‘Amy’ is so beautiful but so hard to watch

Amy Winehouse is the umpteenth example of a major musical talent spiraling out of control after too many years of non-stop drugs and booze.

Like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain before her, Winehouse died at the now mythical age of 27.

Her troubled life story threatens to become one-long celebrity cliche. But thanks to the powerful and revelatory new documentary “Amy,” we can experience her loss in a much more individual and personal way.

Much like the Kurt Cobain documentary “Montage of Heck,” “Amy” is full of astonishing private home movies. For instance, we get to see and, more importantly, hear Amy at a friend’s 14th birthday party.

By 16, she’s singing “Moon River” in front of a youth jazz orchestra and by 18, she’s casually sitting on a couch, with only an acoustic guitar, singing an original composition for a record executive.

At this point, she’s described as a “classic North London Jewish girl with lots of attitude,” but what really stands out is that startlingly rich and mature voice of hers. Lots of behind-the-scenes videos from her first tour reveal a funny teenager who balances a certain brashness with a surprising shyness and an appealing uncertainty about her life and prospects.

“I don’t think I’m going to be at all famous. I don’t think I could handle it. I would probably go mad. I may go mad.”

Not necessarily prophetic, those words about “going mad,” but dark clouds did always seem to accompany Winehouse, even as a child. She took her parents’ divorce (when she was 9) especially hard and was soon battling bulimia and depression. Luckily, music offered her an emotional outlet.

“I don’t think I knew what depression was. I know I felt funny sometimes…that’s why I write music.”

Her music was always deeply personal and often revolved around her painful love life.

The title song from her blockbuster album “Back in Black” details her emotions when the love of her life – Blake Fielder-Civil – dumped her to return to a former girlfriend.

But rather than just tell this sordid tale, director Asif Kapadia has found footage of her recording that very song – and we first get to hear her laying down the voice track without the familiar orchestration.

“Me and my head high … And my tears dry…”

Her reaction as she finishes this heart-wrenching song:

“You go back to her … And I go back to … Black, black, black, black… ”

“Oh, it’s a bit upsetting at the end, isn’t it?”

I love her sudden and off-hand recognition of the emotional pull of her own song. She’s able to see both the art and the hurt in her music.

And “a bit upsetting at the end” also anticipates how viewers will no doubt feel watching this movie as Winehouse’s personal life spirals downward just as her professional life skyrockets.

She re-unites with her bad-news boyfriend Fielder, who bizarrely takes credit for introducing her to heroin and cocaine; her father re-enters her life and seems to do little but try to capitalize on her success; and of course, the paparazzi hound her mercilessly.

Just a few months before her death from alcohol poisoning, she records a duet with one of her heroes, Tony Bennett. Winehouse is a huge star at this point, but she is so refreshingly humble in his presence, it’s endearing. And it’s our last look at her great talent. The sense of loss at the end is tremendous.

Winehouse made a career out of turning her pain into art. “Amy” the movie does something very similar &#8212 making something beautiful out of something so hard to watch.