Word: joplin
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...JANIS JOPLIN would have detested The Rose. Starring Bette Midler, this thinly-disguised biography chronicles the epic self-destruction of Rose, a white woman from the south, singin' the blues. Director Mark Rydell clearly knows how to hack at the heartstrings; the very first shot of the film identifies Rose, i.e. Janis "pearl" Joplin, with the other self-destructive heroes of our culture, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. As the biography of a real woman, The Rose reveals nothing. It takes a marvelously idiosyncratic human being and reduces her to a cliche...
...that level however, the film works. Forget the idea that this film has any connection with Janis Joplin, the woman, and enjoy its insights into the cosmos of a "star." The Rose works splendidly when it treats Rose as a singing phenomenon transcending human limits and fails abysmally when it portrays her as a lonely woman with all of Joplin's reputed problems. As a star on stage, Midler becomes a voice and a presence. In the striking concert scenes, she projects an astounding vitality and animal-like ferocity, savaging both herself and the audience. Her voice lacks the razor...
Bette Midler is not a great singer or a subtle actress or an exquisite beauty; yet she just may be a movie star. In The Rose, a highly fictionalized biography of a Janis Joplin-like rock icon, Midler can hardly be contained by a wide screen and six-track Dolby Stereo. She not only blasts out her many numbers with blistering fury, but she also attempts to strike every emotional chord known to junky movie melodrama. Even when she comes up flat, it is hard to look away. Midler does not make the mistake of begging for attention, like...
...Fanny Brice and Billie Holiday, Midler is not credible as a bluesy rock belter. Her strident Broadway voice and campy mannerisms have more in common with Sophie Tucker, Judy Garland or even Brice than they do with a heroine who dresses, talks and self-destructs in the style of Joplin...
...subsequent performers run the risk of coming off like contestants in a charade contest. Dylan, the Stones, the Beatles, the Who all carry the weight of tradition with ease. But Elton John, performing in concert, sounds as if he's singing in a record-your-voice booth; Janis Joplin, desperate to please, sings blues with the synthetic soul of a Broadway belter; Linda Ronstadt's coy version of a great Jagger-Richards tune might more appropriately be retitled Fumbling Dice. Thoughts of decadence and decline occur; Donna Summer appears. But then Jimmy Cliff shows up, singing The Harder...