Janis: Little Girl Blue

Janis Joplin's career was short, but intense and landmark. By the time the singer with the distinctive rock voice died at the age of just 27, she had already left her mark on an entire generation. And Janis Joplin is still considered an icon of rock music, whose influence can still be heard today. But who was the singer known for her love affairs and excessive drug use? What drove her to write the songs that have become true classics? And what made her so unhappy that, despite her success, she had to keep seeking solace in drugs and alcohol, which ultimately cost her her much-too-young life? In Janis: Little Girl Blue, documentary filmmaker Amy J. Berg attempts to get to the bottom of the Janis Joplin myth. With the help of numerous interviews with companions, many archive recordings and personal letters of Joplin, she draws a very revealing and intimate portrait of an artist as ingenious as she is complicated.

This film is absolutely worth seeing not only for fans of the artist who died much too early. Even those who can not really do much with the music of Janis Joplin, gets here an extremely exciting and rousing documentary. Berg not only creates an image of the singer with a sensitive hand, which was probably unknown in this form even to great admirers. She also immerses the viewer in a world in which music had a very different social significance than it does today. The film is thus a musical as well as socio-political journey through time that does absolute justice to Janis Joplin's artistic legacy.

It is fascinating to listen to the stories that Joplin's companions have to tell. Coupled with the no less revealing archival footage and the very personal letters read aloud by vocalist Cat Power, a picture emerges that doesn't idealize unnecessarily, but that certainly validates the legend that is Joplin. Anyone who loves her music and has therefore spent time with her knows that she was not an easy person and that she struggled with her demons. What is new, however, are the many little facets that are revealed here through the stories and letters, as they look even further behind the façade that was previously known.

Janis: Little Girl Blue is a sensitive portrait of an artist, a declaration of love for a sensitive but also very strong woman and her music, which has lost none of its power and meaning even well over four decades after Janis Joplin's death. A must see for all Joplin fans and also in general for lovers of stirring documentaries absolutely worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp