The Gospel According to Janis

Started by MacGuffin, April 30, 2004, 10:07:05 AM

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MacGuffin

April 30, 2004, 10:07:05 AM
Look at Pink's "Janis"
Source: RS
 
Rolling Stone spoke with Penelope Spheeris, the director of the upcoming Janis Joplin biopic "The Gospel According to Janis" who said "To see this girl bring Janis to life was profound" about rock singer Pink's screen test.

The film will be Pink's acting debut, but Spheeris said casting the sassy gal in the part was quite easy. Producer Peter Newman says "She can sing Janis with her heart and soul without it being pure mimicry. It's something very raw and immediate". Spheeris says Pink "knows Janis' music to the degree that she hits every single note."

The director adds that she's intent on depicting Joplin in a positive light - "I'm making a movie about a hero. She was a woman breaking the rules when women didn't". They do intend to show her battles with drugs and alcohol and how she tried to deal with it - "She lived her life on a tight rope, but she was anything but a train-wreck".

This pic isn't to be confused with the aborted project which Melissa Etheridge was attached to, or the film in the works at Paramount with Renee Zellweger in the lead - that project doesn't have the same music rights that 'Gospel' does.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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SoNowThen

#1
April 30, 2004, 10:15:39 AM
I was watching Monterey Pop again last night...

Janis could sing like crazy, that's for sure. No doubting her talent. But it seemed pretty obvious even then that she was a total fucking train wreck. Or maybe that was her "image", I dunno...
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary:  the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.

SiliasRuby

#2
April 30, 2004, 01:15:29 PM
Quote from: SoNowThenBut it seemed pretty obvious even then that she was a total fucking train wreck. Or maybe that was her "image", I dunno...
She was, but what a fantastic singer.
The Beatles know Jesus Christ has returned to Earth and is in Los Angeles.

When you are getting fucked by the big corporations remember to use a condom.

There was a FISH in the perkalater!!!

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Ghostboy

#3
April 30, 2004, 01:31:44 PM
I don't like Pink, as far as her music goes, and I have no idea if she can act -- I'd like to think this isn't just stunt casting -- but I can see her filling the part more capably than Zellwegger. She already seems much more naturally rough hewn and grungy, and I can see how her voice could handle Janis's songs quite capably.

El Duderino

#4
April 30, 2004, 09:58:50 PM
pink will suck, no, not will....does.
Did I just get cock-blocked by Bob Saget?

picolas

#5
April 30, 2004, 11:40:40 PM
Quote from: El Duderinopink will suck, no, not will....does.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/taking_lives/

MacGuffin

#6
August 10, 2006, 11:33:56 AM
Zooey Deschanel is now confirmed to be taking on the role of Janis Joplin in Penelope Spheeris' upcoming biopic, Gospel According to Janis. Written by Spheeris and Brad Vanderburg, pic will focus on the period of time between Joplin first moving to California and her subsequent death eight years later.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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The Perineum Falcon

#7
August 10, 2006, 01:53:54 PM
Quote from: MacGuffin on August 10, 2006, 11:33:56 AM
Zooey Deschanel is now confirmed to be taking on the role of Janis Joplin in Penelope Spheeris' upcoming biopic, Gospel According to Janis.
What news! What news!
I've never considered Joplin to be so attractive and cute before.
Now, it's a must see! :yabbse-grin:
We often went to the cinema, the screen would light up and we would tremble, but also, increasingly often, Madeleine and I were disappointed. The images had dated, they jittered, and Marilyn Monroe had gotten terribly old. We were sad, this wasn't the film we had dreamed of, this wasn't the total film that we all carried around inside us, this film that we would have wanted to make, or, more secretly, no doubt, that we would have wanted to live.

Ravi

#8
August 10, 2006, 02:32:17 PM
Don't you know that attractive girl + uglying it up = Oscar?

The Perineum Falcon

#9
August 10, 2006, 03:35:40 PM
Quote from: Ravi on August 10, 2006, 02:32:17 PM
Don't you know that attractive girl + uglying it up = Oscar?
....ugly...?? :( :( :cry:
Say it ain't so!
We often went to the cinema, the screen would light up and we would tremble, but also, increasingly often, Madeleine and I were disappointed. The images had dated, they jittered, and Marilyn Monroe had gotten terribly old. We were sad, this wasn't the film we had dreamed of, this wasn't the total film that we all carried around inside us, this film that we would have wanted to make, or, more secretly, no doubt, that we would have wanted to live.

MacGuffin

#10
March 20, 2007, 02:35:29 PM
Zooey Deschanel Says Janis Joplin Biopic Is 'On Hold' — For Now
Star of 'Gospel According to Janis' says film will take place on last day of singer's life.
Source: MTV

CULVER CITY, California — If the main thing you associate with Janis Joplin is her tragic end, you're missing the big picture, according to actress Zooey Deschanel, who is set to star as the iconic blues-rock singer in "Gospel According to Janis."

"I think her life is characterized for a lot of people by her dysfunction," Deschanel said, adding that the Penelope Spheeris-directed musical biopic aims to change that. "It's about her as a sort of vibrant person. The idea [for the movie] is that it's about her life, but it's about her vitality rather than her [tragedy]."

This is somewhat odd, admitted Deschanel, considering "Gospel According to Janis" takes place almost entirely on October 4, 1970: Joplin overdosed on heroin and whiskey and died at age 27.

"There are some flashbacks, but [the flick concentrates] on her last day," Deschanel said of the film's plot. "The script makes this day a microcosm for the rest of her life. It's a sort of microscope rather than a general overview."

The minds behind the film arrived at this unique approach only after several failed attempts at doing the film with a more traditional narrative, Deschanel said. "I don't think a traditional biopic would capture someone as unique as Janis Joplin. When they first came to me with the project, it was with a different point of view," Deschanel recalled. "We went through a lot of different incarnations of the story to find the right way to tell it — to try to catch who she really was."

Who Janis was, Deschanel said, was far more important than how she died, despite the fact that the film mostly centers on her last day. "She was so different from anyone who had come before her, and [she] was very smart. She was completely out of the mold," the 27-year-old actress said. "She was very liberated. In a time when she was [viewed as] different, she was not afraid to be who she was. That's refreshing to see."

For Deschanel, playing Joplin means putting in some serious work to mimic the singer's distinctive vocals. "I'm a singer, but I don't sing like her naturally — my voice is not like that," said the actress, whose best-known singing role is probably from "Elf" (she's also appeared in "Almost Famous," "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and the forthcoming "Surf's Up"). "Her voice was very raw and very gravelly and rough, extremely volatile. I was doing a lot of training for that and a lot of work on the character."

The freedom to tell the story in a way that does Joplin's life justice is not without an irony the singer might have found amusing. For an artist who once sang, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose," the story of Joplin's life is now caught in legal limbo, Deschanel said.

"[The film's] on hold right now, so I don't know when we're going to start shooting. We were supposed to shoot in November, but it's one of these things [that] seems like it's been hard to get all the money and the rights in place," Deschanel reported. "There are all kinds of different rights. You need the rights to the song, and life rights. There's a lot of legal stuff that goes into playing a real person."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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SiliasRuby

#11
March 20, 2007, 04:10:03 PM
I think it will be much better to put a microscope to that day rather than a regular biopic. So excited.
The Beatles know Jesus Christ has returned to Earth and is in Los Angeles.

When you are getting fucked by the big corporations remember to use a condom.

There was a FISH in the perkalater!!!

My Collection
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