Plot
Musician Cat Power narrates this documentary on Janis Joplin's evolution into a star from letters that Joplin wrote over the years to her friends, family, and collaborators.
Release Year: 2015
Rating: 7.2/10 (125 voted)
Critic's Score: 68/100
Director: Amy Berg
Stars: Cat Power, Janis Joplin
Storyline
Musician Cat Power narrates this documentary on Janis Joplin's evolution into a star from letters that Joplin wrote over the years to her friends, family, and collaborators.
Viewed at 2015 Venice Film Festival., "Janis, Little Girl Blue" by Amy
Berg, With Alex Gibney, himself an outstanding documentarian acting as
producer, is a Great Doc about a great American singer, Janis Joplin,
who died too young on the verge of salvation.
Interviews with parents, sister, brother, surviving members of The
Grateful Dead, Kris Kristofferson, and most surprising, Dick Cavett
(1970). In a year of many good documentaries, this was the best of all
-- a marvelous reconstruction of a tragic young life. Janis sang the
blues with such conviction and such black feeling that even
afro-Americans though she was black -- She died on October 4, 1970 in a
Hollywood motel of an accidental heroin overdose at age 27 -- only two
weeks after another rock legend, Jimi Hendrix, also at age 27. The film
traces her life from humble origins in the nondescript north Texas town
of Port Arthur, constant humiliation by her schoolmates because of her
extreme nonconformity and relatively plain looks, up through her rise
to prominence as the lead singer of the acid/rock band Big Brother and
the Holding Company --one of the leading San Francisco rock groups of
the mid sixties -- reaching the pinnacle when recognized as the top
white blues singer of the age, her difficulties dealing with fame, her
loneliness in the midst of adoring crowds, her battle with drug
addiction, and finally her tragic early death on the verge of even
wider fame and general acceptance by the serious music world.
Needless to say, the film is liberally spiced with clips from her
amazing stage appearances, which is an added enrichment, but this is
far from a mere excuse to present her songs -- far more a penetrating
probe into the life of an extremely complex personality ---a true
artist who became the victim of her own profound talent. Myself more or
less a product of the psychedelic sixties, I left the vast Venice
theater thoroughly emotionally drained and realizing I had just
witnessed a remarkable film about a most remarkable life. Alex,
Budapest
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