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Janis

Janis image
Parent Issue
Day
9
Month
May
Year
1975
Additional Text

Every time a living legend dies, everyone tries to get in on the action, to benefit from the movie rights, book rights, and on and on. So the Janis Joplin story is all too familiar to us, but maybe Janis herself has gotten lost in all this.

Fortunately, this movie is a welcome chance to get back in touch with the woman herself. Here we have all action footage, Janis in interviews in Europe, Janis on the Dick Cavett show, Janis at her high school reunion, and Janis performing. Mostly performing, and at that she had no peers.

The film is as close as those of us who never saw her live are ever going to get to this remarkable woman. The people who put this film together have my thanks.

The film wasn't actually made so much as it was "gathered" and edited from various people's film archives. The film quality varies (some color, some black and white; some very grainy, some quite good; even some video tape). The sound quality likewise is uneven, often monaural. However, the quality of the sound and film is insignificant to the quality of Janis Joplin.

Janis herself never Iets up. On stage or off, she is honest, forthright, and gut level at all times. It's that honesty that turned her on to the blues in the first place. As she says in the film, she was attracted to the blues because the music was so open, honest. and energetic, "qualities that were lacking in Peggy Lee."

The key interview segment is her appearance on the Cavett show, where she accuses men of always promising more than they're prepared to deliver, "like a man holding a carrot in front of mule." She also tells Cavett that she is headed for her high school reunion. "They laughed me out of town. Now I'm goin' home." And as the film of the reunion shows. Janis does indeed have the last laugh.

The best musical segment is the "Tell Mama" number with all the power and sensuality Etta James intended. Fifteen minutes into the film and already Janis made a believer out of me.

The film closes with Janis on stage in Frankfurt, Germany, dancing with members of the audience, an experience I am sure those fans will never forget.

The "rock documentary" is fast becoming a "film genre", so one might think it necessary to look for all kinds of significance and relevance and karma and....well bullshit. This movie makes you feel good, because Janis made (makes?) people feel good, and now we can continue to benefit from her beauty for years to come. Nothing can bring her back, but if she really made you feel the blues deep down in your soul then she can never really die.