To witness "Janis," the documentary about the late rock singer Janis Joplin, is to confront the realization that one is not so much in the presence of biography or homage as of psychiatric case history.

Although the film that opened yesterday at Cinema I might have served as the occasion for a retrospective appraisal of the brief career of this performer, who died in October, 1970, of an overdose of heroin, considerations of the quality and durability of her artistry become subordinate to awareness of the agonizing psychic wounds that were the wellsprings of her talent.

The naked emotion—full of tantrums, railing and unconcealed pain—that erupted through her throat in the torn voice that was her trademark and the gift she squandered on her public is by itself sufficient to suggest the extraordinary extent of her suffering.

But this evidence — in scenes of Miss Joplin singing, among others, such songs as "Ball and Chain," "Tell Mama" "Kozmic Blues," "Cry Baby" and "Move Over" in places such as Monterey, Woodstock, Frankfurt, Calgary and Toronto, with groups such as Big Brother & The Holding Company, the Kozmic Blues Band and the Full Tilt Boogie Band—is buttressed by a series of interviews.

These interviews are apparently routine, but time and again they serve to reveal a deeply injured little girl whose only adequate focus of energy, communication and emotional feedback was offered by singing. The most telling of these interludes in "Janis" occurs when Miss Joplin, garbed to a freaky turn, goes back to her home town, Port Arthur, Tex., to attend the 10th annual reunion of her high school class.

Although her design is obviously to flaunt success among the people who ostracized her, it is clear that instead of enjoying a triumph, she is being compelled to rake emotional scar tissue. A doctor, she recalls, once told her mother that unless Janis straightened up, she would be in jail or a mental institution by the time she was 21.

Miss Joplin was 27 when she died.

As film, "Janis" is conventional documentary composed of performance clips and interviews. As case history, it is a poignant film.




JANIS, a documentary about Janis Joplin directed and edited Howard Alk and Seaton Findlay; produced by Crawley Films; released by Universal Pictures. Running time: 96 minutes. This film is classified R. At Cinema I, Third Avenue and 60th Street.