came across as someone at ease with herself and her success. She was happy to speak openly about the movement and her role in it. Her works possessed a somewhat showy aspect, (ie Beckham sleeping), but she was a well established artist and seemed at peace with herself. There was none of the edginess of Emin, the lunacy of Lucas or the paranoia of Hirst.

This lack of edge permeates Back to Black, her biopic about Amy Winehouse. It’s a soft soap version of a nightmarish tale. Addiction, betrayal, family drama: This might have been the stuff of Racine, Shakespeare, Kurosawa, Reygadas. Instead there’s something discrete, even tame about the telling of the crack-smoking, disturbed genius. Presumably this approach is necessary in order to construct a tale fit for mass consumption, but it doesn’t feel as though it does justice to the genesis and evolution of a voice which succeeded in shaping the consciousness of a generation. How many singers have become globally ubiquitous as a result of the sheer talent they possess to manipulate the art of song?

In a sense Taylor-Johnson’s journey feels like a typical case of someone becoming consumed by the establishment. The YBA’s mostly came from what might be called the outside. The wealthier they got, the more they became insiders. Taylor-Johnson, similarly to McQueen, took the bold decision to go into filmmaking where she appears to have become subsumed by the conservatism of the British film industry. In the process, in Back to Black, she has essentially beatified Winehouse, who is engrained into the cultural hierachy in death in a way she was never able to be in life. Perhaps this is the fate of all the great jazz stars. (In the film Winehouse’s grandmother warns her of following in Parker’s footsteps, and Billie Holliday is another touchstone.) Or perhaps it is that this more sanitised version of Winehouse meets the expectations of financiers and public, an image the director has been happy to comply with.