Janis (1974)

This film is an excellent collage of musical performances and interviews with Janis Joplin. It gives a true sense of her power as a performer, featuring clips of her most famous performances. The Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, and various television performances are all here. For fans who want to revisit the past or people just being introduced to Janis, this is the perfect place to start your musical journey.At the same time, Janis features lots of excellent interviews and behind the scenes footage, ranging from appearances on the Dick Cavett Show to film of her recording songs with her band. By including these clips, the film gives us a better sense of who Joplin actually was.The film leaves out any discussion of how Joplin died, which is for the better. Rather than focusing on morbid gossip, the film celebrates her life, which in the end is why she is really remembered.

Though I am not a fan of the music of Janis Joplin, I found this to be a refreshing look at the brief life and times of the Texas-born wailer. Completely lacking in artifice, Joplin comes across as the archetypal high school outcast, a frumpy artistic type who found liberation living the life of a San Francisco hippy and singing the blues. Joplin comes across as extremely likable and is bluntly honest about her shortcomings as a singer: she pays tribute to Aretha Franklin, acknowledging her own lack of subtlety which, she hoped wistfully, might come in time. That time, of course, never came, and we are left with the extremely erratic results. Joplin is best remembered for her decent if clumsy takes on Ball and Chain and Piece of My Heart, and those tracks are represented here, but the versions of Tell Mama, Cry Baby, and Maybe are frankly embarrassing. Joplin also struggles with Gershwin's Summertime, but the results there are better, partly because the song is so mighty it defies all attempts to lessen its power, and partly because the Kozmic Blues Band wisely chose to arrange it in a raga rock style which still sounds quite fresh today. The film ends with a wistful photo montage set to the tune of Me and Bobby McGee, the posthumous 1971 hit that reunited Janis with the country music of her childhood. Regardless of how you rate Joplin's music, I defy anyone to watch this film and not come away deeply impressed by the humor, intelligence, and warmth of its subject.

Well, this isn't the best of Janis ever captured on film, but it is the lone document of the best female singer ever! I just wish they had more Big Brother clips. There are many other TV shows, concerts, etc. that were filmed, so this is incomplete, but it does highlight some of the best: Monterey Pop Festival, the best performance I think Janis ever gave; Woodstock, but she isn't in it very much (there was so much more filmed!); Cheap Thrills recording sessions, and The Dick Cavett Show. But seriously, Laura Joplin needs to release a complete documentary, with all performances uncut and unedited! A lot of the concert footage is severely edited, either cut in half or the last fraction of a song is heard, which is disappointing from such a talent as Janis. Most of the Frankfurt concert (with "Maybe", "Summertime", "Ball and Chain", "Piece of My Heart") is horrible and only an interview from the excellent Swedish special is present. For more live Janis, try COMIN' HOME, BALL AND CHAIN, and a few compilation videos have stuff from the Swedish special. Try this movie out if you're a budding Janis fan, but I think you'll be sorely disappointed when you discover how much more perfect performances could have gone into this one.

Having seen Joplin live in concert in the 60's it was good to go back and see footage of her singing, and the interviews. also it was great to hear her sing again- no one could wail like "the rose"-- parts of the film seem dated- but of course this was 30 years ago--- ah nostalgia!