Return to tiff.’s home page

Canadian Film Encyclopedia

Shopping Cart
 
Janis

Janis

(Janis Joplin)

Year: 1974
Language: English
Format: 16mm Colour
Runtime: 97 min
Director: Howard Alk, Seaton Findlay
Producer: Paul Harris, F Crawley
Editor: Seaton Findlay
Animation: Mik Casey, Stephen Dennis
Sound: Robert Leclair, Gary Bourgeois
Music: Janis Joplin
Production Company: Crawley Films Ltd,

This is undoubtedly the most comprehensive film ever made about Janis Joplin, one of the great rock and blues singers from the 1960s. In 1970, Budge Crawley decided to make the film after seeing Joplin during the Festival Express concert tour, which crossed Canada just months before Joplin died of a heroin overdose.

Crawley spent the next four years, and many thou­sands of dollars, securing the rights to concert perform­ances, rehearsals and interviews — all of the footage available — including sequences from the Woodstock and Monterey Pop festivals.

Janis is a unique rock documentary that is as compelling for its musical sections as it is for its frank interviews with Joplin. The film was completed and re­leased with the approval of Joplin's par­ents.

Janis won an Etrog as best nonfiction feature at the Canadian Film Awards in 1975 and was a consid­erable box office success.