Mark Brickley: New Rockumentary Opens ‘Doors’ of Perception

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By Mark Brickley, Noozhawk Contributor

When You’re Strange tells the intimate story of The Doors and lead singer Jim Morrison

The Doors ignited a creative storm that is still raging. The Santa Barbara International Film Festival presented writer/director Tom DiCillo’s new Doors rockumentary, When You’re Strange, with screenings last Friday and Sunday.

The film’s rarely seen footage recalls the band’s formation in 1965 and retraces its phenomenal — if jagged — career through recording sessions, extraordinary performances and disastrous concerts.

The Doors’ discography drives the film’s musical score. The band’s sound was formed by merging Jim Morrison’s eerie poetry with the jazz-tinged, psychedelic blues-rock played by drummer John Densmore, guitarist Robby Krieger and keyboardist Ray Manzarek.

The movie’s retrospective mosaic is narrated by Johnny Depp. Densmore attended the screening at the Lobero Theatre, but he did not participate in the question-and-answer session.

Morrison’s magnetic presence is prominently featured, offering new perspectives about his life that even veteran Doors fans will appreciate. While Morrison was crashing on a Venice, Calif., rooftop “creating a rock concert in his mind,” his father (a decorated military officer) was directing an aircraft-carrier battle group off Southeast Asia. He wrote to Morrison, telling him he had no known musical talent and implored him to abandon his dreams and return to a productive lifestyle.

The Doors’ lead singer had no formal vocal training and couldn’t read music. He had dropped out of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television after completing just one student film. He moved to New York City before drifting back to Los Angeles to form The Doors.

Years after creating his acid-tinged lyrics and riveting sonic melodies for dozens of rock masterpieces, Morrison still carried doubts about his singing ability. Even now, 39 years after his 1971 death, the band still sells more than 1 million albums a year.

While the movie is shaped around Morrison’s charismatic rock-and-roll ascension, it doesn’t blink while depicting his drug- and alcohol-fueled downward spiral. DiCillo portrays how Morrison’s internal demons — fueled by his self-destructive behavior — ultimately destroyed both the band and himself. This is the film’s underlying storyline and motif, if not moral.

While Depp does not conjecture, Doors fans might ask whether Morrison’s genius would have emerged and flourished outside the 1960s counter-culture drug scene. Similar questions have been asked about legendary rock stars. John Lennon reportedly took LSD hundreds of times during his most prolific songwriting years.

Certainly Morrison was aware of his poor health and addiction issues. Just before his death, a Paris physician advised him that his persistent cough was the result of his constant drinking.

DiCillo’s intricate musical tapestry When You’re Strange enriches the legacy of one of rock’s greatest bands. The Doors’ music and story will continue to dismay, inspire and amaze generations of rock fans to come.

— Noozhawk contributor Mark Brickley is a freelance writer in Carpinteria.

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