Reviews of three very solid rock docs: Tony D’Annunzio’s Louder Than Love: The Grande Ballroom Story (2012) + Amy Berg’s Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015) from MVD Visual, plus Howard Alk’s Janis (1974) on (in)glorious VHS.
Between 1966-1972, the Grande Ballroom in Detroit was a major hub for local youths and young adults to check out a variety of bands, and the house’s only criteria for musicians was to play good music, and play it well – anything less would’ve pushed the audience to revolt (‘Come on, man, kick out the jam, man, KICK OUT THE JAM OR GET OFF THE STAGE!’) sending the disappointing musicians packing…
Amy Berg’s documentary feels like the long-delayed follow-up and clarification to Howard Aulk’s 1974 Janis, essentially a tribute film neatly edited from pre-existing interviews and live performances. Berg’s film has the benefit of hindsight – an aspect wholly absent in 1974, in spite of being released 4 years after Janis Joplin’s sudden death from a drug overdose at 27…
Cash-in films celebrating the life and work of a dead artist aren’t new – The James Dean Story (1957) is among the earliest tribute films that balanced archival material with new interviews, and fellow live-fast-and-die-young icon Marilyn Monroe was saluted in Marilyn (1963), augmented by footage from her last and unfinished film – but Janis appears to be a full compilation doc…
Reviews of Matthew Porterfield’s 2015 short Take What You Can Carry + feature film Putty Hill (2010), recently screened at Toronto’s Royal Cinema, plus some quick thoughts on video-to-film releases.
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