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.

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.

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