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Janis Joplin was sadly one of many rock stars to die young after overdosing on drugs. Unfortunately, this documentary is rather short on insight into who she was and why her life turned out the way it did. We're told she had a tough childhood, and then quickly, we're told how as a very young woman she ran away to San Francisco, became a singer and an addict, and nearly died. Yet all this is covered in just fifteen minutes; her career once famous fills out the rest of the programme, yet it might seem arguable that in a sense, the most important things in her life had already taken place before this began. There's also little discussion of her musical abilities; a lot about her personality and how she gave herself to her singing, but if her music doesn't move you, there's not a lot of dispassionate explanation here. A string of talking heads tell us how extraordinary, how full-of-life Janis was; but having watched them all, I still didn't feel like I knew her at all.

Of course I know who Janis Joplin was, who doesn't, but I was never a huge fan of her work, so I did not know anything about her life story.

And what a great story it was, told by those who knew Janis the most, the Documentary was loaded with interviews from the people closet to her who were there for the ride that was her life. Mixed in with a lot of archive footage of Joplin as well as a touching voice over of letters Joplin wrote to her family back home being read during the film.

But most importantly, lots of music was played. I've seen docs and other movies about major rock icons where the music was not center stage simple because of legal rights. Does not feel like Little Girl Blue had that problem, and I'm thankful, cause as much as her life was interesting, it's all about the music.

It was funny, entertaining, and centered on the rock and roll as they told the story of one of the greatest icons in music history.

An experienced documentarist who poses her eye on one of the greatest in the history of music. Very remarkable the amount of footage of Janis in her glory days. Presetns a lot of testimonials from people very close to her(both professionally, and personally), which allows us to feel a little more closely, both the achievements and thesuccesses, as well as the sorrows and sufferings of the genius of Janis. Another positive aspect is the letters or written records of Janis. IT also lets us enjoy many moments of live music, which is always good in a music documentary. Very exciting and entertaining.

Maybe it's just me, but I can't seem to get enough Janis. I have read a biography on her and watched other films, as well as attended the stage play "Love, Janis" and I'm always wanting for more.

I rated this a nine because a near perfect documentary about Janis would be at least four hours, imho. There could have been more interviews with her sister and brother and others who knew her intimately. It focused on her person and her heart more than other things I've seen. I was only ten years old when she died and my family was as straight laced as Janis' and Port Arthur, so I don't remember any fan fare regarding her. I didn't fully experience her music until I was eighteen and I fell hard as a Janis fan.

Interesting point to younger generations is that the media always focuses on the San Francisco scene when it talks about the 60's and the hippy era, when most of the rest of the world at the time was really closer to Port Arthur.

Strongly recommend this gem for any Janis fan. You won't be bored and you will find another little piece of her heart you may not have known about before. I imagined that she had a big heart for people in general, and this documentary solidified that belief.

A comment in the film about the level of emotion she reached in her singing was at a high price and that was a prefect summation of the art that was Janis Joplin.

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

The recent documentary Amy, depicting singer Amy Winehouse's rise and fall at about the same age as Janis Joplin reminds me that all rockers are not the same, especially females. Janis: Little Girl Blue depicts Joplin as much more focused than Amy and much more in control of her own life. Except for in death, where both succumb to substance abuse, even the relatively more stable Amy.

This Janis doc does an effective job showing the arc of her brief life, from a country girl in Texas to the rocker who led the way for women in the industry and eventually the world. Why the eventual failure given her great fame and fortune? It's simple, really: She wanted to be loved, and not always finding that devotion, she could turn to music and drugs for support and fulfillment.

Along the way, the doc gives insight into what makes this blues mama run: In her own words she says ambition is the desire to be loved. She's not a "Cry Baby" about not getting the love she wanted from some of her friends and family; actually family members talk to us and appear to have supported her through it all.

Her straight-laced parents couldn't be expected to wholly embrace the counter-culture queen, who began innocently singing folk tunes in her early teens and ended singing blues that reminded one critic of "desperate mating calls." Professionally she gets plenty of love from the likes of Khris Kristofferson, whose Me & Bobby Magee was her best-selling single ever and band mate David Goetz, who observed that she turned into a caricature of the blues mama that the media had helped to create. Dick Cavett interviews her with an unusual affection different from his usually detached persona. At one point he can't remember if they were intimate—a nice touch of amnesia that doesn't belie a bit his attachment to her.

Janis: Little Girl Blue informs about Joplin's career from folk to hard blues, gives insight into the driving emotions of her ambition, and amply shows her singing talents that made her a child of Aretha Franklin and her own person.

A greatly satisfying bio of a great singer.

This documentary really brought me back to the 60s and 70s. It never ceases to amaze me how tough it is to be a creative artist, just think Brian Wilson or Amy Winehouse. We are introduced to Janis's early life and the many struggles she had to go through growing up. She leaves for California and finds her roots and her tribe with Big Brother and the Holding Company. The live performances really show the incredible rapport she had with her audience during a concert. Coming down from such a high must have been an insupportable task. Janis finds a true love during her time in Brazil which for her was very important. Her letters to her family and friends were filled with hope and optimism right up to her tragic death. Interviews with her various friends and colleagues all painted a picture of a very unique and spontaneous person. The world was truly inspired by a pure spirit.

Amy Berg's documentary charting the course that blues and rock singer Janis Joplin took from her childhood hometown of Port Arthur, Texas to San Francisco and then Los Angeles in the 1960s is filled with great clips and fantastic music (particularly the performance of the lesser-known "Little Girl Blue" shown at the conclusion). However, there's nothing here--not even the reading of letters Janis wrote home to her family--that will surprise anyone who has followed Joplin's career since her untimely demise in October 1970. Although she lived a wild, scattered but full-blooded life in her 27 years, Joplin's recording career was extremely brief (two albums, one with her first band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, followed by a solo album, released posthumously). Janis as a human being was anything but predictable, and yet the myriad of documentaries chronicling her life and stardom all seem to cover the same territory, the sex-drugs-and-rock and roll high-life. Berg insulates Joplin here, as Joplin was insulated by the yes-men in her life who were trying to steer her career. We do not hear about the books Janis read (she was a huge F. Scott Fitzgerald fan), the movies she saw, how she felt about the war in Vietnam or the hippie movement or her second-rate (for her) performance at Woodstock. She is, of course, a tragic figure in popular music, but fleshing out that figure--giving us some surprising, intimate insights into her quirky personality--has yet to be achieved. **1/2 from ****

I'm not a huge fan of Janis' music, but I do love a music doc, especially from the late 60s and early 70s. This fit the bill nicely. A lot of it is previously seen and to be honest it doesn't add a lot to 1975's "Janis" - her friends and family aren't going to have remembered any new insights 40 years on, so it's the same stories, told by older people. I've always thought her singing is out-of-control screeching, but that had she lived she would have learned some restraint (and hopefully kicked the lifestyle habits that sometimes affected her performance) and used her (admittedly wonderful) voice to better effect - Maggie Bell springs to mind. However, the concert footage here did inspire me to download some of her stuff and give it a listen, so the movie must qualify as a success on those grounds.

I will say up front that I am a fan of Janis Joplin and looked forward to seeing this (on the BBC) it details her life in chronological order from her days growing up in Port Arthur, Texas to her many incarnations with all of her bands including 'Big Brother and the Holding Company'.

There are interviews with friends, lovers and family. There is plenty of archive footage but only snippets of songs which includes the Monterey Pop appearance. Many songs are featured but the real reason here is to tell her story and her battles with drugs and alcohol and her of love of the blues, which she could sing so beautifully that even watching this I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rising.

It is amazing how she managed to put so much emotion and passion into her music and it seems the people around it saw that in her too. Her firmament burnt for too short a time but while it did so it was also one of the brightest and most loved. I truly think this is a great tribute to Janis Joplin – not just the star but the person – highly recommended.

There was an album released a couple of months after she died? Well there goes the cliche of only rappers doing that ... all kidding aside, this is quite the in depth look into Janis and her struggle to make it into a world dominated by men. But also her hardships growing up. I reckon a few things made her harder and tougher to what was awaiting for her.

You get more than just a little piece of her heart ... and her songs. You get close and personal, from what she told other people, since she was not around to tell or say things from her perspective. But there are interviews and bits of things she said when she was alive that do paint a picture ... you take away fromn that whatever you want.

JANIS JOPLIN: LITTLE GIRL BLUE follows a familiar narrative (also employed in 2015's AMY) of the exceptionally talented female star catapulted into the limelight, who could not handle it, and eventually killed herself accidentally of a heroin overdose at the age of 28.

All the familiar ingredients were there; the middle-class upbringing In Port Arthur, Texas, where Joplin became something of a rebel against her rather insular family, and expressed her rebellion by acting in increasingly mannish ways. Although she believed herself to be accepted into a largely male society, she found herself victim of a series of reversals, including being elected the "ugliest man" in a group of people in Austin, Texas.

Eventually she decamped to San Francisco, where she joined a band (Big Brother) and eventually acquired the recognition she had craved ever since childhood. The narrative followed a predictable live: in the end she became too big for her band, branched out on her own, enjoyed some major successes both in the United States as well as abroad, founded a new band, consolidated her stardom and was just about to embark on exciting new possibilities when death eventually struck her.

Accompanied by reminiscences from those closest to her, as well as members of her own family, JANIS JOPLIN: LITTLE GIRL BLUE told the story of a phenomenally talented person unable to reconcile personal with professional lives. She could not stand being alone when offstage; and tried to find solace in heroin. It seemed that for all their love of the singer (some of the interviewees started crying as they recalled the tragic sides of her life), no one actively lifted a finger to help her psychologically.

Accompanied by extensive footage of her in performance, together with readings from her private letters, Amy J. Berg's documentary had a certain fascination for anyone interested in her music. But for the uninitiated viewer it seemed to be wearyingly predictable.

It has not been a different life than the other 27's. It has not been a different life than other real stars. Filmin structure was not good. I guess they did it without much effort. He did not elaborate after Janis's death. No special music was made for the film. I did not like your director very much. The film has not succeeded in dramatic places as well. It was not nice without Janis. There was an air of sadness. Although a girl who was excluded in her childhood and adolescence was given a nice star, she had not been given any details when necessary.

My favourite music has always been from the 60's and 70's but because she hardly dented the charts here I know comparatively little about Janis Joplin. I must say too that her music doesn't appeal very much to me either, her blues-wailing vocal-style affecting me rather like chalk on blackboard. And yet this was still a fascinating biography of her short life and watching it I couldn't help but think of another young woman who quickly got to the top but once there couldn't handle the pressures and died a lonely death in a haze of drink and drugs, also the subject of a recent documentary biography, I'm speaking of Amy Winehouse of course.

Coloured by archive footage of TV interviews, live performances and many candid home-movies of the time, her brief life span is covered from back to front as she lives out the classic rags-to-riches, success-to-excess route of so many in the music business before she checked into the infamous "27" club, also peopled by Brian Jones Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and indeed Amy Winehouse among many others.

What emerges here is a woman who only ever seemed at home either cutting records or performing live. Away from the stage and studio, however she was insecure about her looks, sensitive of small-town criticism from where she grew up in the American South and always looking out for the dream man who would help her settle down and beat her spiralling drink and drugs habits.

By the end of this engrossing film, I still didn't like her music but certainly better knew, understood and yes, liked the woman behind the music.

Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas growing up with a conventional and accommodating family. Her high school years grew more bohemian during the civil rights era. Her looks were never conventional and she was ridiculed for it. She escaped to San Francisco. She got strung out on meth and returned home to recover. Her fiancé Peter abandoned her after getting another woman pregnant. She returned to San Francisco joining an old friend's managed band Big Brother and the Holding Company. She became a breakout star at the Monterey Pop Festival.

Her voice is always the star. There is obvious cooperation from family and friends. It doesn't mean that this doc shy away from her darker sides. Her addictions may be glossed over during the early days but her femininity issue is never that far from the surface. It covers her musical journey very well and gets enlightening glimpses into her private life. I would love more performances but this is not a concert film. Her performances are also used to highlight her struggles. This covers all the major points including the ups and downs of her career as well as her spiraling addictions. This is great for any passing fans.

This touching, intimate documentary chronicles the life of legendary singer Janis Joplin, from her childhood in Port Arthur to her untimely death, as told by her surviving family members, friends, lovers, associates, peers, and by Joplin herself, through personal letters and notes.

When Don McLean talks of the "girl who sang the blues" in his seminal song American Pie, it is Janis he references. We see that smile of hers, so full of life, passion and joy. We also see the many faces of her sadness, that bewitching, heartbreaking pain that fed her powerful, inimitable voice.

This documentary takes us beyond the music, although Janis was pure music. It is the medium that drove her to like-minded spirits, to someplace she could truly feel herself at home. It led her to recognition, adulation, success. She never seems as alive as when she is on stage.

We see how she got there, her ups and downs, the loneliness, self-doubts, the need for an acceptance that may have never really come, especially from herself. Along with the music, the alcohol is also there, as are the drugs. A life lived on the edge, despair never fully going away.

I would have liked a little more time to go even more in-depth, peel the layers even more and get closer still to Janis, that little girl blue with the harrowing, unforgettable voice. It is still a wonderful, moving trip to a time, a woman, a soul who remains, in many ways, untouchable.

(+) A wonderful retrospective that will tell you who was Janis Joplin, converting newcomers and thrilling long-time fans.

(-) More time could have been spent engrossing the story, showing more of the different sides of this haunted, incredible singer.

This is perhaps one of the most boring bio docs I have ever seen. Yes there's a smidgen of insight from family and friends. Yes there's some nice cips. Yes, Dick Cavett reveals he slept with her.

But man this is sow going and really really boring.

Surprising, considering how vibrant and strong a singer she was.

This was solid and very enjoyable. My lady and I are huge classic rock and blues aficionados, and we tend to especially enjoy biopics of great musicians, so when I found out this was out, it was a natural accompaniment with a big bottle of Chilean red wine for a date night indoors. Greatly talented yet ill-starred musicians that are quickly catapulted to superstardom only to die in hideous and tragic circumstances are particularly fascinating--and Janis Joplin certainly fits the bill.

I'm not sure I've seen any other of Amy Berg's works, but this was very well thought out and made. I haven't seen any other films about Janis, but in seeing this I can't see how any other could be any more definitive.

Now to see the recent ones on Chet Baker, Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix...

If you liked Janis before, you'll love her after watching this. If you don't think she's the greatest singer in blues rock history, this might just convince you. Some amazing footage that I hadn't seen before. This really gets to the heart of who she was and what made her so very special. Made me weep, a lot.