Film discussion: Janis: Little Girl Blue

March 28, 2016
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Yeah, right! The real truth behind documentaries is that they every bit as shaped and organized by their creators as any fiction movie. (The only life you’re ever going to see unedited is your own.) And they can pack just as big a punch, as their aim is to get you to relive events and recreate triumphs and tragedies, histories and mysteries.

We will be discussing Janis: Little Girl Blue on Tuesday night in The Music Hall Loft, and you can already tell just from the title what the filmmaker has in mind. We’re already on a first-name basis with Janis Joplin, and she’s little, and she’s a girl, and she’s blue. Wow! And we haven’t even seen the first shot yet.

Janis Joplin was a real favorite of mine back in those years almost beyond recall. She’s one of the only artists whose entire run of albums are still in my vinyl collection. She was a rocker and a blues singer whose talent was to remain raw and unfinished sounding even as she mastered and lifted the blues/rock singer role to higher levels than ever before. Others followed her, but none surpassed her. Her death (she was one of four influential rockers we lost at age 27) was a blow to everyone and the loss of what she might have accomplished had she lived is still raw for some of us.

So, as I have been receiving reports from friends who have already seen Janis: Little Girl Blue, I’ve been a little edgy, because it’s so easy for movies about stars dying young to veer into excesses of hero worship or maudlin weepiness.

Fortunately, the reports have been uniformly good, with my friends agreeing with the critics that the movie does well by Janis and her music and her life without going off the rails. [sigh of relief!]

I’m looking forward to what sounds like a wonderful movie about Janis’s biography, her music, and her untimely end. And I’m going to heed my friends’ advice and suggest that you bring a Kleenex with you. Just sayin’.

So, I hope to see you there, at 7:00 in The Loft. I won’t wear a bandana in honor of the times, but you should feel free.