The legendary blues singer Janis Joplin (1943 -1970) had it all: the voice, the charisma, the emotions and the performance. And yet in recent decades she has gradually faded into obscurity. We can see how unjustified that is in the documentary Janis – Little Girl Blue by filmmaker Amy Berg.
It contains brilliantly edited archive material full of interviews with the star herself and people close to her that reveal Janis as a person and her talent. Joplin was a typical example of a rough diamond. As an intelligent, headstrong, boisterous, bisexual teenager, Joplin had a lonely time of it in conservative Port Arthur, Texas. In the film, we hear how she was able to vent her unhappiness and frustration through the intense, pure blues-rock numbers she produced between 1967 and 1970 that made her famous throughout the world. Her quest for acceptance and love eventually made her aware of a chronic loneliness. ‘Little girl blue’ Janis was not only a grandiose singer-songwriter, blues singer and performer but also a woman desperate for love who never found it.