In front of a crowd of excited young hippies, Janis Joplin climbs on the stage of the pop festival of Monterey (California), June 18, 1967, and heats his scratched voice on the first notes of "Ball and chain". Everyone has already seen the images of this legendary concert, which signed the birth certificate of the "kozmic mama", a Texas girl whose angry song was going to revolutionize the American counter-culture. But nobody knew the true story behind the show: the bawliness, doubts and strategies that preceded the show. "Janis" finally comes to fill this lack.

Signed by Amy Berg, a filmmaker who has long investigated American institutions, this rich documentary portrays an intimate, taboo-free portrait of the one called Pearl, through a multitude of interviews and unpublished archives. "We knew the story of the sensitive artist, dead of overdose at 27 years, this romantic myth that continues to make teenagers dream. But I wanted to tell another Janis: the rascal, the libertine, the one that imposed in an ultra-sexist rock environment, "confides the filmmaker, who identified with the journey of the blues singer. "Janis remains a model for women in the cultural industry. When I see the fashion of "slut shaming" - which consists in treating every actress or singer who acts subversively - I think there is still an unresolved problem. "

This is what constitutes the modernity of the myth Janis: the hippie heroine was one of the first to thwart the order of the guys.

"Janis" is the result of nearly eight years of research and an impressive investigative work, the film traces the journey of the star singer, from her birth, to Texas, to her death, overdose of heroin, in a hotel room in Los Angeles. Interleaved with images of unprecedented concerts and interviews with loved ones, including John Lennon and Kris Kristofferson, the film is especially worthy of her exhumation of the intimate correspondences of the singer (read by Cat Power), who draw a sensitive and frontal self-portrait. A centerpiece in understanding the case Janis Joplin.

D'Amy Berg, with Janis Joplin, Cat Power, released on January 6.