The Ending

• MS of Amy getting into an airplane to non-diegetic VO from producer Salaam Remi mimicking Amy's voice saying 'the bad news is - i guess i fucked up... but now i can go to Nikki's wedding yay!' creating this sense of purposeful destruction of the tour to spend time with friends.
• There was the rise before the fall, this looming sense of doom despite the happiness expressed by Amy, and in interview recordings from Nick and Salaam Remi playing over still photographer shots and pap shoots.
• The ending feels much quieter, slower than the rest of the film, allowing her final moments peace. This poetic (mode) of editing respecting her as well as preparing the audience for the end.
• Drone footage ‘3 weeks later ‘with non-diegetic ringing of the phone in an L cut with Juliette's voiceover and paparazzi footage of Amy.

  There is a great sadness heard in Juliette voiceover, crying whilst remembering Amy's apologies to her: deep sadness.

  ‘I’m going to call you tomorrow’ Kapadia builds dramatic irony.
• Dissolve into a picture of Lauren, Amy, and Juliette as kids, with the score leitmotif of death, played before when her nan died, ‘Amy Forever’ composed by Antonio Pinto foreshadowing death as Chris King dissolves from the three shot of them as children to adults.

  
  

  'we're always here, you know we are, we've been waiting for you to talk to us.'
• Kapadia builds this visualisation of the cruelty of the paparazzi, continuing to display them as the villains: using the pleonastic flashing from different angles (they swarm) whilst her body is carried into the vans shows that even in death they do not leave her alone.
• Our alignment with the paparazzi through Kapadia's decisions to use their footage (ELS zoomed in) makes the audience question their own involvement in her downfall.
• The story comes full circle (cyclical narrative), she goes back to her friends, we go back to her friends, there is a sense of her beginning to build a new life days before her death.

  
  

  It was Juliette and Lauren first time speaking to an outsider, getting this stuff out, first time, emotion in their voices.
• Kapadia found this was the hardest sequence to cut, he was unsure of what to show, how much to show, there were so many different stories and events leading up to her death.

  
  

  He had cut several versions of the ending but had found them to be too long and contradictory.

  
  

  'i kind of think i am investigating a crime here'
• The archival footage continues to play, and continues to be taken from the paparazzi: enhancing the invasion the media incited on her life.
• Kapadia's choice to slow down the shots emphasises a sense of time stopping after her death, focusing the camera on her body guard, then the body and then a poster of her - her icon status.
• The romantic, slightly uplifting and celebratory music contrasts the sadness of her being gone, creating light in the tragedy.
• There is a cyclical structure / parallel with Tony Bennet mirroring what she says about him in the beginning 'she was one of the truest Jazz singers i have ever heard.' he compares her to her idols.
• MS of Tony Bennett before a microphone, giving him the final line in the film shows respect to Amy, her love to him being honoured with his words back to her.
• There is an incredible sadness in the MS of Tony Bennett, an older man now stood alone before a microphone where he once stood with Amy.

  Her absence: she was meant to take his place, to outlive him, yet her life was destroyed before she could.
• Centre framed ELS of Nick Shymansky breaking down, ultimate sadness. He was there from the beginning, he directed the film with his interviews, he is the most trustworthy character in the film.
• Montage of slow motion, archival footage of young Amy: which Kapadia has used her eyes as a motif: she stares into the camera, showing a happier time, when she was lost in her music.

  The moment is stuck in time, slow motion draws it out, forcing the audience to sit in the sadness, this poetic mode.
• The funeral scene is arguable one of the most authentic scenes of the whole film: relating to Kapadia's definition of his doc being 'true fiction.'

  No notable editing helps to change the moment but keep it as real and true as possible.
• The absence of voiceover in the last moment, during the montage of Amy footage acts as an offering of a moment of silence to sit and view her and her life. The music inflicting pathos.
• In the montage, the slow motion profile shot zooming into her face, eyes shut as she absorbs her music defines the documentary and who she was: a singer

  As bodyguard commented, she did not want to be famous, she just wanted to sing.
• The whole documentary has created an attachment to Amy, being exposed to such powerful, intimate footage of her life makes her death more hard hitting.
• Kapadia uses this montage to end his film as this was the true Amy that her friends and family truly knew. It reminds us the audience/spectator of who Amy was and how powerful of a voice she had, impactful following the LS's of her body being carried out her home.