Janis Joplin

This documentary lacks any narration, comment or a historic timeline nor shows any development of Janis's career, but consists of lots of rare concert, on-the-road and interview material; it may be a feast for die-hard fans, but for a broader audience it's simply not that informative.

Amazing live performances captured on film are the reason to see to see this.

The interviews with Janis don't reveal much, and there's no real sense of her history.

Even the stage stuff is shot pretty straightforwardly, but, man-o-man could she sing!

One wonderful thing is that a lot of the numbers are uncut, allowed to go their full length, which, with Janis in concert, could easily be 8 minutes or more. The power, the emotion, the energy, the sexiness, the sweet sense of fun she brought to the stage could only be hinted at on her albums. For those reasons it's more than worth sitting through the slightly homogenized off-stage material.

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!

My review description may seem a bit blunt, but it literally describes what this 1974 flick is. It's not a documentary. Nor is it a docudrama. Nor is it a rockumentary. It is just over an hour and a half of Janis Joplin concert footage combined with Joplin interview snippets. And nothing more than that.

Which is fine. Particularly if one just wants to see and hear Joplin perform and periodically talk in an interview setting. Well, that's exactly what you get. Virtually nothing by way of others looking at the camera and saying why they think Janis is so great. Definitely not a nostalgia trip, either: the film was put out four years after Joplin passed away and has nothing by way of filmed interviews conducted after Joplin died. Thus, it's not recollections from people who knew her filmed thirty years or more after the fact.

Not quite ten stars for the reasons others have mentioned as far back as the initial theatrical film critic reviews in late 1974. Some of those reasons being the lack of a chronological approach in reference to the placement of the performance clips in the film. Little to nothing mentioned or referenced re: Joplin's pre-1967 life. No interviews with any of the band members in any of the groups who played with Joplin, nor were there any interviews with family or friends. As one reviewer commented back in 1974, there is no narration or commentary...not even as much of a mention in the movie that Joplin died. Contrast all of that with the 1973 film about Jimi Hendrix, where at least one has some sort of a sense of who Hendrix was offstage before he became famous as well as how his fame affected him.

Overall, though, 1974's Janis: A Film is useful in providing an undiluted look and listen to Joplin the singer and performer. Far as I know, this has never been upgraded to dvd form in the United States.

this is "must have" for all the people out-there that are loving Janis.It's a really touching film,Janis is just playing herself.Beautiful,magnificent and above.Unfortunately,Janis's story hasn't yet really been said properly and it is my feeling that she deserve much more than she got by now,at least for the passion that she put in her music.Watch her in this film,see with what intensity she can perform and you'll understand.Janis is among the few that live for whatever she is doing and that thing is shown in every aspect of this film.Watch her especially in live performances,you never saw anything like that before! A film on which i could die watching it.